Service Level Agreement

By submitting the online order form, or by using Silkroad Consulting’s service, Customer hereby agrees to and shall comply with the following Service Level Agreement (SLA).

Unless otherwise specified in this SLA , the usage of “us”, “we”, “our”, and “ours” shall refer to Silkroad Consulting, Inc., a California company, and all its parents, subsidiaries, successors, and assigns. The usage of “Customer,” “you”, “your”, “they”, and “them” shall refer to the Customer of Silkroad Consulting, Inc.

Moreover, in this SLA , “Silkroad Consulting” shall refer to Silkroad Consulting, Inc., a California company, and all its parents, subsidiaries, successors, and assigns; unless otherwise specified, “Silkroad Consulting” and “Silkroad Consulting, Inc.” shall have the same meaning and shall be interchangeable.

Please note: This Service Level Agreement does NOT apply to customers who purchase Dedicated Hosting from Silkroad Consulting.

1. Definitions.

1.1. “Network Uptime” is the total time in a calendar month that the Silkroad Consulting network is available through the Internet, provided that Customer has established connectivity. Silkroad Consulting takes responsibility for network availability within its network and for network outages from its bandwidth and connectivity provider, except when such network outages are excluded by Section 3.6 of this SLA ; however, Silkroad Consulting shall not be liable for any upstream problems outside of its network. Silkroad Consulting’s guarantee is that its network will be available to Customer free of Network Outages, that render 100% packet loss, 99.9% of each calendar month

1.2. “Network Outages” or “Unscheduled Downtime” is any unplanned or unscheduled interruption in service availability during which Customer is unable to access the services as described in the section titled “Network Uptime” above. 

  • A “Network Outage” is defined as a period in which 100% packet loss to Silkroad Consulting’s network is experienced, which is determined to have been caused by a problem in Silkroad Consulting’s Network as confirmed by Silkroad Consulting. Downtime and outages are measured as the total length of time of the unplanned interruption in service availability in a calendar month.
  • “Scheduled Downtime” is any Silkroad Consulting scheduled interruption of Services, for the purpose of network upgrades, or replacement of any equipment in order to provide for you better service.  Scheduled downtime occurs during notified downtime periods, with as much advance warning as possible. 


2. “ SLA Network Violation Credit” occurs when Silkroad Consulting’s network uptime guarantee is not met. As stated in paragraph 1.1 above, Silkroad Consulting g uarantees 99.9% uptime for shared, e-commerce, and semi-dedicated. Please note again that this guarantee does not apply to customers who have dedicated hosting with Silkroad Consulting.

Network downtime is measured from the time the network is 100% unreachable, until service is once again restored. In order to request a credit, you must e-mail us at: support@silkroad-consulting.com within seven (7) days after the last day of the calendar month in which the downtime occurred. (For example, if the downtime occurs during the month of December, Silkroad Consulting must receive your e-mail between January 1 and January 7. E-mail notifications that are not sent within the first seven (7) days of the month immediately following the downtime will not be eligible for credits.

The amount of the credits are determined by the following table, based on the amount of Network Uptime the Silkroad Consulting network has provided for the month in which a credit is requested.

Network Uptime for the Month
Percentage of Monthly Hosting Fee Credited Upon Proper Request
99.9 - 100%
0% credit
99.7 - 99.8%
10% credit
99.5 - 99.6%
25% credit
99.3 - 99.4%
50% credit
99.0 - 99.2%
75% credit
98.9% and below
100% credit

Silkroad Consulting will review claims of SLA violations during normal business hours of the first through seventh day of the month, and will apply any applicable credit to Customer’s account within two billing cycles after Silkroad Consulting receives Customer’s credit request.

3. Performance Credit Exclusions.

Notwithstanding any contrary provision in this SLA , Silkroad Consulting shall not be liable to reimburse in any form for failure to meet any of the guaranteed service level where such failure arises from any one or more of the following:

3.1. Scheduled downtime, maintenance, or upgrades, including without limitations the following:
  • Maintenance by local public telecommunications and telegraph service providers on access circuits between Silkroad Consulting and the clients’ Web sites;
  • Software maintenance made globally on Silkroad Consulting’s network.

