ALICE Standard Service Levels | September 2026

APEXE3 Service Level Agreement

Document status	Standard client-facing service level document
Version	1.0 - September 2026
Solution	ALICE
Business Hours	08:30 to 17:00 UK time, Monday to Friday excluding UK public holidays

Purpose. This document describes the standard service levels APEXE3 applies to production deployments of ALICE. It covers platform availability, incident classification, response targets, maintenance and operational support. Response and availability commitments apply to APEXE3-managed components of ALICE; resolution times may depend on the nature of an incident and on access, information or action required from a client or third party.

1. Uptime Service Level

APEXE3 will use all reasonable endeavours to ensure that ALICE and, where applicable, its production API achieve an Uptime Percentage of 99.9% or more in each calendar month, excluding the periods and events described in section 2.

Uptime formula

Uptime Percentage = ((total minutes in the calendar month - minutes of qualifying Downtime) / total minutes in the calendar month) x 100. Uptime is rounded to one decimal place for reporting purposes.

For the purpose of this SLA, Downtime means a period during which an APEXE3-managed production instance of ALICE is materially unavailable to authorised users as a result of a fault within components controlled by APEXE3. Partial degradation that does not materially prevent use of the service is handled through the incident-priority process in section 4.

2. Events excluded from Downtime

The following periods do not count as qualifying Downtime when calculating Uptime Percentage:

Planned maintenance notified in advance in accordance with section 6.
Emergency maintenance reasonably required to protect security, stability or data integrity.
Failure, degradation or unavailability of client-controlled networks, devices, identity providers, systems, integrations or other infrastructure outside APEXE3 control.
Failure or degradation of third-party services, cloud services, model providers, data providers or internet connectivity outside APEXE3 reasonable control.
Issues caused by unauthorised modification, misuse, incorrect configuration, unsupported use, operator error or failure to follow APEXE3 instructions.
Suspension or restriction reasonably required to address an actual or suspected security risk, unlawful use or material threat to the platform.
Force majeure or other events beyond APEXE3 reasonable control.
Time during which APEXE3 is awaiting information, access, approval or action reasonably required from the client to diagnose or resolve the issue.

3. No Service Credits

Important

APEXE3 does not offer service credits for failure to meet the uptime or response targets in this SLA. A failure to meet a service level does not automatically give rise to a credit, refund, fee reduction, penalty or other financial compensation.

The service levels are operational commitments intended to define the standard of support and availability APEXE3 works to provide. Where a target is missed, APEXE3 will review the circumstances, prioritise restoration and take reasonable corrective action appropriate to the incident.

4. Defect and Incident Response

Incidents and defects are triaged according to business impact and operational urgency. Service Response Time means the target time for APEXE3 to acknowledge a reported issue, assess its priority and commence support activity. It is not a guaranteed resolution time.

Priority	Definition	Response target	APEXE3 response
P1	Critical severity: production ALICE is completely unavailable, or a critical core function is unavailable for all or substantially all authorised users.	30 minutes, 24x7	Acknowledge and commence incident response. APEXE3 will prioritise diagnosis and restoration, use live collaboration or debugging where appropriate, and work continuously on an APEXE3-controlled P1 incident until service is restored or a reasonable workaround is available. If a workaround is used, work will continue toward full restoration.
P2	High severity: production ALICE remains usable but is severely impaired and the issue is having a significant business impact.	2 Business Hours	Acknowledge and commence technical support. APEXE3 will prioritise diagnosis and use reasonable endeavours during Business Hours to provide a fix, configuration change or workaround. Work will continue toward full restoration where a workaround is initially provided.
P3	Medium severity: any production defect, incident or other problem that is not P1 or P2.	4 Business Hours	Acknowledge the issue and commence investigation through the normal support process. APEXE3 will determine the appropriate fix, configuration change, release or workaround and communicate material progress as appropriate.

4.1 Priority assignment

APEXE3 will assign or confirm the priority of an incident based on the information available at the time, including number of affected users, loss of functionality, business impact, security exposure, availability of a workaround and whether the issue is confined to a specific client configuration. Priority may be adjusted if the impact changes or additional information becomes available.

4.2 Resolution and restoration

Because software and infrastructure incidents vary materially in cause and complexity, APEXE3 does not provide a fixed resolution or fix time for every incident. Where practicable, APEXE3 will provide progress updates for P1 and P2 incidents and an estimated remediation path once sufficient diagnostic information is available. Remediation may take the form of a configuration change, hotfix, patch, release, workaround, infrastructure change or other technically appropriate measure.

5. Support Coverage

APEXE3 provides operational support for production ALICE environments. Critical production availability incidents are supported on a 24x7 basis. P2 and P3 technical support response targets are measured during Business Hours unless otherwise stated by APEXE3 for a particular service channel.

P1 operational incidents: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
P2 and P3 technical support: Business Hours.
Support channels: designated APEXE3 support email and, where established, approved collaboration or incident channels such as Microsoft Teams or Slack.
Live debugging or screen sharing may be used where reasonably required and approved by the client.
Security vulnerabilities and production-impacting issues are prioritised according to severity, exposure and operational urgency.

6. Maintenance and Platform Updates

APEXE3 manages platform maintenance, security updates and application deployments for APEXE3-managed ALICE environments. Where planned maintenance may materially affect availability, APEXE3 will normally provide at least 48 hours notice. Planned maintenance is targeted not to exceed six hours in aggregate in a calendar month.

Platform enhancements and feature releases.
Security hardening, vulnerability remediation and compliance-related patches.
Infrastructure, dependency and framework maintenance.
Performance optimisation and reliability improvements.
Controlled application and configuration deployments.

Emergency maintenance may be carried out with reduced or no advance notice where APEXE3 reasonably considers this necessary to address a serious security vulnerability, active threat, service instability or risk to data integrity. Where possible, APEXE3 will communicate emergency maintenance promptly and minimise disruption.

7. Incident Communication

For material production incidents, APEXE3 will provide communication proportionate to the severity and duration of the incident. This may include acknowledgement, confirmed priority, known impact, mitigation or workaround information, material progress updates, restoration confirmation and post-incident information where appropriate.

8. Monitoring and Measurement

APEXE3 uses platform and infrastructure monitoring appropriate to the relevant ALICE deployment to support availability, incident detection, troubleshooting and performance management. Availability calculations are based on APEXE3 monitoring and operational records for components under APEXE3 control. Where a client identifies an issue not visible through APEXE3 monitoring, the client should report it promptly with sufficient information to support diagnosis.

9. Client Responsibilities

Effective incident response depends on timely cooperation. Clients should:

Report suspected service-impacting issues promptly through an approved support channel.
Provide sufficient information to reproduce or investigate an issue, including relevant timestamps, affected users, error messages and screenshots where appropriate.
Provide reasonable access or diagnostic information where required to investigate a client-specific issue.
Maintain client-controlled networks, endpoints, identity services, integrations and credentials in a secure and supported condition.
Avoid unauthorised changes to ALICE or its supporting configuration and follow APEXE3 operational guidance.
Respond in a timely manner when APEXE3 requests information, approval or action required to progress remediation.

10. Service Improvement

APEXE3 reviews material incidents and recurring operational issues as part of its service-improvement process. Corrective actions may include software fixes, security patches, monitoring changes, configuration improvements, infrastructure changes, runbook updates or other preventative measures. ALICE service levels and operating procedures may evolve as the platform and supporting technology are improved.

Questions about ALICE service levels may be directed to contactus@apexe3.com.