Question & Answer
Question
Cause
Answer
TechZone Support Severity Responsiveness Guidelines
|
Severity |
Description |
Initial Response Time |
Update Frequency |
*Resolution Target |
|
1 - (Critical) |
Complete outage or major impact on business operations (i.e. – all reservations fail to provision). No workaround available. |
Within 30 minutes |
Every 60 minutes |
Target resolution within 6 hours |
|
2 - (High) |
Major functionality impacted (Demo/Workshop/POC) scheduled within the next 24 hours and no workaround available. |
Within 1 hour |
Every 2 hours |
Target resolution within 1 business day |
|
3 - (Medium) |
Partial loss of functionality, performance issues with minimal business impact (extend reservation if AskTZ can not do it). |
Within 1 business day |
Daily or as updates occur |
Target resolution within 3 business days |
|
4 – (Low) |
Minor issues, general inquiries. |
Within 1 business day |
As needed |
Target resolution within 5 business days |
*Resolution target is a goal, not a commitment
TechZone Severity Guidelines:
TechZone will make reasonable efforts to respond to cases based on the criteria outlined in our Severity Guidelines. The initial response may resolve the request entirely or serve as a foundation for determining the next steps needed for technical resolution. Depending on the complexity of the request, subsequent responses may take additional time, potentially days.
Effective communication and agreement between our customers and IBM TechZone Support professionals are crucial to establish the appropriate next steps and define the timing of the next checkpoint. Please note that Severity 2, 3, and 4 issues reported outside of business hours will receive a response on the next business day.
Severity Level 1 - Critical Impact or Service Down (Initial response within 2 hours):
Business-critical functionality is inoperative, or a critical interface has failed. This impacts the environment, results in an inability to access services, and directly affects same day customer-facing activities (e.g., demos, workshops, paid learning sessions). Examples include:
- A widespread issue affecting multiple environments and reservations
- Cloud outages
- Infrastructure failures
- Network outages
- Storage capacity depletion
- Provisioning failures
Note: If Severity 1 is assigned for any other purpose, Support reserves the right to adjust the severity level accordingly.
Severity Level 2 - Significant Business Impact:
A service, major feature, or function of a service is restricted in its usage. For instance:
- Any issue affecting customer-facing environments where a Demo, POC, or Workshop is scheduled to happen within 24 hours will qualify as a Severity 2 if it disrupts customer work or seller preparation.
- The problem is not widespread and impacts a single reservation
Severity Level 3 - Minor Business Impact:
This indicates that the function or service is operational and there is no critical/immediate impact on business operations. In essence, all features are available and functioning as designed. This section is intended for requests such as:
- Reservation extension requests that cannot be handled via AskTZ
- A course that needs to be published
Severity Level 4 - A nontechnical request or inquiry
This section is intended for questions such as:
- Any inquiries related to "how to" use a function or service fall under Severity Level 4
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Document Information
Modified date:
24 July 2025
UID
ibm17237237