3.2. Emergency maintenance or upgrades, where such maintenance or upgrades are required by the occurrence of any events outside of Silkroad Consulting’s control;

3.3. Failure of access circuits to the Silkroad Consulting Network, unless such failure is caused solely by Silkroad Consulting;

3.4. Erroneous SLA outages reported as a result of outages or errors of any Silkroad Consulting measurement system;

3.5. Problems outside of Silkroad Consulting’s network (upstream providers, or client’s inbound connection) not effecting 100% loss to our network, and

interruptions or failures of individual service caused by Customer, Customer’s agents or employees, Customer’s clients, or other third parties, to Customer’s service. These interruptions and failures include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • inaccurate configuration,
  • third-party software,
  • Customer’s abuse or over-utilization of resources,
  • acts or omissions of any person for whom Silkroad Consulting is not responsible, or
  • any causes whether similar or otherwise outside Silkroad Consulting’s control;


3.6. Circumstances beyond Silkroad Consulting’s reasonable control and force major events including but not limited to the following:

catastrophic incidents, vandalism, lightning, power failure, fire, flood, earthquake, acts of nature, emergency, acts of any governmental body, war, insurrection, sabotage, armed conflict, terrorism, embargo, riots, curfew, strike or other labor disturbance, industrial disputes, interruption of or delay in transportation, unavailability of or interruption or delay in telecommunications or third-party services, virus attacks, worms, Trojans, spyware, adware or other malware, failure of third-party software (including, without limitation, e-commerce software, payment gateways, chat, statistics, or free scripts) or inability to obtain raw materials, supplies, or power used in or equipment needed for provision of this SLA;

3.7. Services or communications protocols other than hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP).

3.8. DNS (Domain Name System) issues outside the direct control of Silkroad Consulting;

3.9. DNS propagation;

3.10. Customer’s acts or omissions (or acts or omissions of others engaged or authorized by customer), including, without limitation, custom scripting or coding, e.g. CGI, PERL, HTML, PHP, etc., any negligence, willful misconduct, or use of Silkroad Consulting’s service in breach of Silkroad Consulting’s Terms of Service, Acceptable Use Policy, or No-Spam Policy;

3.11. Faults caused by the client’s equipment, applications, interconnected equipment, networks, systems or gateways and / or the acts or omissions of the Customer, third-party components whether within or outside Silkroad Consulting’s network or the acts or omissions of local exchange carriers or failure of third party services;

3.12. Outages elsewhere on the Internet that hinder access to your account or services. Silkroad Consulting is not responsible for browser or DNS caching that may make your Web site appear inaccessible when others can still access it. Silkroad Consulting will guarantee only those areas considered under the control of Silkroad Consulting; or

3.13. Disconnection and / or reconnection of the services due to non-payment of any charges payable to Silkroad Consulting or where the services are disconnected by reason of it being used for any illegal, unlawful, or other objectionable purpose described in the TOS, AUP, or No-Spam Policy.

4. Nature of Credits; Sole Remedy.

4.1. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this SLA , the total amount credited to the Customer in a particular month under this SLA shall not exceed the total hosting fee paid by the Customer for such month for the affected service.

4.2. Credits are exclusive of any applicable taxes charged to the Customer or collected by Silkroad Consulting and are the Customer’s sole and exclusive remedy with respect to any failure or deficiency in service or in the availability of the Customer’s Web sites.

5. General Terms.

5.1. You and Silkroad Consulting agree that only measurements carried out by Silkroad Consulting’s personnel shall be used for the calculation of unavailable time and Silkroad Consulting’s records shall be conclusive evidence of that unavailable time. The client’s sole remedy in relation to a breach of this SLA shall be limited to the service credits provided accordingly in this SLA .

  • This SLA shall not apply during any trial or free period of the services, and this SLA does not come into effect until after the end of the first month of the applicable services has been provided. The SLA shall apply during the normal initial period during which the Customer is available for Silkroad Consulting’s 30-day money-back guarantee, as provided in the TOS, as amended from time to time; provided, however, that Customer’s right to a 30-day money-back guarantee shall expire, according to its terms, if the Customer continues service beyond the first thirty (30) days.


5.3. This SLA does not relieve the Customer from the obligation to pay the Customer’s balance in full when it is due. SLA credits are always applied within two billing cycles after the month in which the downtime eligible for SLA credit occurs.

5.4. This SLA is subject to Silkroad Consulting’s Terms of Service (TOS), as it may be modified from time to time. In the event of any conflict between any term or condition of this SLA and the TOS, the TOS shall govern and the conflicting portion shall be construed in accordance with applicable law as nearly as possible to reflect the original intentions of the parties to this SLA, and the remainder of the SLA’s provisions shall remain in full force and effect.