DR & BCP Policy
Contour is fully responsible for all DR procedures for Cloud Members and a broader DR responsibility with respect to our overall technology solution. Self-Managed members are responsible for their own Disaster Recovery ("DR") procedures for their Node inline with their internal objectives and policies. Contour is also responsible for it's own Business Continuity Processes ("BCP") in order to continue operations in the event of a major incident.
Statement
- Contour will maintain a comprehensive DR plans (the "Plan") to help ensure that Contour will be able to provide the Services and perform its obligations from alternate technical solutions, physical locations or with replacement Personnel no later than the applicable RTO as defined in the Support handbook.
- The Plan will cover all essential and critical infrastructure elements, systems and networks, in accordance with key business activities.
- The Plan will be tested at least yearly in a simulated environment to ensure that it can be implemented in emergency situations and that the management and staff understand how it is to be executed, with the success criteria and results made available to Members if requested.
- Changes may be made as long as the changes do not degrade Plan in a manner that is likely to adversely affect the Services (e.g. lengthening its RTOs).
- The Plan is to be kept up to date to take into account changing circumstances.
Failover Strategy & RTO - Contour Cloud
Contour will deploy a Member's node the Cloud region of the Member's choice and manage the backup within that region across multiple availability zones. Keeping the data in region, ensure compliance with the data residency requirements Member's may have.
Contour Cloud is capable of auto identification of software or hardware errors and automatically fails over to other services within the region.
The recovery time objective is defined as the point at which the affected service is either:
- Fully operational and able to interact with the rest of the Contour Network as it did before the incident or;
- A temporary workaround has been applied to restore the affected service, although further changes may be required to implement a permanent resolution.
The recovery time objective excludes any time required for Members to complete required actions as a part of any incident resolution steps i.e. if an update is required as a part of service recovery, and Members are required to make these updates on their nodes to restore connectivity / full functionality. During any such incident, regular updates will be made available.
| Service | RTO | Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Contour Cloud | 4h | Each instance runs atop an active/active Kubernetes cluster across multiple availability zones within the cloud's provider's region and leverages other active/active services. Failover of any of these services or availability zones within the region is automatic. In extremis, operations teams will manually restart the necessary services. The URL used by the member to access the service will remain the same. |
| Contour BNO | 4h | Runs atop an active/active Kubernetes cluster across multiple availability zones with that cloud's region and leverages other active/active services. Failover of any of these services or availability zones within the Region is automatic |
| Contour Support Portal | 2h | In the event that the Support Portal is unavailable, Contour will active and allow emails to the support@contour.network email address for Members to raise issues until such time the as the Portal is active. |
Production Service Level Agreements ("SLAs")
As Contour is a decentralised network, Service Levels are only applicable to services on the Network that impact the normal course of business for a Member. For example, if one Member's Cloud Node is unavailable, the rest of the network will remain fully operational for all other Members. Self-managed members are responsible for their own Node SLAs.
| Service | Uptime SLA | Impact if unavailable | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contour Cloud | >99.9% | Impacted Members cannot connect to their node to view, manage or initiate transactions | |
| Contour BNO | >99% | New Members cannot be added to the network |
“Uptime SLA” means 100% minus the percentage of minutes of unavailability (excluding minutes of Maintenance) out of the total minutes in the calendar month.
Reports
Contour makes available a monthly report, detailing out the major incidents and SLA metrics. This is available here
Data Backup Strategy & RPO
Contour leverages services of the Member's chosen cloud provider region's services to provide full, real-time data-backup within the region. Self-Managed members are responsible for their own back-up strategies.
| Service | RPO | Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Contour Cloud | 0m | Data is replicated within Region across multiple availability zones. In the event of failure the service will auto-recover. In extremis, operations teams will manually restart the necessary services and recover to the point in time of the failure. Data is not replicated across Regions in order to comply with data residency requirements. |
| Contour BNO | 0m | Data is replicated within Region across multiple availability zones. |
Activating the Plan
If a incident occurs and the automated failover errors or are not effective or the RTO/RPO are at risk, the Support Engineer on call is automatically notified in real-time. An Incident Manager is appointed. Escalation will immediately occur, whereby the Ops Manager (primary) or Engineering Manager (primary) is authorised to invoke the plan with the approval from the COO (primary) or CPO (secondary) of Contour.
Impacted Members will be notified and regular updates will be provided as to the latest status, impact and expected time to resolution. Following the issue, a Post Incident Review will be created and shared Impacted Members.
Contour BCP
Contour, as its network, is decentralised. The company uses modern digital systems to enable real-time monitoring of the services and ensure it remains contactable by Members. There is no central node operated by Contour that is required to facilitate transactions, nor is there a centralised operations centre from which monitoring can only occur.
Suspension
Pursuant to the Contour Rulebook, Contour has the right to suspend the platform under certain circumstances. Should such an event occur, Contour will promptly inform Members of the Suspension, its rationale and the expected duration of suspension. Further updates will be provided at least every 24h during the Suspension period.