This Service Level Agreement (SLA) sets the commitment that prevails between the Division of Information Technology and each university academic, administrative, and programmatic unit, as they are mutually understood by their primary stakeholders. This Agreement remains valid until superseded by a revised or new agreement mutually endorsed.

Either party may terminate the SLA within 60 Days business days notice.

Overview

This is a Service Level Agreement (SLA) between the Customer and UMD Division of Information Technology (DIT) to document the provision of:

• User Accounts, Virtual Machines, and Data Storage Allocation  in the CUI Environment.
• The general levels of response, availability, and maintenance associated with these services.
• The responsibilities of UMD IT as a provider of these services.
• The responsibilities of the Customer receiving these service.
• The financial arrangements associated with the service. 

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Service description

Service scope

DIT services are  documented and in the IT service catalog, https://umd.service-now.com/itsc?id=sc_hom

The CUI Environment is a compliant and secure computing environment that is used for the storage, viewing, and manipulation of data and information that the National Archives has designated as ‘CUI’. Specifically, the CUIE is designed to meet the guidelines of NIST SP 800-171.  

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Service offering

CUIE Research Team responsibilities:

• Add a Principal Investigator and Team to the CUIE. 
• Validate and add user accounts to the team and create associated project tags.
• Add Virtual Machines to the PI’s specifications and grant access to the Project Team.
• Add Storage Quota according to PI’s specifications and assign to the Project Team.
• If requested, modify VM’s to meet additional requirements a maximum of 2 times. 
• Create Security Levels for Project access based on data requirements. Validate users and add Security Levels. 
• Maintain backups for 30 days of Vault and Drives. Individual file restores are not possible; backups are for complete recovery to snapshot states.
• Restore Drives when requested and available. 

In addition, DIT provides infrastructure, staff, and processes including:

• Friendly, courteous and efficient service;
• Support services via IT Service Desk;
• Prompt referral of any inquiries/complaints to the appropriate responsible team;
• System operations, administration and network connections;
• System level backup processes and disaster recovery;
• Basic up/down system monitoring;
• And a continuous effort to develop and improve services for all service users.

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End-user requirements to use the service

• All End-users must complete required training prior to being granted access to the system
• All end-users must sign and agree to the Rules of Use for the CUI Environment.
• All end-users will report insider threats, data spills, and data breaches in a  timely manner.  
• All end-users must be US citizens when specified by Export Control Compliance Office  
• All end-users will utilize Principal Investigator contact for first level triage of incidents and service requests;

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Service constraints

• Funding for major updates will be negotiated on a service-by-service basis;
• Customer will make a reasonable effort to determine where the problem lies, prior to contacting DIT; FOR EXAMPLE - checking basic connection requirements (VPN, Private Key) or reviewing system documentation. 

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Roles and responsibilities

Stakeholders

The primary stakeholder associated with this SLA are the DIT Research Computing team, and the Primary Owner, Approver, and Team Members listed in the Service Catalog Hosting CUIE Dashboard.  

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DIT responsibilities in support of the service

UMD IT responsibilities and/or requirements in support of this SLA include:

• Maintain current documentation on the service in the IT Service Catalog and IT Library;
• Meet response times associated with the priority assigned to Incidents and Service Requests as described below;
• Generate reports on service level performance;
• Adhere to established Maintenance windows;
• DIT will bring to the Customer’s attention any situation in which extra time is being required of DIT staff to support services due to lack of customer project planning, product knowledge, or standard implementation practices. In these situations, DIT reserves the right to bill, at our standard hourly rate or expedited service rate, for additional time spent in support of services being delivered to the Customer;
• Announce all scheduled maintenance and unscheduled service disruptions via:
  
  • DIT Support Home Page: https://itsupport.umd.edu/itsupport
  • ITSC-Alerts@umd.edu mailing list [https://itsupport.umd.edu/itsupport?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB0011368] 
  • CUIE User Group mailing list.

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Customer responsibilities in support of the service

Customer responsibilities and/or requirements in support of this SLA include:

• Consider implications or responsibilities related to X-1.00(A) UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND POLICY ON THE ACCEPTABLE USE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY RESOURCES;
• Utilize the CUIE Hosting Dashboard, DIT Service Desk or other specified contacts for Incidents;
• Immediately Report security incidents to the Division of IT Security Operations Center. 
• Contact the DIT Service Manager for additions or changes in established service levels;
• Ensure staff is familiar with the provisions of this SLA;
• Connect to the CUIE using university owned and managed devices with supported and patched operating systems, drive encryption, and anti-virus software. Use of Non-UMD devices must be pre-approved by the Research Computing team and incorporated into the Technology Control Plan, Data Security Plan, or other relevant project specific security documentation. 
• Subscribe to Updates on this service via the Service Catalog.
• Abide by the rules and regulations required to maintain the security of any Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), no matter its location. 

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Hours of coverage and escalation

Hours of coverage

The CUIE is available for use 24 hours a day and 7 days a week except for periods of planned maintenance (Sundays 7 am to noon).

