Google Cloud VMware Engine Service Level Agreement (SLA)

Last modified: June 30, 2020

This is not the current version of this document and is provided for archival purposes. View the current version

During the Term of the agreement under which Google has agreed to provide Google Cloud Platform to Customer (as applicable, the "Agreement"), the Covered Service will provide a Monthly Uptime Percentage to Customer as follows (the "Service Level Objective" or "SLO"):

Covered Service	Monthly Uptime Percentage
Cluster in a single Zone with 5 to 16 nodes and FTT=2 or more	>= 99.99%
Cluster in a single Zone with 3 or 4 nodes and FTT=1	>= 99.9%
Management Interfaces	>= 99.9%

If Google does not meet the SLO, and if Customer meets its obligations under this SLA, Customer will be eligible to receive the Financial Credits described below. This SLA states Customer's sole and exclusive remedy for any failure by Google to meet the SLO. Capitalized terms used in this SLA, but not defined in this SLA, have the meaning set forth in the Agreement. If the Agreement authorizes the resale or supply of Google Cloud Platform under a Google Cloud partner or reseller program, then all references to Customer in this SLA mean Partner or Reseller (as applicable), and any Financial Credit(s) will only apply for impacted Partner or Reseller order(s) under the Agreement.

Definitions

The following definitions apply to the SLA:

• "Covered Service" means Clusters or Management Interfaces of Google Cloud VMware Engine.

• "Cluster" means a deployment of 3 or more dedicated bare metal nodes running VMware ESXi and associated networking managed via Management Interfaces.

• “Downtime” means:

  • For Management Interfaces: Customer is unable to log into the Google Cloud VMware Engine console, VMware Virtual Center, or VMware NSX Manager due to the failure of Google's systems.

  • For a Cluster: loss of external connectivity or disk access for all running virtual machines in the Cluster due to the failure of Google's systems.

  • Downtime does not include loss of external connectivity as a result of (i) the Google managed VPN service failing (addressed exclusively in the Cloud VPN SLA); (ii) the Google managed Dedicated Interconnect or Partner Interconnect failing (addressed exclusively in the Interconnect SLA); or (iii) Network Service Tiers - Standard Tier failing to serve traffic.

  • Downtime is measured from the time that the connectivity, disk access, or login access is lost until the time that the connectivity, disk access, or login access is restored as reasonably determined by Google.

  • Downtime does not include scheduled maintenance or emergency maintenance to address security vulnerabilities.

  • To qualify for Downtime, the datastore used by a Cluster must have a minimum of 25% of available space (as described in the vSAN storage guide).

  • To qualify for Downtime, Customer must not exceed the limitations of the infrastructure (such as compute or memory utilization, network bandwidth, IOPS, etc.) in a manner that prevents Google from meeting the Service Level Objective.

  • Downtime may not arise from an action that can only be performed with Elevated Privileges.

• "Downtime Period" means a period of four or more consecutive minutes of Downtime. Partial minutes or Downtime for a period of less than four minutes will not be counted towards any Downtime Periods.

• "Elevated Privilege" means temporarily running with additional privileges that are required to perform particular tasks such as configuration of identity sources, user management, deletion of a distributed port group, installing third-party software, and creating service accounts.

• "Financial Credit" means the following for a Cluster in a single Zone with 5 to 16 nodes and FTT=2 or more:

Monthly Uptime Percentage	Percentage of monthly bill for the respective Covered Service in the Zone affected that did not meet SLO that will be credited to future monthly bills of Customer
99.0% - < 99.99%	10%
95.0% - < 99.00%	25%
< 95.00%	50%

• "Financial Credit" means the following for a Cluster in a single Zone with 3 or 4 nodes and FTT=1:

Monthly Uptime Percentage	Percentage of monthly bill for the respective Covered Service in the Zone affected that did not meet SLO that will be credited to future monthly bills of Customer
99.0% - < 99.9%	10%
< 99.0%	25%

• "Financial Credit" means the following for the Management Interfaces:

Monthly Uptime Percentage	Percentage of monthly bill for the respective Covered Service(s) in the Region affected that did not meet SLO that will be credited to future monthly bills of Customer
99.0% - < 99.9%	5%
< 99.0%	15%

Financial Credit for the Management Interface applies to the entire Private Cloud.

• "Failures To Tolerate" or "FTT" means the vSAN storage policy configuration that controls the number of node failures that can occur before data may be lost. A setting of FTT=1 means the data is replicated to at least two machines and the loss of a single machine should not result in data being lost. A setting of FTT=2 means that data is replicated to at least three machines and therefore the loss of two machines concurrently should not result in data being lost.

• "Management Interfaces" means the Google Cloud VMware Engine console, VMware Virtual Center, and VMware NSX Manager. These Management Interfaces are not part of the Google Cloud Platform Admin Console.

• "Monthly Uptime Percentage" means total number of minutes in a month, minus the number of minutes of Downtime suffered from all Downtime Periods in a month, divided by the total number of minutes in a month.

• "Private Cloud" means a deployment of one or more Clusters and associated virtualized compute, storage, and networking components.

• “Region” means the applicable region described at https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/regions-zones/, as may be updated by Google from time to time.

• "Zone" means the applicable zone described at https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/regions-zones/, as may be updated by Google from time to time.

Customer Must Request Financial Credit

In order to receive any of the Financial Credits described above, Customer must notify Google technical support within thirty days from the time Customer becomes eligible to receive a Financial Credit. Customer must also provide Google with server log files showing loss of external connectivity errors or disk access errors and the date and time those errors occurred. If Customer does not comply with these requirements, Customer will forfeit its right to receive a Financial Credit.

Maximum Financial Credit

The aggregate maximum number of Financial Credits to be issued by Google to Customer for any and all Downtime Periods that occur in a single billing month will not exceed 50% of the amount due by Customer for the Covered Service for the applicable month. Financial Credits will be made in the form of a monetary credit applied to future use of the Service and will be applied within 60 days after the Financial Credit was requested.

SLA Exclusions

The SLA does not apply to any: (a) features designated pre-general availability (unless otherwise set forth in the associated Documentation), (b) features excluded from the SLA (in the associated Documentation), or (c) errors: (i) caused by factors outside of Google's reasonable control; (ii) that resulted from Customer's software or hardware or third-party software or hardware, or both; (iii) that resulted from abuses or other behaviors that violate the Agreement; or (iv) that resulted from quotas applied by the system or listed in the Admin Console.