2nd November 2020
EnterpriseDB RemoteDBA (“2QRDBA”) bundles the activities to operate and maintain PostgreSQL databases in one structured service product. Within 2QRDBA, EDB aims to deliver a responsive, flexible service, delivered in a manner that allows a worldwide, distributed team of engineers to work together using common mechanisms and processes.
2QRDBA is available in two (2) product variants, which are differentiated by the tasks included as follows:
- Full: management and monitoring for databases where access to the underlying operating system is available; and
- Monitoring only (hereafter “MO”): when only limited rights may be granted for the 2QRDBA service.
EDB is able to adapt the Service to meet specific Customer needs. Tasks can only be performed if sufficient systems access is available. The actual 2QRDBA variant Customer has selected is specified on the applicable Statement of Work.
Table I: Summary of work areas included in 2QRDBA
|
Work Area |
Full |
MO |
|
Customer Communications |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Monitoring |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Incident / Issue Response |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Database Health Check |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Database Maintenance |
Yes |
No |
|
Bug fixes |
Yes |
Notification only |
|
PostgreSQL Performance Tuning |
Yes |
No |
|
Database Major Version Upgrades |
Yes |
Notification only |
|
Database Minor Version Upgrades |
Yes |
Notification only |
|
Contingency Drills |
Yes |
No |
Customer Communications
- Maintain up to date Customer information within the EDB portal and Sentinel to ensure that all on shift engineers will have correct details to hand.
- Maintain remote access to all subscribed instances.
- Provide regular reports on 2QRDBA service to Customer.
- Coordinate and deliver regular calls between Customer and the 2QRDBA team.
Monitoring
2QRDBA makes use of the Sentinel monitoring system. Sentinel was created by and is continually enhanced by the 2QRDBA team, and provides in depth monitoring of PostgreSQL database instances. It is hosted on a secure, highly available Postgres-BDR cluster. Sentinel only collects customer database metadata and is aligned with the EDB Privacy Policy.
It is a requirement of 2QRDBA service provision that Customer must allow Sentinel agents to be installed on all instances under 2QRDBA cover, including PostgreSQL, Barman, witness and pgbouncer instances.
Sentinel helps 2QRDBA to:
- Detect critical database incidents, for example postgres service down, replication lag, or backup errors.
- Detect maintenance issues that need to be acted upon
- Detect database health / performance deterioration
- Detect increased database activity and load
Incident / Issue response
Incidents or issues may be
- detected by EDB
- or submitted by Customer
In response 2QRDBA will take the appropriate measures including, by way of example but not limitation, the following:
- Proactive analysis, troubleshooting and mitigation of critical incidents, and Customer notification;
- Proactive troubleshooting and mitigation of performance issues;
- Proactive database maintenance and/or
- Incident follow up reports, to be shared with Customer either immediately or at the next scheduled call depending on the severity of the issue.
Customer will be notified of any proactive and/or follow up work carried out by 2QRDBA. 2QRDBA will request and propose coordination with Customer as necessary to resolve issues.
Database Configuration Health Check
- All new additions to the 2QRDBA service will benefit from a database configuration health check during the process of onboarding.
- Database configuration health checks may also be provided periodically, or on request due to changes in the use or load of the instance, for example.
- Follow up suggestions on configuration tuning will be provided as appropriate.
- Configuration and tuning changes would be made following agreement and in coordination with Customer.
Database Maintenance
Proactive work by 2QRDBA may include, but is not limited to, the following as appropriate
- Database backup maintenance;
- Reindexing;
- Partitioning;
- Role / privileges management;
- Vacuuming; and/or
- Transaction wraparound avoidance.
Bug fixes
- Tech Alerts on serious PostgreSQL bugs, or bugs on any associated tools supported by EDB (for example repmgr, pgbouncer, or Barman), will be sent to all customer users within the EDB portal;
- Patching as needed to fix or mitigate bugs, will be performed in coordination with Customer.
PostgreSQL Performance Tuning
Regular maintenance and incident response work may find that query tuning is necessary to be able to optimise database instance performance. In most cases, 2QRDBA will provide guidance to the customer as to the queries which require attention, as well as general recommendations to improve the aforementioned queries.
Larger or more extensive performance tuning projects, such as but not limited to schema changes or complete data model replacements, are outside of the 2QRDBA service and require a separate consulting contract.
