For purposes of this Dedicated Server Hardware Support SLA, the following terms have the meanings set forth below:

"Base Fee" means the base monthly fee paid by customer for the standard server package(s) being provided to it by VPS Hosting, including the use of the server, the use of electricity to the extent provided to customer without additional charge, and up to the amount of data transferred allowed each month without additional charge. The Base Fee does not include any other fees which might be charged to customer, including, without limitation, set-up fees, charges relating to incremental bandwidth usage and fees for electricity, extra IP addresses, RAM, hard drives beyond that which is available without additional charge under VPS Hosting' standard rates or managed services to which customer subscribes in connection with its Dedicated Server(s)..

"Covered Hardware Problem" means repair or replacement of one or more of the following with respect to a Covered Server Platform (as defined below): (i) network cards, (ii) patch cables, (iii) hard drives, (iv) central processing units (CPUs), (v) fans that cause a CPU to fail, (vi) memory, (vii) motherboards, (viii) power supplies, (ix) floppy drives, (x) SCSI controllers for external drives, or (xi) modems; but excluding RAID rebuilds associated with Covered Server Platforms which (a)have RAID, or customer or its agent has installed software RAID, (b)include Mylex or LSI Controllers or (c)require the reinstallation of Windows NT 4.0. In repair or replacement of hardware, VPS Hosting may be required to install a new operating system and will do so with the current version of such operating system unless customer requests otherwise, in which case this Service Level Agreement shall not apply.

"Covered Server Platform" means one of the following server platforms that were originally provided by VPS Hosting after January 1, 2001: (i) Sun Microsystem, (ii) Windows NT, (iii) Linux, or (iv) Windows 2000 or Windows 2003.

"Full Day's Credit" means a credit equal to one (1) day's worth of the Base Fee, calculated on the basis of a thirty (30) day month.

"Operational" means that customer's Covered Server Platform is available (i.e., responds to a ping) as measured by VPS Hosting network monitoring system.

"VPS Hosting Notice Time" means the time that VPS Hosting support first learns that customer's Covered Server Platform is not Operational.

VPS Hosting 's goal is to resolve Covered Hardware Problems so that customer's Covered Server Platform is Operational within 2 hours from the VPS Hosting Notice Time.

Subject to Sections 3 and 4 below, upon customer's request, VPS Hosting will issue a Full Day's Credit to customer (i) if customer's Covered Server Platform is not Operational within 2 hours from the VPS Hosting Notice Time and (ii) for each additional 2 continuous hours period that customer's Covered Server Platform is not Operational after the 121st minute from the VPS Hosting Notice Time; provided, however, the total credit amount available to customer in a particular month under this SLA shall be limited to the lesser of customer's Base Fee for such month or $1000.

Customers shall not receive any credits under this Dedicated Server Hardware Support SLA in connection with any failure of VPS Hosting's operations group to resolve a Covered Hardware Problem caused by or associated with:

1. circumstances beyond VPS Hosting's reasonable control, including, without limitation, acts of any governmental body, war, insurrection, sabotage, embargo, fire, flood, strike or other labor disturbance, interruption of or delay in transportation, unavailability of or interruption or delay in telecommunications or third party services, failure of third party software or inability to obtain raw materials, supplies, or power used in or equipment needed for provision of the Service Level Agreement; or
2. Customer's acts or omissions (or acts or omissions of other parties engaged or authorized by Customer), including without limitation, any alteration of the configuration of the server being used by customer that causes the operating system to fail, any negligence or willful misconduct, or any request to re-install other than the latest version of an operating system in connection with a hardware failure.
   
   

In order to receive a credit, customer must make a request by completing sending an e-mail to billing/@/vpshosting.net (remove the forward slashes from the address previously mentioned). Each credit request in connection with this Dedicated Server Hardware Support SLA must be received by VPS Hosting within 48 hours of the support failure referenced in Section 2 above and must include the customer's customer number (per VPS Hosting's invoice), customer's name as listed on VPS Hosting's invoice, the date and approximate time of the support failure and the server identification code(s) of the affected server(s). Incomplete credit requests will be returned by VPS Hosting.