Overview
Support for Acorn Labs products is offered under two subscription plans: Standard and Platinum. Acorn Labs Support Services are only for companies with an active subscription to one of these plans. A company (the “Customer”) may purchase Support Services through one of these plans from the Acorn Labs sales department. Once purchased, an Acorn representative will activate the Customer in the Acorn Labs Support Portal system, which will enable the Customer to obtain technical support at the appropriate level of service.
Updates
These Terms of Service will be updated periodically. For example, as new releases become Generally Available, the End of Maintenance and End of Service dates will be refreshed, and new products may be added, and older products may be modified or deleted from the Acorn Support Matrix. Customers will be notified in writing when the Terms of Service are changed. Customers may also consult the Acorn website for the latest version:
Service Level Agreement (SLA)
The Acorn Labs SLA is defined in terms of initial response time after a Customer files a support ticket. Acorn Labs has defined 4 severity levels under which tickets can be filed (depending on the level of support purchased), described in the table below:
| LEVEL | DESCRIPTION |
| Severity 1 | Defined as an incident where there is widespread failure or complete unavailability of Acorn Software functionality. If a Severity 1 issue has an identified workaround it will be reclassified as a Severity 2 issue. |
| Severity 2 | Defined as an incident where core Acorn Software functionalities can continue to operate in a restricted fashion, although long-term productivity may be impacted. If a Severity 2 issue has an identified workaround it will be reclassified as a Severity 3 issue. |
| Severity 3 | Defined as an incident that causes partial, non-critical loss of Acorn Software functionality. It may also be a major software defect that impacts the Customer when performing some actions and has no workaround. |
| Severity 4 | Defined as: (1) a request for Acorn Labs information or query, (2) feature requests for the Software, (3) performance problems with little or no functionality impact, or (4) Software defects with workarounds or medium or low functionality impact. |
The Customer will provide an initial severity level associated with a ticket. The Acorn Labs Support Manager will determine, in Acorn’s sole discretion, if the ticket was correctly classified and may increase or decrease the assigned severity level. Response times, per plan, are shown in the table below, for each severity level:
Platinum Plan
| SEVERITY LEVEL | INITIAL RESPONSE¹ | ONGOING RESPONSE² ³ | BUSINESS DAY/HOUR DEFINITION |
| Severity 1 | 1 hour | 2 hours | Every Day, 24 x 7 |
| Severity 2 | 2 hours | 4 business hours | Mon – Fri, 0900 – 1700US Pacific or Customer-selected time zone ⁴ |
| Severity 3 | 1 business day | 1 business day | Mon – Fri, 0900 – 1700US Pacific or Customer-selected time zone ⁴ |
| Severity 4 | 2 business days | 2 business days | Mon – Fri, 0900 – 1700US Pacific or Customer-selected time zone ⁴ |
Standard Plan
| SEVERITY LEVEL | INITIAL RESPONSE | ONGOING RESPONSE | BUSINESS HOUR DEFINITION |
| Severity 1 | N/A | N/A | Severity 1 support response times are not included in Standard Support Plans. Severity 1 issues will be supported under Severity 2 response times. |
| Severity 2 | 24 business hours | 48 business hours | Mon – Fri, 0900 – 1700US Pacific or Customer-selected time zone ⁴ |
| Severity 3 | 2 business days | 4 business days | Mon – Fri, 0900 – 1700US Pacific or Customer-selected time zone ⁴ |
| Severity 4 | Best Effort | Best Effort | N/A |
Important Definitions
General Availability (GA)
The date that signifies when a Customer may purchase a support plan for new product releases from Acorn Labs.
End of Maintenance (EOM)
The date that signifies when a specific product release will have no further code-level maintenance other than security-related updates deemed critical by Acorn Labs. Security issues could be related to publicly identified security vulnerabilities or privately by Acorn Labs and its ecosystem partners.
End of Life (EOL)
The date after which neither security-related maintenance builds, nor technical support through Acorn Labs, will be available for a product release.
Understanding Release Versions
“Major Releases” (X.y.z) deliver major features and enhancements. They are not guaranteed backwards compatible with any previous Major Release.
“Minor Releases” (x.Y.z) deliver minor feature developments, enhancements to existing features, and bug fixes. They incorporate all applicable fixes made in prior minor and maintenance releasees.
“Maintenance Releases” (x.y.Z) deliver bug fixes that are severely affecting a number of customers and cannot wait for the next major or minor release. They incorporate all applicable fixes made in prior maintenance releases.
Acorn Product Lifecycle & Support Phases
SLAs only apply to Acorn products found in the chart below with their corresponding phases of product lifecycle.
