Lumen Edge Hosting Environment

Service Guide

Updated: April 30, 2021


This Service Guide (“SG”) sets forth a description of the Lumen Edge Hosting Environment (the “Service”) offered by Lumen, including technical details and additional requirements or terms. “Lumen” is defined as CenturyLink Communications, LLC d/b/a Lumen Technologies Group or its affiliated entities. This SG is subject to and incorporated into the Agreement and Hybrid Technologies Service Exhibit (formerly the CenturyLink TS Service Exhibit), including the Hosting Service Schedule between the parties. The specific details of the Service ordered by Customer will be set forth on the relevant Service Order.

1. Service Description

Lumen’s Edge Hosting Environment (EHE) is a hosting solution that improves latency and extends Lumen’s managed services capability by moving Customer’s computing resources closer to their edge environment. The EHE provides the means to utilize both Lumen Managed Hosting Services and various Lumen managed services via Lumen provided EHE Equipment and network connectivity and may be applied in the following locations selected by Customer in the applicable Service Order:

  • a Customer’s premise;
  • Customer’s contracted collocated environment(s); or
  • Lumen provided space via Lumen provided EHE Equipment and network connectivity; which may be an existing Lumen data center where Lumen has a core Hosting environment or a new third-party space contracted by Lumen on Customer’s behalf.

Edge Hosting Environment is a means for Customers to achieve certain technology requirements such as improved latency for hybrid IT environments and adherence to regulatory and compliance mandates. Lumen Managed Hosting and managed services availability may depend on location and type of connectivity purchased by Customers. Managed Hosting examples include, but are not limited to, Lumen Private Cloud, Lumen Network Storage, and Data Protect Backup. EHE is currently available within the U.S. and certain locations within Europe and Asia Pacific.

2. Service Components

2.1. Service Types available for any of the locations identified above.

  • Essential — The Essential service type is a baseline service which includes Lumen-managed EHE Equipment that provides monitoring, management, and support of EHE Equipment. Internet connectivity is required, which is the responsibility of the Customer.
  • Complete — The Complete service type includes all of the Essential services, plus additional Lumen managed services such as backup and storage services or secure firewall services via a direct network connection to a Lumen Managed Hosting data center to enable the Customer to utilize services remotely if the location is not already a Lumen Managed Hosting data center. This service type requires a dedicated circuit with 100 Mb minimum bandwidth which may either be provided by the Customer or acquired through Lumen. Lumen provided connectivity is subject to separate terms and conditions and SLAs may vary.
  • Enterprise — The Enterprise service type includes all of the capabilities of Complete service type plus additional capabilities such as virtual machine (VM) replication, storage replication, moving/sharing workloads and data sets, and other feature types available under Lumen’s Managed Hosting suite of services. The Enterprise service type includes a pair of Lumen provided switches for redundancy and connectivity options. A dedicated circuit, provided by either Customer or Lumen, is required with 100 Mb minimum bandwidth. Certain features within the Managed Hosting suite of services may require higher bandwidths.

2.1.1. Included in each Service Type

  • Subject to 2.2 below, IP addresses
  • Troubleshooting of Lumen-provided components
  • EHE Equipment
  • Monitoring, management, and support of EHE Equipment

2.1.2. Not included in any of the Service Types

  • Cabling or optics
  • Dedicated circuits
  • Out of band circuits
  • Network connectivity either provided by Lumen pursuant to separate terms and conditions, or by Customer via a third party

2.2. IP Addresses

Lumen will use good faith efforts to assign Internet address space for the benefit of Customer during the EHE service term. Any IP addresses and space provided to Customer by Lumen are solely for Customer’s use with the Service and are non-portable and non-transferable and are subject to Lumen’s IP policies. Neither Customer nor any end user will own or route any IP addresses or space provided by Lumen, and, upon any termination of Service, Customer’s access to such IP addresses and space will cease.

2.3. Add-on Services

There are currently no available add-ons for this service.

2.4. Integration with Web Portal

EHE Equipment and Service metrics are viewable via the applicable Portal. Customers may use the Portal to view statistics and manage reports related to the Service.

2.5. Deployment

EHE can be deployed as follows:

Customer provided locations fit into one of two categories:

  1. Customer is directly responsible for managing and maintaining the physical space that will house EHE Equipment and Customer’s equipment, including power, temp, and humidity (i.e. colocation environment), or
  2. Customer contracts with a third-party data center to provide and manage the physical space that will house the EHE Equipment and Customer’s equipment that Customer has access to.

Lumen provided locations can be one of the following two categories:

  1. Data centers where Lumen has a core Hosting environment, or
  2. Lumen procured environment operated and maintained by third-party provider.