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Service exceptions to coverage

Planned maintenance and emergency maintenance situations. 

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Escalation

If you are not satisfied with the level of service on a request, please contact the Service Owner and if necessary, the DIT Service Manager identified in Section 3.1.

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Service requests

A Service Request is defined as a request for information, or advice, or for a standard change or for access to a service. 

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Service request submission

Service Requests can be submitted through the IT Service Catalog or by calling the DIT Service Desk (301.405.1500). Current hours of operation are listed on the DIT Support Home Page identified in Section 5.2.

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Service request response

DIT’s objective is to acknowledge and assign Requests within 4 business hours of receipt. Requests will be fulfilled within five (5) days.

Campus priorities may require exceptions during certain times of the Academic year. 

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Backups and recovery

The CUI Environment is backed up on a daily schedule in order to support recovery from disaster scenarios. In the event of a catastrophic loss to the CUI Environment, a full recovery will be possible within 5 days, following the restoration of existing, or procurement of new, appropriate hardware. 

Data recovery requested related to user deletions or error will be processed on a best effort basis, with restoration expected within 2 business days. Individual file recovery is not possible due to the encryption mechanisms of the system. Instead, full Vault or Drive recovery is used.  

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Incidents

An incident is defined as any interruption in the normal functioning of a service or system.

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Incident report

Incidents can be reported to the DIT Service Desk (chat, 301.405.1500) during business hours. Current hours of operation are listed on the DIT Support Home Page identified in Section 5.2. Incidents may also be reported via email to itsupport@umd.edu.

Time spent on resolving Incidents that are customer caused will be billed at current hourly rate, including travel.

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Prioritization

All reported incidents receive a priority number based on the impact and urgency of the service interruption.

Impact is determined based on the number of people/departments/buildings that are affected by the interruption or outage. Life-Safety issues are taken into consideration for assessing and assigning priorities. 

Urgency is based on the acceptable delay to restore the service, based on the nature of the service outage.

DIT may prioritize incoming incident requests as P1 or P2 priority if it meets one or more of the following criteria:

• Significant number of people affected;
• The level to which work is impaired for individuals;
• Academic, Research, and Administrative Calendar deadlines;
• Significant impact on the delivery of research;
• Significant risk to safety, law, rule, or policy compliance.

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Incident response

SLA Targets are in Business Hours, unless otherwise specified in a specific service SLA, and Incident Response occurs M-F between 8 am and 5 pm, excluding UMD holidays and closure. 

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Maintenance and service changes

The Maintenance Window for CUI Environment is published in the “Terms of Service” section of the service entry in the IT Service Catalog.

DIT reserves the right to modify the maintenance window with adequate notice.

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Pricing and billing

The CUI Environment is provided at no cost to the researchers with approved uses, and when standard resource sets listed below are used. In some limited circumstance, there may be costs associated with project setup and customization of virtual machines beyond typical project setup and/or when non-standard configurations are required.  

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CPU, RAM, and storage /yr

Researchers may choose from the following standard sets of resources:

4 CPU, 16 GB RAM
8 CPU, 32 GB RAM
16 CPU, 128 GB RAM

Default storage limits are 100 GB Team Vault and 100 GB per Drive. 

Researchers may choose from Linux and Windows based operating systems, and the following standard set of software is provided on these systems:

Windows Software:

• Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Operating System.
• Microsoft Office 2019.
• MATLAB R2019b.
• Mathematica 11.1.1.
• Python 3.8 and 2.7.
• R 3.6.3 w/ R Studio and Tinn-R.
• 7-Zip 19.

Linux Software:

• Red Hat Linux version 7.6 Operating System.
• Python 3.6 and 2.7.
• R 3.6.3.
• LaTex.

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Consulting

Consulting hours may be charged when significant configuration changes are requested by a PI for their project that differ from default packages. 

Consulting - $100 per hour.

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Pricing and billing terms

The Customer will provide notice in writing of intent to discontinue use of service. 

The Customer will provide the Division of IT a valid KFS# in order to bill for services in the event billing is required.

Prices are subject to change on an annual basis.

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Data

Data should be described and listed in the request form for CUIE service, and should include all contractually obligated data protections. (In addition to local and Federal law, these requirements may be part of a Data Use Agreement you have signed, part of a Data Management Plan you have prepared, or part of an agreement with a sponsor or client).

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Reviewing 

SLA reviews

The Service Owner is responsible for facilitating reviews of this document. Contents of this document may be amended as required, provided mutual agreement is obtained from the primary stakeholders and communicated to all affected parties. 

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SLA expiration procedures

Three weeks prior to the expiration of the Service Level Agreement, the Research Computing team will contact the Primary Owner or other designate, to notify of upcoming expiration. The Primary Owner may choose to renew the project for another term, or reject the request. Failure to renew will result in the project close out process to commence, which may include account deactivation, deletion, and removal of all data. 

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Version