Support Services Policy

NOT FOR EDITING

Effective Date: January 23, 2025

(prior versions available here)

This ClickHouse Support Services Policy sets forth ClickHouse’s policy for the provision of Support Services to customers (each a "Customer") who have purchased a support subscription for ClickHouse Software (a "Subscription") or credits for the use of ClickHouse Cloud. This Support Services Policy does not apply to trial use of ClickHouse Cloud. Capitalized terms used, but not defined herein, have the definition set forth in the applicable agreement between ClickHouse and Customer (the "Agreement").

1. "Business Day" means Monday through Friday during Normal Business Hours (as defined below) other than a day designated from time to time as a national holiday in the place from which Support Services may be provided.
2. "Long-Term Supported Release" means the official release for the Software which has been designated as a release for long term support. ClickHouse designates it as a Long-Term Supported Release by including the letters "LTS" in the release number, which are typically March and August releases.
3. "Normal Business Hours" means Monday 00:00 UTC through Saturday 00:00 UTC.
4. "Regular Stable Sequential Release" means the official software release for the Software which has not been designated as a Long-Term Supported Release.
5. "Severity Level 1" (Critical Business Impact) means a critical production error within the Software or ClickHouse Cloud that severely impacts the Customer's use of the Software or ClickHouse Cloud for production purposes, such as the loss of production data or where production systems are not functioning and no work-around exists.
6. "Severity Level 2" (Major Business Impact) means an error within the Software or ClickHouse Cloud where the Customer's system is functioning for production purposes but in a reduced capacity, such as a problem that is causing significant impact to portions of the Customer's business operations and productivity, or where the system is exposed to potential loss or interruption of service.
7. "Severity Level 3" (Minor Business Impact or General Questions) means a medium-to-low impact error that involves partial and/or non-critical loss of functionality for production purposes or development purposes, such as a problem that impairs some operations but allows the Customer's operations to continue to function. Errors for which there is limited or no loss or functionality or impact to the Customer's operation and for which there is an easy workaround qualify as Severity Level 3. General questions are also Severity Level 3 issues.
8. "Support" means technical support by web conference, chat, Slack or email (or potentially on-premise in the case of a TAM Architect) provided by ClickHouse to a Support Contact concerning a Support Incident.
9. "Support Contact" means a single named individual who is authorized to contact ClickHouse to use the Support Services.
10. "Support Incident" means a single issue or error with the Software or with ClickHouse Cloud that is raised with ClickHouse by a Support Contact. Each Support Incident will be assigned a unique ID by ClickHouse. In the situation where multiple similar or equivalent cases are opened for a single Support Incident, ClickHouse may choose to consolidate these into a single support case, in which case it shall promptly notify Customer.
11. "TAM Architect" means a technical account manager that is assigned to an eligible customer.

The scope of the Support Services provided to Customer includes general assistance and support regarding the installation of the Software and the configuration of the Software and of ClickHouse Cloud, as well as operational assistance on how to use the Software and ClickHouse Cloud and development assistance on use of the Software. All Customers are entitled to an unlimited number of Support Incidents and Support Contacts. Customers entitled to a TAM Architect may receive the additional scope of Support Services as set forth here. ClickHouse shall use commercially reasonable efforts to meet the applicable target response times set forth in Section 3 below. Customer acknowledges that the time required for resolution of issues may vary depending on the specific circumstances of each problem, including, without limitation, the nature of the incident/problem, the extent and accuracy of information available about the incident/problem, and the level of Customer's cooperation and responsiveness in providing materials, information, access and support reasonably required by ClickHouse to achieve problem resolution.

a. Customer Tiers and Response Times

Enterprise Tier Response Times

• Severity Level 1 response time: 30 minutes
• Severity Level 2 response time: two Normal Business Hours
• Severity Level 3 response time: 24 Normal Business Hours Additional Enterprise Tier Entitlements
• Enterprise Tier Customers are entitled to a named lead support engineer.