3. Maintenance and Support

3.1. Sustaining Engineering

Lumen switches provided as part of EHE Equipment utilize Cisco NXOS and ACI technologies. NXOS is Cisco’s legacy technology for handling network routing and ACI is Cisco’s latest technology, which allows for software-defined capability. Technological capability varies by Lumen Managed Hosting data center. The purchase of Lumen’s Advanced Managed Services (contracted, ordered, and priced separately) may be required as detailed below based on Customer needs.

The following table shows various automation elements that may vary by region or market. Those supported by ACI will not require Lumen’s Advanced Managed Services whereas those supported by NXOS will require it. Maintaining NXOS requires two additional hours per month for automation, upgrades, and sustained engineering respectively, as described in the table below. Additional hours of Advanced Managed Services above the minimum will be billed separately.

Capability of the Service based on
technology selected by Customer
ACI NXOS NXOS Advanced Managed Services Minimum Hours
Automation – provisioning of new network routes Yes No (Implemented by Advanced Managed Service team) 2 per month
Upgrades – code changes pushed to systems Upgraded as datacenter gets upgraded Separate upgrade window needed 2 per month
Sustained Engineering – ongoing upgrades to system Upgraded as datacenter gets upgraded Separate upgrade window needed 2 per month
Integration with Lumen’s HAN Yes No  
East/West Traffic – traffic flow of EHE Equipment Yes – Requires additional gear deployment at Customer expense Yes  
Datacenter Services – access to Lumen’s monitoring service Yes Yes  
Single pane of glass for support – visibility into EHE Equipment via the Portal No No  

3.2. Change Management

All changes to the Lumen managed applications, systems, network and facilities are subject to Lumen’s change management process. This change management process is intended to confirm that changes are reviewed for completeness (risk assessment, completed test procedure, metrics for measuring progress, back out procedure, etc.) and accuracy prior to scheduling and implementation.

Patch Releases:
Lumen compiles, packages, certifies, approves and delivers software patches for installation on the EHE Equipment. Any outages directly caused by Customer's failure to accept the implementation of a patch will not be subject to the EHE SLA, as detailed in Exhibit B.

3.3. Upgrades

Lumen may periodically upgrade the hardware or the relevant operating software on EHE Equipment to conform with the latest tested and approved versions. If Lumen determines an upgrade is necessary, Lumen will perform the upgrade during its standard maintenance window. Customer must allow Lumen to make these changes within five business days of receipt of the request from Lumen, or Lumen’s obligation to provide the EHE in accordance with this Lumen Service Guide will be suspended until Customer grants Lumen the access required to make such changes. If Lumen determines that an emergency security change is required, Lumen will make the change as quickly as possible. Lumen will use commercially reasonable attempts to contact the Customer’s technical contact prior to said change.

Lumen does not automatically upgrade every Customer environment. If a newer version of software has been tested and approved by Lumen, and the Customer wishes to upgrade, they may proactively request this via a support ticket.

3.4. Maintenance Windows

Lumen will use commercially reasonable efforts to perform routine maintenance only during defined maintenance windows. See our published Maintenance Window schedule, or navigate to https://www.ctl.io/legal/managed-hosting/maintenance-windows/ from any Internet browser. Lumen has the right to perform scheduled maintenance (during the windows specified), which may limit or suspend the availability of the Services. Lumen will provide Customer with at least ten (10) days prior notice of any scheduled maintenance activities. In addition to providing written notice, Lumen maintenance notifications are available via the Managed Services Portal.

3.5. Support

Lumen will provide the following:

  • 24x7 post-installation monitoring and management by the Lumen Service Center
  • 24x7 support
  • Coordinate patching with Customer during maintenance hours
  • A limited number of status reports will be available for customer viewing in the Managed Service Portal

4. Lumen Responsibilities

4.1. Licensing

Lumen is responsible for obtaining and installing all applicable licenses for software residing on EHE Equipment. The version of software installed will be the latest Lumen approved release. All EHE Equipment and software licenses will be owned and maintained by Lumen and are not transferrable.

4.2. Installation & Configuration

  • Lumen will provide installation and configuration for each Edge Hosting Environment, including installing the EHE Equipment and deploying the latest Lumen-approved software for the devices.
  • Lumen will meet with the Customer to perform a review of the Customer’s network configuration and Edge Hosting Environment requirements to discuss options for configuring the Service.
  • Lumen will work with the Customer to connect the Edge Hosting Environment to additional service components that may have been purchased and as agreed upon with the Customer.
  • Validation and testing of connectivity.

