Policies

Below are our policies about the wide variety of OARnet services. As always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the OARnet support center at support@oar.net.

Client Contact Policy

OARnet Policy Contact PDF

Please note: Business Hours are defined as Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Clients are required to maintain valid contact information for their organization through the OARnet Gateway website. Our ability to keep your organization informed of scheduled maintenance events, as well as resolving outages, relies on up-to-date and reliable contact information. Failure to maintain your contacts may result in a lack of notification to your organization.

OARnet has defined contact roles that help us maintain the highest quality of service for our clients. All required roles: Administrative, After Hours 1-3, Billing, Escalation 1-3, Executive, Last Resort, Maintenance and Security Operations, must have a contact assigned. Optional roles include: Copyright, DNS, Research, Security Executive, Site Access and Technical. Contacts can be applied to multiple roles. Each contact must have a first name, last name, title, email and at least one phone number.

Clients are responsible for removing individuals who are no longer with your organization from the Gateway and assign a different contact to their previous roles. It is important to assign new contacts to roles in the event of an extended staff leave for the duration of that timeline.

Outage and Troubleshooting

OARnet will notify and work with your, Escalation 1-3 contacts (Business Hours) and After Hours 1-3 contacts (outside Business Hours) in ascending order. In the event OARnet is unable to reach the designated contacts, the Last Resort contact will be used. For each contact, OARnet will attempt the office and mobile numbers. If there is no answer a voicemail will be left before moving onto the next contact. When all designated contacts are exhausted the issue is escalated internally as a last recourse.

After Hours Support Opt-out:

Organizations may opt-out of After Hours Support for any site not designated as Emergency Services. This option is provided to support organizations not staffed after hours or sites with non-critical business services. Organizations authorize the opt-out option through the OARnet Gateway. OARnet staff are not authorized to opt-out on behalf of a client. After Hours Support may be resumed at anytime through the OARnet Gateway.

When a site has been opted-out of After Hours Support OARnet will discontinue proactive monitoring and troubleshooting network services outside of Business Hours. This includes service affecting issues. In the event of an incident outside Business Hours, OARnet will notify the site Escalation 1 contact via e-mail and resume normal escalation procedures the following business day. In the event of a service disruption outside Business Hours your organization will be responsible for initiating contact with OARnet for assistance.

Configuration changes

The Support Center will only accept configuration change requests from individuals in the Administrative and Technical contact roles. Administrative, Technical or DNS contact roles may request DNS changes. Configuration changes include bandwidth increases, temporary cap removals or any change that could adversely affect a client's connection or services, such as router or domain name changes. OARnet will contact your Administrative contact for any request made from individuals not in authorized roles.

Security

OARnet will notify your Security Operations contacts for alerts and notifications related to security operations and incident response such as spam alerts, phishing attacks, DDOS, copyright violations or other Internet abuse notifications. For legal, security related service changes or policy related communications, OARnet will contact your Security Executive if one has been identified. If a Security Executive is not identified, we will contact the Executive contact. Note that at some organizations the CISO may not be a member of the networking or core IT groups.

Trouble Reports

OARnet can only accept trouble reports from listed contacts. We will consult with your Administrative contact for all incidents reported from non-listed contacts.

Client Support Centers or 3rd Party Organizations

Centers and 3rd Party contractors as Contact Roles to work with the OARnet support. Please be advised OARnet is unable to verify individuals from these groups and therefore will assume the individuals are authorized contacts. Our NOC will work with individuals from Support Center or 3rd Party organization as long as that group is identified in the appropriate roles. 

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

DNS Request Policy

OARnet DNS Request Policy PDF

DNS requests must be submitted by an Administrative, Technical or DNS contact from the OARnet Gateway, and they must be sent in writing. The written request avoids errors that can occur when trying to collect host names or IP addresses over the telephone. Once the Service Desk receives a request, we open a ticket on this issue and assign it to our hostmaster for processing.

Turn around time for the completion of DNS requests is up to two business days from the time the request is submitted. If you have a special situation, please contact us so we can make arrangements to help you.

Answers to frequently asked questions regarding DNS are here.

Co-Location Visitation Policy

OARnet CoLocation Policy PDF

Clients who co-locate servers with OARnet can obtain access to their servers 24/7. The installation or de-installation of equipment must be arranged through your client services representative. This allows appropriate arrangements for shutting down ports and VLANS and adjusting billing.