Acorn Product Lifecycle
Obot
| VERSION | GA | EOM | EOL |
| 1.0.x | TBD | TBD | TBD |
Support Phases
| PHASES | DESCRIPTION |
| GA to EOM | Upon the General Availability date, products are supported and maintained until the End of Maintenance date.Support may entail general troubleshooting of a specific issue to isolate potential causes. Issue resolution is pursued through one or more of the following:Applying configuration changesUpgrade recommendations to an existing newer version of productCode-level maintenance in the form of Software updates; typically, results in a maintenance release, which is a newer version of product that was not existing at the time the issue was encountered |
| EOM to EOL | After a product release reaches its End of Maintenance date, no further code-level maintenance will be provided, except for critical security- related fixes on a per-request basis.After the EOM date, Software will continue to be supported until it reaches its End of Life date, in the form of:General troubleshooting of a specific issue to isolate potential causesUpgrade recommendations to an existing newer version of product Issue resolution limited to applying configuration changes and/or an upgrade recommendation to an existing newer version of product |
| EOL | Once a product reaches its End of Life date, the customer may no longer continue to use the product. Support Plans from Acorn Labs do not apply to products past their EOL date. |
Support Tickets
A Support Ticket means a discrete technical, or non-technical, issue that is submitted by Customer to Acorn Labs requiring a response as specified in this document. A Support Ticket exists in the Acorn Labs Support Portal and includes all the communication associated with the issue.
Support Portal Access and Support Ticket Entry
Acorn Labs provides a full featured, web-based support ticket management system. The support portal is available to Customers who have purchased any support tier, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and is the primary method for support ticket submission. The support portal allows Customer to enter support tickets, add information to existing support tickets, receive information and updates about support tickets, close support tickets, and list their current open and closed support tickets.
Customizations
Customizations are defined to include any changes to the original source code, including but not limited to changes to the User Interface, the addition or modification of adapters such as for authentication, deploying the Software (e.g., the management server) on the operating system or Docker/Kubernetes versions that are not certified by Acorn Labs, and altering the scripts and byte code included with the Acorn Software. Customizations to this Software may have unintended consequences and cause issues that are not present with the original, unmodified Software. The Customer agrees that any bugs, defects or other issues that are present in areas of the Software that the Customer has altered must be reproduced by the Customer on an unmodified system prior to the submission of a Support Ticket or bug report. Additionally, the Customer is required to state all customizations present on the system when submitting a Support Ticket.
Escalation Path
We hope you are satisfied with the support you purchased and that your organization’s needs are addressed promptly. However, Acorn Labs recognizes that there may be times when additional attention or assistance is required. Acorn Labs may make its Support Manager available, in Acorn’s sole discretion, to discuss cases that have gone unresolved for a duration deemed unsatisfactory by the Customer. Upon request, the Support Manager will provide the Customer with contact information for the Vice President of Engineering or the Vice President of Customer Success to discuss issues that the support team has been unable to resolve or that were resolved in an unsatisfactory manner.
Effect of Termination or Non-Renewal of Support Services
In the event the Customer terminates, or elects not to renew, Support Services for any Acorn Software, the Customer will have no further rights for Support Services or use for such Acorn Software.
Reinstatement of Support Services
In the event that Customer does not renew the Support Services term and the Support Services lapse, Customer may reinstate the Support Services at terms to be negotiated with Acorn Labs.
Notes:
¹ An initial response consists of a Acorn support technician acknowledging the support request and logging the problem in Acorn’s support system. The Customer is automatically notified via email that support for the issue has begun with a link back to the support ticket in the Customer support portal.
² On-going response time indicates the duration of time, since the last update to the Customer, in which Acorn Support will respond back to the Customer to provide a periodic update on the progress of a ticket.
³ Customized on-going response times may be negotiated with an individual Customer on a case-by-case basis in a separate writing.
⁴ Time zone options for business day/hour selection: San Francisco (US Pacific, default), Amsterdam (CET), Shenzhen (CST), Sydney (AET)
- Certified on default OS kernel. Issues resulting from third party tools (typically, for reasons such as security) interfering with Docker or other necessary system calls are deemed resolved should disabling such tools restore functionality.
- Certified configurations are based on default settings of individual components. Where Customer has deviated from certified configurations, Acorn Labs reserves the right to require the Customer to revert to a certified configuration to resolve the reported issue. If Customer is unwilling to revert to a certified configuration Acorn will no longer be subject to any SLA regarding the affected Product, component, or configuration.
- Running Kubernetes clusters in uncertified configurations may be possible, but Acorn does not recommend doing so.
- Upgrade of any individual component to a different version is likely to result in system downtime.
- Changes to default settings of individual components may be necessary on a case-by-case basis, for reasons such as fine tuning for performance and scale. Acorn recommends engaging with Acorn Consulting.
- Acorn SLAs do not apply to issues within applications that are not found on Acorn’s support matrix.
- Issues may be referred to the entity that created the application, as appropriate.
- For ensuring best support and clarity on supportability, Acorn recommends Customer publish a list of components that are critical to its deployment but not explicitly called out in the support matrix
Access
In the fulfillment of Acorn Labs Support Services obligations, Acorn Labs may require actual or remote access to the Licensed Software Product and/or the systems on which the Licensed Software operates. With Acorn Labs’ assistance, Company agrees to provide any such access and other assistance reasonably requested by Acorn Labs. Company agrees that providing such access and assistance is a condition to Acorn Labs’ obligation to provide Support Services under this Agreement.