4.3. Administration

  • To maintain configuration consistency and accountability for changes, all system administration and device passwords will be managed by Lumen.
  • Lumen system administrators will perform ongoing, reasonable EHE configuration changes as requested by the Customer (see change detail below).
  • Lumen will provide ongoing administrative support for standard additions, deletions and changes to the existing configuration (e.g., adding or removing a server or an IP).
  • System health checks are conducted to determine availability of the EHE Equipment. In the event that the EHE Equipment fails to respond, Lumen will notify Customer and initiate corrective action.
  • Lumen will act on any change requests submitted by Customer, following Lumen’s standard change management process.

5. Customer Responsibilities

Customer acknowledges and agrees that its failure to perform its obligations may result in Lumen’s inability to perform the Services and Lumen will not be liable for any failure to perform, including any SLAs in the event of Customer’s failure. In addition, Lumen is not responsible for any loss or corruption of data or information.

5.1. Licensing

If any third-party software, including any corresponding documentation, is provided to Customer by Lumen in connection with the Service, Customer agrees to be bound by any additional licensing terms and conditions applicable to such third-party software and that it will use such third-party software strictly in accordance with such terms and conditions. Lumen makes no representations or warranties whatsoever regarding such third-party software.

5.2. Installation & Configuration

  • Where applicable, Customer must provide IP architecture for all network connections to real and managed servers, depending on the environment.
  • The Customer will, using Lumen’s standard procedures, notify Lumen of the initial and later changes to be configured by Lumen on the EHE Equipment.
  • In order for Lumen to properly configure and install the EHE Equipment, when applicable, Customer must provide Lumen with a topology of their existing network, server architecture, port 80 and 443 (and other ports as deemed necessary by Customer) requirements, and throughput requirements.
  • Because persistence methods vary with regard to configuration requirements, the Customer must provide all information deemed necessary for Lumen to properly configure the persistence element of the load-balancing service (if selected).
  • Customer will not (nor instruct nor permit any other party to) make any physical changes or take actions that would reduce the effectiveness of the EHE Equipment.
  • If the Customer declines to purchase Internet service through Lumen, the Customer must have a reliable and stable Internet connection. A connection is defined as unstable if it results in three false alarms per month. If there are three false alarms, the Customer will be charged a $300, or local currency equivalent, false alarm fee. After the first alarm, the Customer may contact the Lumen Response Center to discontinue the monitoring after which such time, Lumen will temporarily cease delivering the monitoring service as set forth in the “Monitoring” section of this SG.

5.3. Environmental Requirements

Installations at a Customer premise or Customer-provided third-party sites require Customer adherence to the Environmental Requirements for EHE Equipment, detailed in Exhibit A. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in related Lumen Service Guides, if Customer’s architected solution utilizes any on-premise hardware, whether Lumen-owned or Customer-provided, the Environmental Requirements are applied to all integrated equipment. Customer’s failure to adhere to the Environmental Requirements voids the Service SLA and may impede Lumen from providing the Service or any of the related support activities without further obligation or liability to Lumen.

Customer acknowledges that it retains the risk of loss for, loss of (including, without limitation, loss of use), or damage to, EHE Equipment, including any the Lumen provided and integrated equipment, including as a result of failure to comply with the Environmental Requirements. Customer will, within 30 days of invoice, reimburse Lumen for (i) replacement value of EHE Equipment as new at then current prices if the equipment is not capable of repair (as determined by Lumen), or (ii) the repair cost.

5.4 Customer Obligations related to EHE Equipment

(A) Lumen or in certain jurisdictions, a Lumen supplier will hold title to the EHE Equipment. Customer will keep all EHE Equipment free of liens and will not allow any liens, encumbrances, or claims to be levied against the EHE Equipment.

(B) Customer will not: (i) change, remove or obscure any labels, plates or insignia, lettering or other markings placed on the EHE Equipment; (ii) repair, replace or make physical modifications to EHE Equipment without written authorization from Lumen or Lumen’s supplier; (iii) alter, disconnect or move the EHE Equipment from the designated address unless otherwise approved in writing by Lumen; or (vi) modify, decompile, unlock, reverse-engineer, disassemble, incorporate or use in any other works, create derivatives of, or copy any portion of, or otherwise translate the EHE Equipment and/or the associated software or attempt to reconstruct or discover any source code, underlying ideas, algorithms, file formats or programming interfaces of the EHE Equipment by whatever means.

