ARCHIVE Support Policy and Service Level Agreement - 2021-09-29

This is an archived version of our Support Policy and Service Level Agreement from September 29, 2021. View the current version here.

This Snowflake Support Policy and Service Level Agreement (“Policy”) describes Snowflake’s support offering (“Snowflake Support”) in connection with Customer reported bugs, defects, or errors in the Service (“Error(s)”).  Snowflake Support shall be provided in accordance with the written subscription agreement under which Snowflake provides its cloud data platform as entered into by and between you (“Customer”) and Snowflake (“Agreement”). Customer shall receive Premier Support or Priority Support as designated in the applicable Order Form (“Support Level”). This Policy may be updated by Snowflake from time to time. Capitalized terms not defined in this Policy shall have the meaning given to them in the Agreement. 

I. Support

1. Services. As part of providing the services and as further described in the Documentation, Snowflake has processes designed to perform robust testing and validation before each release to minimize Errors.

2. General Support Offering. Customer shall designate one primary contact who will have administrator privileges and may designate additional contacts (“Customer Contacts”). Snowflake shall provide English-speaking remote assistance to Customer Contacts for questions or issues arising from any Error, as further described in this Policy, including troubleshooting, diagnosis, and recommendations for potential workarounds for the duration of Customer’s subscription to the applicable Service. Snowflake shall also provide the specific entitlements for the corresponding Support Level procured by Customer as further described in this Policy and the tables below.  Details for Priority Support are described in the Priority Support Services Description at www.snowflake.com/en/legal, which is incorporated herein by this reference. 

3. Contacting Snowflake Support. Customer Contacts may contact Snowflake Support by: (a) submitting a support request to the Snowflake webpage hosting the community forums and support portal located at https://community.snowflake.com (or such successor URL as may be designated by Snowflake) (such website, the “Snowflake Community”) and designating the appropriate severity level according to Table 1 below, (b) submitting the support request to [email protected] if Customer Contacts cannot access the Snowflake Community, or (c) in the event Customer Contacts cannot access Snowflake Community or email, they may contact Snowflake Support by phone at the intake phone number identified in the Snowflake Community solely for purposes of having the support request submitted on their behalf (each a “Support Case”). All Customer Contacts must be reasonably trained in the use and functionality of the Service and the Snowflake Documentation and shall use reasonable diligence to ensure a perceived Error is not an issue with Customer equipment, software, or internet connectivity.

 4. Submission of Support Cases. Each Support Case shall; (a) designate the Severity Level of the Error in accordance with the definitions in Table 1, (b) identify the Customer Account that experienced the error, (c) include information sufficiently detailed to allow Snowflake Support to attempt to duplicate the Error (including any relevant error messages), and (d) provide contact information for the Customer Contact most familiar with the issue. The Customer Contact shall also give Snowflake any other important Support Case information in a timely manner. Unless Customer expressly designates the Severity Level, the Support Case will default to Severity Level 4. If Customer believes the issue to be related to Client Software (as defined in the Agreement), then the Support Case shall also include the applicable Client Software log files. If Customer Contacts submit Support Cases related to enhancement or feature requests, Snowflake shall treat those tickets as closed once the request has been forwarded internally.

 5. Premier Support. If Customer is receiving Premier Support, the following shall apply in addition to the support description in Section 1 (General Support Offering):

a. Follow-the-Sun Case Management. Snowflake Support shall implement follow-the-sun case management for handling Severity Level 1 Support Cases, to better facilitate uninterrupted support by utilizing Snowflake Support across multiple time zones.

b. Case Escalation. If Customer reasonably believes Snowflake Support is not performing in a professional manner or is failing to provide timely responses in accordance with this Policy, Customer may escalate the Support Case using the support escalation process described at the Snowflake Community (“Case Escalation”).  Any Support Case escalated by Customer will be directed to Snowflake’s management team for consideration.

6. Priority Support. If Customer is receiving Priority Support, the following shall apply in addition to the support description in Section 1 (General Support Offering) and Section 4 (Premier Support):

a. Follow-the-Sun Case Management. Snowflake Support shall implement follow-the-sun case management for handling Severity Level 1 and Severity Level 2 Support Cases, to better facilitate uninterrupted support by utilizing Snowflake Support across multiple time zones.

7. Read-Only Users Support.  When Customer is a Provider (using Snowflake’s data-sharing functionality to share its Customer Data) to Read-only Users, such Read-only Users shall not be designated as Customer Contacts and any Support Cases related to the Provider or its Read-only Users shall be submitted solely by Provider’s other Customer Contacts.

8. Other Support and Training. Snowflake also offers various support and training resources such as documentation, community forums, FAQs and user guides available on the Snowflake Community. Additionally, Snowflake offers for-fee consultation and training services via Statements of Work.

