SLA for SQL Database

Updated: 11/2020

Azure SQL Database is a fully managed relational database with built-in regional high availability and turnkey geo-replication to any Azure region. It includes intelligence to support self-driving features such as performance tuning, threat monitoring, and vulnerability assessments and provides fully automated patching and updating of the code base.

  • Azure SQL Database Business Critical or Premium tiers configured as Zone Redundant Deployments have an availability guarantee of at least 99.995%.
  • Azure SQL Database Business Critical or Premium tiers not configured for Zone Redundant Deployments, General Purpose, Standard, or Basic tiers, or Hyperscale tier with two or more replicas have an availability guarantee of at least 99.99%.
  • Azure SQL Database Hyperscale tier with one replica has an availability guarantee of at least 99.95% and 99.9% for zero replicas.
  • Azure SQL Database Business Critical tier configured with geo-replication has a guarantee of Recovery point objective (RPO) of 5 sec for 100% of deployed hours.
  • Azure SQL Database Business Critical tier configured with geo-replication has a guarantee of Recovery time objective (RTO) of 30 sec for 100% of deployed hours.

Introduction

This Service Level Agreement for 21Vianet Online Services (this “SLA”) is a part of your 21Vianet volume licensing agreement (the “Agreement”). Capitalized terms used but not defined in this SLA will have the meaning assigned to them in the Agreement. This SLA applies to the 21Vianet Online Services listed herein (a “Service” or the “Services”), but does not apply to separately branded services made available with or connected to the Services or to any on-premises software that is part of any Service.

If we do not achieve and maintain the Service Levels for each Service as described in this SLA, then you may be eligible for a credit towards a portion of your monthly service fees. We will not modify the terms of your SLA during the initial term of your subscription; however, if you renew your subscription, the version of this SLA that is current at the time of renewal will apply throughout your renewal term. We will provide at least 90 days’ notice for adverse material changes to this SLA.

General Terms

一、Definitions

  1. "Claim" means a claim submitted by Customer to 21Vianet pursuant to this SLA that a Service Level has not been met and that a Service Credit may be due to Customer.

  2. "Customer" refers to the organization that has entered into the Agreement.

  3. "Customer Support" means the services by which 21Vianet may provide assistance to Customer to resolve issues with the Services.

  4. "Error Code" means an indication that an operation has failed, such as an HTTP status code in the 5xx range.

  5. "External Connectivity" is bi-directional network traffic over supported protocols such as HTTP and HTTPS that can be sent and received from a public IP address.

  6. "Incident" means any set of circumstances resulting in a failure to meet a Service Level.

  7. "Management Portal" means the web interface, provided by 21Vianet, through which customers may manage the Service.

  8. "21Vianet" means the 21Vianet entity that appears on Customer's Agreement.

  9. "Preview" refers to a preview, beta, or other pre-release version of a service or software offered to obtain customer feedback.

  10. "Service” or “Services" refers to a Azure service provided to Customer pursuant to the Agreement for which an SLA is provided below.

  11. "Service Credit" is the percentage of the monthly service fees for the affected Service or Service Resource that is credited to Customer for a validated Claim.

  12. "Service Level" means standards 21Vianet chooses to adhere to and by which it measures the level of service it provides for each Service as specifically set forth below.

  13. "Service Resource" means an individual resource available for use within a Service.

  14. "Success Code" means an indication that an operation has succeeded, such as an HTTP status code in the 2xx range.

  15. "Support Window" refers to the period of time during which a Service feature or compatibility with a separate product or service is supported.

  16. "Virtual Network" refers to a virtual private network that includes a collection of user-defined IP addresses and subnets that form a network boundary within Azure.

  17. "Virtual Network Gateway" refers to a gateway that facilitates cross-premises connectivity between a Virtual Network and a customer on-premises network.

二、Service Credit Claims

  1. In order for 21Vianet to consider a Claim, Customer must submit the Claim to Customer Support within two months of the end of the billing month in which the Incident that is the subject of the Claim occurs. Customer must provide to Customer Support all information necessary for 21Vianet to validate the Claim, including but not limited to detailed descriptions of the Incident, the time and duration of the Incident, the affected resources or operations, and any attempts made by Customer to resolve the Incident

  2. 21Vianet will use all information reasonably available to it to validate the Claim and to determine whether any Service Credits are due.

  3. In the event that more than one Service Level for a particular Service is not met because of the same Incident, Customer must choose only one Service Level under which a Claim may be made based on the Incident.

