Scope

The Direct 2 Channel Service-Level Agreement aims to clearly define the Standard Support service level that Direct 2 Channel will deliver to its global Business Partners by describing the processes that are performed when a Support Case is submitted to Direct 2 Channel Support Team. Direct 2 Channel Support will increase in its values and deliver technical support without losing continuous focus over our core services: availability, quality, proactivity and technology expertise.

Overview

Support eligibility

Direct 2 Channel offers standard support services for all its Business Partners in order to ensure that eligible Direct 2 Channel Business Products operate in accordance with their documentation. When submitting a Support Case, the customer designated contact must provide identification details and a valid Direct 2 Channel Business Product License.

Support period

The support period starts either (i) at the date when Direct 2 Channel product was purchased or (ii) at the date when the product was activated.

End of Life policy

Direct 2 Channel continues to proactively provide new solutions and feature modifications; as a result, it leads to a need for discontinuing older software revisions as well as products. The resulting new solutions and feature modifications often lead to a need for discontinuing older software revisions as well as products.

The below support matrix lists all Direct 2 Channel Business Products and their support eligibility: Direct 2 Channel Business Product Support Matrix

Service releases

Service releases are produced for current Direct 2 Channel major Business Products releases. Once a new update is posted, it will immediately displace the previous download.

Direct 2 Channel will provide product updates for a subsequent 6 calendar months after the End of Sale date.

Roles and Responsibilities

Direct 2 Channel Business Support will respond to and work to resolve Support Cases that:

• Address issues resulting from the Business Products not functioning as described in the official documentation
• Answer general questions not addressed in the official documentation
• Provide help and guidance with respect to threat detection (False Positives, False Negatives)
• Address Product Feature Requests
• Provide help and guidance with respect to basic product configuration, based on Direct 2 Channel Support availability
• Are related to licensing modifications, based on customer requests: add seats, split licenses, merge licenses, extend licenses

Service requests out of scope

Partner requests not covered by standard support include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Disinfection of malware-infected computers
• Malware description requests
• Best practices regarding security configurations
• Business Products not functioning as described in the official documentation, due to Direct 2 Channel minimum required specifications not being met
• Business Products not functioning as described in the official documentation, due to third-party applications
• Requests related to the function of third-party applications or operating systems
• Applying third-party patches to operating systems and applications
• Performance improvements and customer device tuning

Partner designated contacts

Direct 2 Channel will provide Technical Support services to Partners through the designated contacts. The designated contacts will be responsible for initiating the request for assistance and must be technically skilled and knowledgeable about the Direct 2 Channel Business Products and the environment they are being used in.

Self-Service

Direct 2 Channel provides a variety of resources that can help you answer product questions and resolve some technical support issues without opening a Support Case. These resources include:

Help & Support section from the product’s management console

• Partner can access the Product’s Installation and Administration Guides Support Center
• Product Documentation
• KBs regarding troubleshooting and How-To articles
• Release Notes: Technical documentation of new product version features

Contact and Availability

Direct 2 Channel provides 24×7 Technical Support services for Direct 2 Channel Business Products, world-wide, with our HQ based engineers.

Full Support contact details can be found below:

1-(818) 531-0390 x 2

support@d2cdist.com

Phone and Email

Phone and email assistance is Direct 2 Channel’s main communication channel for Severity 1 incidents. Partners are encouraged to use these channels for urgent and business critical issues. Direct 2 Channel provides Phone Technical Support services for Direct 2 Channel Business Products Monday – Friday, 6am – 6pm PST, and 24/7 email support.

Other contact channels

Web Form: Business customers can submit a Support Case via the Direct 2 Channel web form. You will be able to submit a Case to Direct 2 Channel Support by using the contact form on the Contact Us page.

Case Management Activities

When a technical issue with a Direct 2 Channel Business Product is logged, the Direct 2 Channel Support Team is there to assist and offer technical guidance. Your support case will be promptly assigned to the appropriate support engineer. The following sections detail the stages of a support case and explain general processes and procedures, during different case stages.

Initiate a Support Case

Partner designated contacts can log a Support Case via the desired channel. The information submitted will be prioritized for an efficient and fast resolution. After submitting the new Support Case, your request is assigned a Support Case ID. The Support Case ID will be sent to you in a computer-generated message acknowledging receipt of your support case. Use this support case ID number when communicating with Direct 2 Channel about that specific issue.

General information required for case logging on all communication channels:

• Your Partner identifying information (full contact details)
• Business Product(s) used
• Operating System
• Issue description
• Basic Support Tools Logs: Windows, Linux, Mac
• Support Case ID (if the call is regarding an existing issue)

Work with Support Cases

Direct 2 Channel Support team will work on your issue until it is mutually agreed that the support case can be closed. A support engineer will contact you either online or by phone as appropriate during the resolution process. Your responsibility is to have the appropriate resources available to work with the support engineer. Typically, this would be during normal PST business hours, but could be 24×7 based on the severity of the situation.