Contingency Drills
Depending on Customer infrastructure, 2QRDBA can plan, document, schedule and perform the following contingency drills in coordination with Customer:
- Failover drills
- Switchover drills
- Disaster recovery drills
- Point in time recovery drills
DEFINED TERMS
- Customer Information - Customer information, systems, software, and resources such as workspace, network access, telephone connections, and the like provided to or required by EDB personnel in order to perform the Services.
- Service(s) – the specific service(s) that EDB will provide to Customer as described in a Statement of Work, signed by the parties.
- Statement of Work - an underlying work document detailing the Services.
Any terms used but not defined herein shall have the meanings ascribed them in the Master Services Agreement between the parties, if any.
PAYMENT, TERM AND RENEWAL
2QRDBA is a subscription-based service with an indefinite term. Each Statement of Work for 2QRDBA will automatically renew unless terminated by either party in writing to the address of the party as noted in the EDB portal, taking effect at the end of the current subscription year. No refunds are given for cancellation. 2QRDBA starts following the payment of the applicable fees. Additional fees become due on the expiry date for the subscription as displayed in the EDB portal at EDB’s then current rates. Fees vary according to the variant of service selected.
SERVICE PROVISION
Cases
All requests for work must be raised via the EDB portal. Communication by other mechanisms may be in danger of being missed as outside of the standard procedure.
Named Contacts
Customer will assign a single point of contact for control of the Service provided by EDB, and this person will be made an Admin user within the EDB portal. The Admin user will be able to add and update Customer users within the EDB portal as required, and can allocate additional Admin users.
Communications
Customer named contacts may be contacted by EDB from time to time with regular and/or ad hoc communications related to the Service and/or additional topics that enhance or maintain the Service.
Instances
All instances must be registered with EDB and have the Sentinel monitoring agent installed to allow 2QRDBA for that instance. Multiple database instances running on the same virtual or physical machines require multiple registrations. Registration process will be provided at service initiation and may change over time. Customer may be requested to perform re-registration from time to time.
SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENT
As 2QRDBA is an add-on service to EDB production support, all 2QRDBA service customers must also be production support service customers. When a case is initiated the case might be assigned to the support queue. In this case, the ticket will be triaged and prioritised as per the Production Support Service Description and the Service Level Agreement stated therein will apply.
If the support engineers determine that the work is pro-active or maintenance work more appropriate to the 2QRDBA queue, or if Customer submits the case directly to the 2QRDBA queue, the work will be scheduled according to Customer requirements and engineer availability, and tracked throughout on the case within the portal but no formal service level will be applied. All responses to 2QRDBA cases will be handled remotely by EDB staff.
EDB will attempt to provide resolution, which may consist of a workaround or full solution specific to the database solution itself; where issues may find cause or relation to either a) the design of the solution itself or b) the environment in which the database solution resides, EDB RDBA is not intended to provide resolution. PostgreSQL is a complex software product and specific issues may be difficult to resolve, so no guarantee on resolution or time to fix can be provided especially when an issue is intermittent and/or Customer is unable to provide sufficient access to staff or production systems. EDB may reasonably withhold or curtail assistance should it become clear that Customer staff appear to have deliberately withheld information relating to the probable causes of the case including but not limited to recent events, commands issued, or instance output.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Assistance
Customer may provide EDB access to Customer Information. Customer understands and agrees that (a) the completeness, accuracy, and extent of access to any Customer Information provided to EDB may affect EDB's ability to provide Services, and (b) if reasonable access to Customer Information is not provided, EDB will be relieved from providing any Services dependent upon such access. Customer will obtain any third party consents necessary to grant EDB access to the Customer Information that is subject to the proprietary rights of, or controlled by, any third party, or which is subject to any other form of restriction upon disclosure.
EDB only provides 2QRDBA on certain hardware, operating system (“OS”) and software combinations. Requests to install or upgrade to software that has known defects or is non-functional will be returned. EDB manages this by maintaining the EDB Production Supported Software List (the “List”), which contains known good release levels and configuration details of server software. There are many software tools and products available, with new releases arriving frequently. Review of unknown software for possible inclusion on the List is not included within 2QRDBA and may require a consulting contract. In some cases, adding new software to the list may not be possible in the short term because of the need for staff training to ensure acceptable levels of support can be maintained for Customer.
Ownership
Notwithstanding anything to the contrary, all ownership to the results of any Services shall be as follows:
- All work product related to Services surrounding open source software shall be subject to the applicable license agreement (e.g., Postgres).
- All work product related to Services surrounding software license by EDB shall be and remain the sole and exclusive property of EDB.