  4. Service Credits apply only to fees paid for the particular Service, Service Resource, or Service tier for which a Service Level has not been met. In cases where Service Levels apply to individual Service Resources or to separate Service tiers, Service Credits apply only to fees paid for the affected Service Resource or Service tier, as applicable.

三、SLA Exclusions

This SLA and any applicable Service Levels do not apply to any performance or availability issues:

  1. Due to factors outside 21Vianet’s reasonable control (for example, a network or device failure external to 21Vianet’s data centers, including at Customer's site or between Customer's site and 21Vianet’s data center);

  2. That resulted from Customer's use of hardware, software, or services not provided by 21Vianet as part of the Services (for example, third-party software or services purchased from the Azure Store or other non-Azure services provided by 21Vianet);

  3. Due to Customer's use of the Service in a manner inconsistent with the features and functionality of the Service (for example, attempts to perform operations that are not supported) or inconsistent with published documentation or guidance;

  4. That resulted from faulty input, instructions, or arguments (for example, requests to access files that do not exist);

  5. Caused by Customer's use of the Service after 21Vianet advised Customer to modify its use of the Service, if Customer did not modify its use as advised;

  6. During or with respect to Previews or to purchases made using 21Vianet subscription credits;

  7. That resulted from Customer's attempts to perform operations that exceed prescribed quotas or that resulted from throttling of suspected abusive behavior;

  8. Due to Customer's use Service features that are outside of associated Support Windows; or

  9. Attributable to acts by persons gaining unauthorized access to 21Vianet’s Service by means of Customer's passwords or equipment or otherwise resulting from Customer's failure to follow appropriate security practices.

四、Service Credits

  1. The amount and method of calculation of Service Credits is described below in connection with each Service.

  2. Service Credits are Customer's sole and exclusive remedy for any failure to meet any Service Level.

  3. The Service Credits awarded in any billing month for a particular Service or Service Resource will not, under any circumstance, exceed Customer's monthly service fees that Service or Service Resource, as applicable, in the billing month.

  4. For Services purchased as part of a suite, the Service Credit will be based on the pro-rata portion of the cost of the Service, as determined by 21Vianet in its reasonable discretion. In cases where Customer has purchased Services from a reseller, the Service Credit will be based on the estimated retail price for the applicable Service, as determined by 21Vianet in its reasonable discretion.

The SLA details

Additional Definitions

"Availability Zone" is a fault-isolated area within an Azure region, providing redundant power, cooling, and networking.

"Database" means any Azure SQL Database created in any of the Service tiers and deployed either as a single database or in an Elastic Pool or Managed Instance.

"Zone Redundant Deployment" is a Database that includes multiple synchronized replicas provisioned in different Availability Zones.

"Primary"means any Database or managed instance that has active geo-replication relationship with a Database or managed instance in other Azure regions. Primary can process read and write requests from the application.

"Secondary"means any Database or managed instance that maintains asynchronous geo-replication relationship with Primary in another Azure region and can be used as a failover target. Secondary can process read-only requests from the application.

"Compliant Secondary"means any Secondary that is created with the same size and in the same service tier as the Primary. If the Secondary is created in an elastic pool, it is considered Compliant if both Primary and Secondary are created in elastic pools with matching configurations and with density not exceeding 250 databases.

Monthly Uptime Calculation and Service Levels for Azure SQL Database Service

  1. "Deployment Minutes" is the total number of minutes that a given Database has been operational in Azure during a billing month.

  2. "Maximum Available Minutes" is the sum of all Deployment Minutes for a given Microsoft Azure subscription during a billing month.

  3. "Downtime" is the total accumulated Deployment Minutes across all Databases in a given Azure subscription during which the Database is unavailable. A minute is considered unavailable for a given Database if all continuous attempts by Customer to establish a connection to the Database within the minute fail.