Support engineers will work with you to try to resolve the issue, taking necessary steps to (i) fully diagnose the problem and (ii) afterwards find a solution. This may involve:

• Asking you for more information regarding the case
• Recommending you to install specific software and/or patches
• Asking for specific debug/investigation data from your system and, if necessary, conducting tests to generate this data.
• Trying to reproduce the scenario on one of your available machines during a remote session as proposed by a Direct 2 Channel engineer
• Asking for third-party software samples that may interfere with Direct 2 Channel solution. Lawfully obtaining and providing such software remains entirely your responsibility
• Verifying software bugs with our engineering staff
• Asking you to accept implementing and testing workaround suggestions that may avoid the problem in the future
• Asking you to involve networking, database or other technology specific administrators to help troubleshoot
• Working with you to involve relevant third-party software or hardware vendors (for example, your operating system and database vendors) if a problem is suspected in their product

Support Case closure

A support case is typically closed when you confirm that a resolution is reached, or if Direct 2 Channel does not hear back from you after three attempts to contact you over a ten-day period. Direct 2 Channel may also close support cases if they cannot be resolved, or are chosen not to be resolved, with acknowledgement and agreement from Partner.

Severity definitions for Incidents

Severity level is a measure of the relative impact of an issue on your systems or business. Accurately defining the severity of your issue ensures a timely response and helps Direct 2 Channel understand the nature of your issue.

The Partner may indicate a case severity level and this is validated on Direct 2 Channel’s end by the support engineer, based on the following definitions:

 

Severity 1 (Critical) Your business has stopped due to a Direct 2 Channel product	System hangs or crash situations (BSOD, kernel panic) for critical systems Most of your infrastructure is impacted or unprotected The network is inoperative, or the email flow has stopped Cannot add, modify licenses and most of your infrastructure remains unprotected
Severity 2 (Major) Business is severely impacted, but it can continue to operate	Product failure resulting in a significant loss of protection Product is not updated on a significant portion of your infrastructure Authentication issues or loss of communication with Direct 2 Channel supported product console Product management console fails to start
Severity 3 (Minimal) Minimal business impact	Management console reporting issues (endpoint status, report generation, etc.) Minor function/feature failure that you can easily circumvent or avoid License keys fail to validate Isolated parts of your infrastructure are unprotected Minor slowdowns that do not impact production
Severity 4 (Trivial) Business is not affected	General requests for advice on product usage Clarification on product documentation or release notes Minor issues including documentation or cosmetic errors not impacting production

Product enhancements, feature requests and all other non-incident cases are not SLA bound and will be treated in best effort scenario.

Target Response Times

Direct 2 Channel Enterprise Support team evaluates each submitted Support Case, based on severity and support entitlement. Based on this evaluation, a support engineer will provide a response within the target service times outlined in the table below. For Severity 1 cases, Direct 2 Channel strongly recommends using the phone channel.

	Severity 1 (Critical)	Severity 2 (Major)	Severity 3 (Minor)	Severity 4 (Trivial)
Standard Support	2 hours	8 hours	24 hours	48 hours

Remote Incident assistance

Partners can have their issue solved via a technical remote assistance. When faced with an incident where other forms of support have been unable to resolve the issue, the Partner will have the option to request a remote session.

The support engineer will analyze the request and depending on the nature of the incident. They may offer a remote diagnostic and troubleshooting service for the Direct 2 Channel installed product – this service is offered at the discretion of Direct 2 Channel Support Team.

Remote sessions will only be offered when the issues are clear and all requested logs and information has been provided by the customer. The availability for a remote session is subject to Direct 2 Channel support engineer’s judgement and availability.

Key services provided as part of remote consulting engagement can include the following:

• Troubleshooting on the reported incident

 

Extra charge will apply to following remote consulting engagement items:

• New setup or installations
• Actual deployment of new appliances
• Configuration changes
• Development or modification of custom scripts
• Professional Services engagements

 

Remote access will only be carried out with the express permission of the Partner..

The Partner has to be present during the entire remote session.

Direct 2 Channel engineer is not allowed, in any circumstances, to operate changes, during the remote session, to any product or environment outside Direct 2 Channel Business Products.

Malware assistance

Direct 2 Channel provides access to a collection of online resources.

If you are experiencing strange behavior on your system or you find a suspicious file that may be malware, follow the steps from the Vendor KB Article in order to submit to our Support team a log generated by the Vendor System tool from the affected machine. You hereby acknowledge and agree that any information contained by the said log is provided strictly for diagnosis and recommendation purposes, as per this Policy and Direct 2 Channel has no responsibility of any kind with respect to such information.

Make sure to provide us with the following information, so that we can fully understand the cause and provide you with more information. This information will be used for malware analysis only by Vendor’s Antimalware Laboratories and will be treated accordingly:

• Describe the suspicious behavior that led you to believe that your system is infected
• Upload a screenshot displaying the malware or the effects of the malware (if applicable)
• Update your Direct 2 Channel software, run a Full System scan, and attach the scan log to your email
• Provide us with the Vendor System tool report
• Suspicious sample files

Partner Survey policy

The Technical Support quality levels that Direct 2 Channel currently offers are based on quality feedback from our Business Partners. This feedback is collected through our support surveys performed regularly.

Each short survey sent by email will ask for your feedback in the following areas:

• Direct 2 Channel Enterprise Support Team
• Professional effectiveness, responsiveness and knowledge of Direct 2 Channel representatives
• Response time
• Overall impression