(C) Customer will: (i) provide Lumen, and/or its suppliers with reasonable access to the EHE Equipment for inspection and maintenance; (iii) assure Customer provided or contracted locations are secure and comply with safety and health standards consistent with industry standards; (iv) comply with all license terms applicable to any software supplied with the EHE Equipment; (v) insure the EHE Equipment against loss from damage or theft in amounts reasonably acceptable to Lumen; (vi) maintain adequate security policies and procedures for the EHE Equipment, network or applications which interface with the EHE Equipment; (vii) if applicable, timely provide Lumen and its suppliers with any needed Customer completed import/export documentation and undertakings (including but not limited to acting as the importer of record if requested by Lumen or its suppliers).

5.5 Testing

Lumen will provide testing (functionality, connectivity, etc.) for the initial handoff of the EHE as well as testing for any subsequent code changes.

5.6 Maintenance and Support

Customer must request any changes by contacting Lumen support which can be found here. Customer must provide complete authentication credentials to the Lumen support when requesting changes.

6. Acknowledgements and Consent

6.1. Third-Party Components

Customer acknowledges that all third-party components of the Service are subject to the applicable vendor’s decision to (i) not continue to provide or renew the Service with Lumen and/or (ii) modify or end of life a component(s). If any of the foregoing occurs, Lumen will use commercially reasonable efforts to migrate Customer to a comparable component or another Lumen service, at Lumen’s discretion. Such migration will occur without regard to Customer’s current term.

Lumen and its affiliated companies will not be liable to Customer or indemnify Customer for any claims of infringement of patent, copyright or other intellectual property right related to third-party software components.

6.2. Provide Contact

Designate and maintain a 24/7 Customer Contact during the service term and any applicable renewal term (including current contact information). “Customer Contact” means an English-speaking technical point of contact with sufficient knowledge, authority and access to address configuration issues, event notifications, system or infrastructure modifications and authentication of applicable systems.

6.3. Security Precautions

Neither Customer nor its representatives will attempt in any way to circumvent or otherwise interfere with any security precautions or measures of Lumen relating to the EHE Equipment.

6.4. Supportability

Lumen is not responsible for the Service or the SLA if any changes by Customer affect the infrastructure or monitoring capability of Lumen.

6.4. Supportability

Lumen is not responsible for the Service or the SLA if any changes by Customer affect the infrastructure or monitoring capability of Lumen.

6.5. Data Transfer

  • Customer consents that Lumen or its subcontractor(s) may access or use Customer’s personal information (including business contact information) across its global geographic operations as necessary to provide, support or improve Services or to otherwise perform under the Agreement. Customer represents that it will ensure that all information provided to Lumen is accurate at all times and that any business contact has consented to Lumen’s processing of such information for the purposes identified in this SG or the Agreement.
  • Customer consents to Lumen collecting and compiling system and operational metrics data to determine trends and improve service capabilities. Lumen may associate this data with similar data of other Customers so long as such data is merged in a manner that will not in any way reveal the data as being attributable to any specific Customer. Customer acknowledges Lumen’s access to Customer data is generally limited to machine/system generated information and/or metrics, however if required as part of Lumen’s obligation to provide the Service, or requests by Customer, Lumen may have access to Customer data, including personal information.

7. Definitions

EHE Equipment: Networking equipment (e.g. switches) and related operating software provided by Lumen for the purpose of connecting endpoint to Lumen managed hosting data center(s) for the delivery of managed services.

Hosting Area Network (HAN): The managed networking infrastructure that supports Lumen Managed Hosting services.

IP Address: A numerical identification (logical address) that is assigned to devices participating in a computer network utilizing the Internet Protocol for communication between its nodes.

Managed Hosting: The suite of Lumen managed server services that includes Foundation Hosting, Intelligent Hosting, and Dedicated Cloud Compute.

MRC: Monthly Recurring Cost

Portal or Managed Services Portal: The “Portal” is the interface that ties together centralized systems that Lumen uses to provide services to customers. Included in the Portal are systems for order processing, provisioning, procurement, management and monitoring, change management, billing, customer support/ticketing and reporting.

Exhibit A

Environmental Requirements for EHE Equipment at Customer provided locations

Customer must maintain proper environmental conditions as required by Lumen, Lumen’s supplier, or the EHE Equipment manufacturer.

FAILURE TO ADHERE TO THE ENVIRONMENTAL REQUIREMENTS DESCRIBED IN THIS EXHIBIT A WILL VOID ANY APPLICABLE SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENT AND MAY RESULT IN Lumen’S INABILITY TO PROVIDE THE SERVICE.

RACK AND CABINET

Customer must provide one standard rack to host the EHE Equipment that meets either of the following requirements:

  • Standard perforated cabinets
  • Standard open four-post server rack

TEMPERATURE AND HUMIDITY

The Service must maintain the following Temperature and Humidity standards.