Scale Tier Response Times

• Severity Level 1 response time: one Normal Business Hour
• Severity Level 2 response time: four Normal Business Hours
• Severity Level 3 response time: 24 Normal Business Hours

Basic Tier Tier Response Times

• Severity Level 3 response time: 24 Normal Business Hours

b. Efforts by Severity Level

Severity Level 1 Effort ClickHouse will respond to Severity Level 1 issues as set forth in the applicable tier above, and implement, subject to Customer availability to provide assistance, continuous follow-the-sun case management to provide a workaround or resolution for any Level 1 issues as soon as is commercially reasonable.

Severity Level 2 Effort ClickHouse will respond to Severity Level 2 issues as set forth in the applicable tier above, and use reasonable efforts to provide a workaround or resolution for any Severity Level 2 issues.

Severity Level 3 Effort ClickHouse will respond to Severity Level 3 issues as set forth in the applicable tier above, and use reasonable efforts to provide a resolution for any Severity Level 3 issues in a subsequent release of the Software or ClickHouse Cloud, as applicable. All inbound production email cases shall have an initial status of Severity Level 3.

Limitations Basic Tier Customers are not entitled to Severity Level 1 or Severity Level 2 Support Services. Response times do not apply to TAM Architects.

Customer agrees to provide ClickHouse with reasonable: (i) detail of the nature of and circumstances surrounding the issue, (ii) access to Customer's environment as necessary to enable ClickHouse to provide Support Services; and (iii) cooperation in the diagnosis and resolution of any issues. Customer understands that ClickHouse Support Services are provided in the English language and Customer is therefore obligated to provide Support Contacts who are reasonably proficient in reading, writing, speaking and understanding the English language.

Notwithstanding anything else: (i) for Customers with a Support Services Subscription for ClickHouse Software, ClickHouse will support (a) the current Regular Stable Release of the Software in conjunction with the two (2) prior Regular Stable Releases of the Software for a minimum period of three (3) months from the date of the current Regular Stable Release, and (b) ClickHouse will support the current Long-Term Supported Release of the Software in conjunction with the one (1) prior Long-Term Supported Release of the Software or a minimum period of one (1) year from the date of the current Long-Term Supported Release; (ii) ClickHouse will only support the then-current release of ClickHouse Cloud (subject to a grace period of up to 30 days applicable only to Enterprise tier Customers); and (iii) any issue that is raised when Customer is using non-production ready features in the Software or ClickHouse Cloud, which includes features designated by ClickHouse as “Experimental Features” or “Beta Features”, and “Private Preview” versions of ClickHouse Cloud may only be filed (and will only be supported) as a Severity Level 3 issue.

ClickHouse will have no obligation to provide Support Services to Customer in the event that (i) the Software or ClickHouse Cloud has been changed, modified or damaged by Customer or anyone other than ClickHouse, (ii) the problem is caused by Customer's negligence, misconduct, or misuse of the Software or ClickHouse Cloud, a hardware malfunction, or other causes beyond the reasonable control of ClickHouse, (iii) the problem is due to third party software, (iv) the Software is being hosted by a third party that is offering the Software as a service (v) Customer has not installed or implemented any Software or ClickHouse Cloud releases, as applicable, made generally available or is not running a then supported version of the Software or ClickHouse Cloud, in each case, as provided by ClickHouse or (vi) information requested by Customer could reasonably be expected to assist in the development, deployment, enablement and/or maintenance of any non-ClickHouse software or software-as-a-service offering that competes with ClickHouse's Software or ClickHouse Cloud. The Support Services do not cover the support of any third party software that integrates with the Software or ClickHouse Cloud or the investigation into a potential or actual security incident in a Customer environment, including but not limited to the analysis and response to security events and signals. In addition, the Support Services do not include the following: (a) use of any version of a Software that is not designated as a production release (such as a milestone or release candidate or code contained in the sandbox or any other repository that is not packaged into a production release distribution); (b) Customer's failure to comply with operating instructions contained in the Documentation for the Software or ClickHouse Cloud; (c) installation, configuration, management and operation of Customer's applications; (d) APIs, interfaces or data formats other than those included with the Software or ClickHouse Cloud; or (e) any training.

A list of supported platforms for the Software is set forth here.