Top 10 Things You Want in Your Backup Contract (Part 5)

This post's fifth point, "Restore Times — Local," can seriously impact your bottom line if not properly defined!

Disclaimer: Take these as basic starting templates and get local legal advice, as local jurisdictions may require specific changes.

We just restore files each time a customer asks, right? For the most part, you would be okay doing this; however, there are customers who do not properly maintain their data and will be asking you to restore single files on a daily basis. So unless you charge them for every restore (which is an option), you will need a clause similar to this:

ABC VAR will perform restores not to exceed one per month average, with a total duration not to exceed two hours total during the term of this contract. Time spent restoring beyond this average will be reconciled on an annual basis and will be charged at prevailing rates. Restores performed while migrating services from one server or workstation to another are not included as part of the restoration service.

The main idea is that you need to limit not only how many restores you perform, but also how much time you spend restoring data. In addition, this clause tells the customer that restores from a backup to migrate to a new server are not covered under your backup contract, but are services that would be included as part of a migration.

Set the right expectations. When customers ask you to restore data, they are expecting it instantly, but you may not be able to instantly start their restore. They also expect that once you start the restore, all of the data will be instantly available. To address this, here is a clause that you might want to include:

Once ABC VAR has been notified that a restoration is required via approved notification methods (define how you want them to contact you in another section), restores will start within two business hours.

Restore times are dependent on the amount of data to be restored; the more data needs to be recovered, the longer the restore process will be. There are no guaranteed times for the transfer of this data.

When will you do it? You need to set expectations of when you will restore data. My suggestion is to remove the "fuzzy" edges and address restorations during and outside of normal business hours. Recovering data 24x7x365 is not always feasible for all VARs. To cover that, you can include a clause like the following (don't forget to define "business hours" somewhere in your contract):

ABC VAR will perform all restores where the notification comes in during business hours under the contract. For restores that are required outside of business hours, a fee of $200 per incident will be charged for the restore.

Bottom Line: The main priority for defining restores in any of your contracts is to clearly define what you will do, when you will do it and how long it will take to get their data back. You should define things that are in your control. Next week we will talk about restores following a disaster.

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Rich Reiffer is VP of Cloud Practice at Zenith Infotech. Rich has been in the business of technology since the dark ages starting with Burroughs Corp., spending time with Steve Jobs (NeXT) and Ray Noorda (Novell). Rich has been in the VAR channel since the mid 80's with companies like Inacomp and Businessland finally forming his own company, Trivalent, in 1991. After 20 years of building data centers, etc. Rich has come on board with Zenith to head up the Cloud group. Monthly guest blogs such as this one are part of Talkin' Cloud's annual platinum sponsorship.