8. Error Response. Upon receipt of a Support Case, Snowflake Support will attempt to determine the Error and assign the applicable Severity Level based on descriptions in Table 1. If Snowflake’s Severity Level designation is different from that assigned by Customer, Snowflake will promptly notify Customer in advance of such designation. If Customer notifies Snowflake of a reasonable basis for disagreeing with Snowflake’s designated Severity Level, the parties each will make a good faith effort to discuss, escalate internally, and mutually agree on the appropriate Severity Level. Snowflake shall use commercially reasonable efforts to meet the Initial Response Time Target for the applicable Severity Level, as measured during in-region Snowflake Support hours set forth in Table 3 below (such hour(s), “Business Hour(s)” with the total Business Hours in an in-region support day being “Business Day(s)”).

II. Service Level Agreement

Definitions:

“Average Daily Snowflake Credits” is defined as Customer’s actual Snowflake Credit consumption in the calendar month of the Cloud Provider Region in which the Service Level Failure occurred divided by the number of days in such month.

“Calendar Minutes” is defined as the total number of minutes in a given calendar month.

“Cloud Provider Region” is defined as the Region and Cloud Provider selected by Customer on an Order Form or as configured by Customer via the Service.

“Error Rate” is defined as the number of Failed Operations divided by the total number of Valid Operations. Repeated identical Failed Operations do not count towards the Error Rate.

“Failed Operations” is defined as Valid Operations where the Snowflake Service returns an internal error to Customer.

“Monthly Availability Percentage” is defined as the difference between Calendar Minutes and the Unavailable Minutes, divided by Calendar Minutes, and multiplied by one hundred (100). 

“Unavailable” is defined as an Error Rate greater than one percent (1%) over a one-minute interval calculated across all Customer’s Accounts within each applicable Cloud Provider Region. The Error Rate is 0 when a Customer Account is inactive, i.e., when there are no Valid Operations in the one-minute interval.

“Unavailable Minutes” is defined as the total accumulated minutes when the Service is Unavailable. 

“Valid Operation” is defined as an operation that conforms to (a) the Snowflake Documentation; or (b) Service-use recommendations provided by Snowflake Support personnel.

The Monthly Availability Percentage for the Snowflake Service is ninety-nine and nine-tenths percent (99.9%) (“Service Level”). If the Snowflake Service fails to meet the Service Level in a given month (“Service Level Failure”), then as Customer’s sole and exclusive remedy, Customer shall receive the applicable number of Snowflake Credits set forth in Table 4 below (“Service Level Credits”), credited against Customer’s usage in the Cloud Provider Region in the calendar month following the Service Level Failure provided that Customer requests Service Level Credits within twenty-one (21) days of the calendar month in which the Service Level Failure occurred. Service Level Credits may not be exchanged for, or converted to, monetary amounts.

Example Calculation – Customer has two Accounts (SFE1, SFE2) in the AWS US East Region. Each Account submits Valid Operations at a steady rate of 50 Valid Operations per minute. In the month of April, in each minute of a 250-minute period, all 50 Valid Operations submitted by SFE1 succeeded, whereas SFE2 experienced 2 Failed Operations out of a total of 50 Valid Operations. For the month of April, the Customer experienced an Error Rate of 2% across SFE1 and SFE2 Accounts in the AWS US East Region ((2 Failed Operations / 100 Valid Operations) * 100) during the 250-minute period. In this example, the Service was Unavailable for the period of 250 minutes because the Error Rate exceeded 1% across both Customer Accounts. There are 43,200 Calendar Minutes in the month of April (30 days x 24 hours x 60 minutes). This results in a Monthly Availability Percentage of 99.4% calculated as ((43,200 – 250)/43,200 * 100). If Customer used a total of three hundred (300) Snowflake Credits across both Customer Accounts in April, then Customer’s Average Daily Snowflake Credits for April would be ten (10) Snowflake Credits (300 / 30 days in April). Since the Monthly Availability Percentage is 99.4%, Customer’s Service Level Credit would be ten (10) Snowflake Credits (1 x 10 Average Daily Snowflake Credits), which would be credited against Customer’s usage of the Snowflake Service in May.

III.   Policy Exclusions

Snowflake will have no liability for any failure to meet the Service Level to the extent arising from:

(a.) Customer’s failure to process Customer Data in the Service in accordance with Snowflake’s recommendations for use of the Service — though, upon being notified of such a case, Snowflake will endeavor to help Customer address the failure (e.g., with additional recommendations);

(b.) Customer or User equipment;

(c.) Third party acts, or services and/or systems not provided by or on behalf of Snowflake. (For the avoidance of doubt, this exclusion (c) does not apply to the acts, services or systems of any “Cloud Providers,” as defined in the Snowflake Security Policy) attached to the MSA as Exhibit C.);

(d.) Force Majeure Events — i.e., any cause beyond such party’s reasonable control, including but not limited to acts of God, labor disputes or other industrial disturbances, systemic electrical, telecommunications, or other utility failures, earthquake, storms or other elements of nature, blockages, embargoes, riots, public health emergencies (including pandemics and epidemics), acts or orders of government, acts of terrorism, or war;

(e.) Evaluation or proof-of-concept use of the Snowflake Service; or

(f.) Snowflake’s preview features (e.g., beta functionality not intended for production use).