Data center temperature within the recommended ASHRAE range of 64.4°F to 80.6°F.

Data center non-condensing humidity range within the allowable ASHRAE range of 20% relative humidity to 80% relative humidity.

POWER

Customer will (i) maintain and utilize primary and redundant power sources and equipment capable of operating at 100% of load, without sustaining an outage solely caused by power being lost to just one of the two power sources, (ii) use cabling that meets national electrical and fire standards and any specification required by Lumen, (iii) maintain connection of EHE Equipment directly into both the A power source and the B power source, (iv) will not permit power utilization to exceed the recommended power rating and (v) will maintain all EHE Equipment in compliance with the electrical regulations of the region where such equipment is installed.

Exhibit B

Service Level Agreement

Service Levels

This Service Level Agreement (SLA) applies to the availability of EHE Equipment and Customer’s ability to utilize the EHE Equipment in order to access the applicable Managed Services Node. A Managed Services Node is the location within a data center in which Lumen operates and maintains the physical hardware associated with Edge Hosting Services. Service levels do not apply due to Excused Events identified below.

This SLA does not apply to those instances in which Customer provides its own connectivity between the EHE Equipment and the applicable Managed Service Node since Lumen does not have the ability to monitor the EHE Equipment.

The service levels applicable to Lumen provided connectivity or managed services purchased under separate terms and conditions will apply in addition to this SLA.

Availability. Lumen will use commercially reasonable efforts to have (i) the EHE Equipment available; and (ii) Customer be able to access the Managed Services Node99.982% of the total hours in a calendar month (the “Availability SLA”).

“Service Unavailability” refers to a failure of EHE Equipment or Customer’s inability to access the applicable Managed Service Node despite operational EHE Equipment (e.g. failure of Lumen provided connectivity or other equipment/hardware within Lumen’s control). Customer is entitled to a service credit if one of the Service Unavailability scenarios applies in any calendar month. Service Unavailability is calculated from the timestamp when Lumen opens a trouble ticket following the report of a problem by the Customer until the time the ticket is closed. For Service Unavailability, Customer will be entitled to a service credit off the MRC for the affected Service based on the cumulative minutes of Service Unavailability in a calendar month in accordance with the table below.

Cumulative duration
of Service Unavailability
within a calendar month
Service Credits for Service Unavailability based
on a percentage of monthly charges
for the affected Services
≥ 7 minutes and < 60 minutes 5%
≥ 60 minutes and < 3 hours 15%
≥ 3 hours and < 6 hours 35%
≥ 6 hours and < 24 hours 50%
≥ 24 hours 100%

Response Time Service Level Objective (“Response Time SLOs). Lumen continuously monitors the EHE Equipment and provides on-site maintenance and repair once Lumen has detected the EHE Equipment has experienced a failure. The on-site coverage is as follows:

  • 24-hour Response Time SLO with advanced replacement repair coverage and on-site coverage options available at each Customer site

Service Credits

Customers must request any service credit due under this SLA by submitting an e-mail to billing.department@lumen.com within sixty (60) calendar days of the conclusion of the month in which the Service Unavailability(s) occurs. Customer waives any right to Service Credits not requested within this sixty (60) calendar day period. Service credits will be issued once validated by Lumen and applied toward the invoice which Customer receives no later than two (2) months following Customer’s Service credit request. All performance calculations and applicable Service credits are based on Lumen records and data unless Customer can provide Lumen with clear and convincing evidences to the contrary.

Limitations

The applicable SLA provides Customer's sole and exclusive remedies for any Service interruptions, deficiencies, or failures of any kind. The service levels will not apply, and Customer will not be entitled to receive a credit or exercise a termination right under the applicable service level, for (i) failure of Customer provided equipment or any other failure or malfunction of equipment, applications, public internet, network or systems not owned, controlled or provided by Lumen; (ii) Customers’ actions or omissions (including but not limited to not releasing the Service for testing/repair, failure or to provide timely approvals or consents, failure to provide and maintain current contact information and escalation lists; (iii) regularly scheduled maintenance or emergency maintenance; (iv) Lumen’s lack of access to the Customer premises where reasonably required to restore any equipment, internet, network, or systems owned or controlled by Lumen and necessary to provide the Service; (v) Customer’s failure to adhere to the Environmental Requirements, including equipment or system malfunctions; (vi) Customer failure to comply with Customer Responsibilities to the extent such failure results in a failure or inability to provide the Service; or (vii) Customer is in breach of its obligations under the Agreement or any applicable Service Attachments.