  4. "Monthly Uptime Percentage" for a given Database is calculated as Maximum Available Minutes less Downtime divided by Maximum Available Minutes in a billing month for a given Azure subscription. Monthly Uptime Percentage is represented by the following formula:

    Monthly Uptime % = 100 * (Maximum Available Minutes-Downtime) / Maximum Available Minutes

  5. The following Service Levels and Service Credits are applicable to Customer’s use of the Business critical or Premium tiers of the SQL Database Service configured for Zone Redundant Deployments:

    MONTHLY UPTIME PERCENTAGE SERVICE CREDIT
    < 99.995% 10%
    <99% 25%
    <95% 100%

  6. The following Service Levels and Service Credits are applicable to Customer’s use of the Business critical or Premium tiers of the SQL Database Service not configured for Zone Redundant Deployments:

    MONTHLY UPTIME PERCENTAGE SERVICE CREDIT
    < 99.99% 10%
    <99% 25%
    <95% 100%

  7. The following Service Levels and Service Credits are applicable to Customer’s use of the General purpose, Standard or Basic tiers of the SQL Database Service:

    MONTHLY UPTIME PERCENTAGE SERVICE CREDIT
    < 99.99% 10%
    <99% 25%
    <95% 100%

  8. The following Service Levels and Service Credits are applicable to Customer’s use of the Hyperscale tier of the SQL Database Service.

    REPLICAS MONTHLY UPTIME PERCENTAGE SERVICE CREDIT
    0 < 99.9% 10%
    < 99% 25%
    1 < 99.95% 10%
    < 99% 25%
    2+ < 99.99% 10%
    < 99% 25%
    < 95% 100%

    9. Recovery Point Objective (RPO)

    "Geo-Replication Link"is a programmatic object representing a connection between a specific Primary and the Secondary.

    "Geo-Replication Lag"is a time span from the point of transaction commit on the Primary and the acknowledgement by the Secondary that the transaction log update has been persisted.

    "Replication Lag Check"is a programmatic method of obtaining the Geo-Replication Lag value for a specific Geo-Replication Link.

    "Recovery Point Objective (RPO)" means a Geo-Replication Lag not to exceed 5 seconds.

    "N"is the number of Replication Lag Check for a given Geo-Replication Link in a given hour.

    "S"is the lag-sorted set of Replication Lag Check results in ascending order for a given Geo-Replication Link in a given hour.

    "Ordinal Rank"is the 99th percentile using the nearest rank method represented by the following formula:

    Ordinal Rank = (99 / 100) * N

    "P99 Replication Lag"is the value at the Ordinal Rank of S.

    "Deployment Hours"is the total number of hours that a given Compliant Secondary has been operational for a given Microsoft Azure subscription during a billing month.

    "Excessive Lag Hours"is the total number of one-hour intervals during which Replication Lag Check resulted in a P99 Replication Lag greater than or equal to RPO for a given Azure subscription during a billing month. If the number of Replication Lag Checks in a given one-hour interval is zero, the Excessive Lag Hours for that interval is 0.

    "Monthly RPO Attainment Percentage"for a given Database deployment is calculated using the following formula:

    100% - (Excessive Lag Hours / Deployment hours) *100

    The following Service Levels and Service Credits are applicable to Customer’s use of the active geo-replication feature with Business Critical service tier of SQL Database service:

    OPERATION RPO MONTHLY RPO ATTAINMENT PERCENTAGE SERVICE CREDIT
    GEO-REPLICATION 5 sec <100% 10% of total monthly cost of Compliant Secondary

    Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

    "Unplanned Failover" is an action initiated by Customer when the Primary is offline to enable a Compliant Secondary as Primary.

    "Recovery Time"is the time elapsed from the Unplanned Failover until the Secondary is acting as the Primary.

    "Recovery Time Objective (RTO)means a maximum allowed Recovery Time not to exceed 30 seconds.

    Non-complaint Unplanned Failoveris an Unplanned Failover that failed to complete within the RTO.

    Monthly RTO Attainment Percentagefor a given Database deployment, in a billing month for a given subscription is represented by the following formula:

    (Total number of Unplanned Failovers – Total number of Non-compliant Unplanned Failovers) / Total number of Unplanned Failovers* 100

    The following Service Levels and Service Credits are applicable to Customer’s use of the active geo-replication feature with Business Critical service tier of SQL Database service:

    OPERATION RTO MONTHLY RTO ATTAINMENT PERCENTAGE SERVICE CREDIT
    UNPLANNED FAILOVER OF SINGLE DATABASE 30 sec <100% 100% of total monthly cost of Compliant Secondary

    Version History

    1.3 Last updated: Nov 2020

    1.2 Last updated: July 2019

    Release notes: Expanded SLA to cover Business Critical, Premium, and Hyperscale tiers of SQL Database. Removed references to Web and Business Tiers, since they have been retired.

    1.1 Last updated: Sep 2016

    Release notes: Revised to reflect the general availability of Elastic Database on 9/1/2016

    1.0 Last updated: May 2016