Peering Policy

OARnet Peering Policy PDF

The policy outlines OARnet's guiding principles and process for peering. OARnet recognizes the benefit peering brings to our constituents. By extension of our mission to the greater good of the state, it also acknowledges peering will help create a more robust broadband infrastructure.

Escalation Policies

OARnet Escalation Policy PDF

Service-affecting Escalation Policy

Your organization may request escalation of an outage or service issue at any time. If an issue remains unresolved, it will be escalated from the current level to the next higher level within OARnet in the following manner until it is resolved. You may also request an escalation of your problem until you feel you are satisfied. Escalation requests can be made through the Service Desk and your issue will be escalated through the following levels.

If the request is made by an unauthorized contact, OARnet will follow-up with your appropriate authorized contact.

Levels of escalation:

1. OARnet Service Desk
2. Tier 2 Engineering Network Operations Center (NOC)
3. Tier 2 Engineering Network Operations Center (NOC) Manager
4. Network Director 
5. OARnet Executive Director

When an issue is escalated, the person the issue is escalated to is to contact the client within 30 minutes of receiving the escalation to let the client know the escalation has been made and the current status of the ticket.

Non-Service Escalation Policy

Your organization may request escalation of administrative, billing or non-service effecting issue at any time. If the request is made by an unauthorized contact, OARnet will verify with your appropriate authorized contact.

Escalation requests can be made through the Service Desk or your Business Relationship Manager and your issue will be escalated based on the issue at hand.

Related Policy

OARnet Contact Role Policy: Authorized Contacts are managed through the OARnet Gateway.

Contact Role Definitions (Contact Policy cont.)

Additional Support 

An individual, Support Center or a 3rd Party Contractor authorized to perform Escalation/After Hours responsibilities: such as assist OARnet to verify power at the site, check the physical status of any OARnet or service provider equipment, as well as verify and test connectivity from the site. They must be reachable by phone. 

Individuals from a Support Center or 3rd Party Contractor who contact OARnet on your behalf will be considered authorized if they provide the name of the support center / 3rd Party Organization. OARnet is unable to verify individuals from these groups (unless the individual is also a Contact Role) and therefore will assume the individuals are authorized contacts.

Administrative (required)

Contacts assigned to the Administrative role are authorized to request or approve configuration changes. They provide authorization for Gateway view and edit access. This contact oversees your organization’s overall compliance of the Contact Policy. It is recommended the Administrative Contact be a Gateway Editor.

After Hours 1 - 3 (required)

Outside of Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.: In the event of a service disruption OARnet will notify and work with your After Hours 1 - 3 contacts in ascending order. This contact will assist OARnet to verify power at the site, check the physical status of any OARnet or service provider equipment, as well as verify and test connectivity from the site. They must be reachable by phone after hours. The Last Resort contact will be used if After Hours 1-3 are unreachable.

Billing (required)

The authorized contact at your organization for billing management.

Copyright

OARnet will use this contact if a copyright violation notice is received for your organization.

DNS

This is a role is typically fulfilled by your Doman Name System administrator. Service requests initiated by this contact are limited to DNS changes.

EM Web Hosting

This individual is authorized to support your Emergency Web Hosting for your Organization. Service requests initiated by this contact are limited to Emergency Web Hosting.

Escalation 1 - 3 (required)

Business Hours Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.: In the event of a service disruption OARnet will notify and work with your Escalation 1 - 3 contacts in ascending order. This contact will assist OARnet to verify power at the site, check the physical status of any OARnet or service provider equipment, as well as verify and test connectivity from the site. They must be reachable by phone. The Last Resort contact will be used if Escalation 1-3 are unreachable.

Executive (required)

This is your technology executive (i.e. CIO or CTO) contact.

Last Resort (required)

OARnet will use this contact if and only if the Escalation (Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.) or After Hours (outside of Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.) contacts are unreachable in emergency situations. When After Hours Support has been disabled for a site the Last Resort contact will only be valid during Business Hours.

Maintenance (required)

Maintenance contacts will receive notifications of any scheduled or emergency maintenance that may affect your services. This includes work done by OARnet or by any of our vendors or service providers. To receive maintenance notifications, you must be identified as a maintenance contact.

Research

This contact should be the designated leader for research on your campus. OARnet would like to have appropriate contacts for communicating about projects related to the 100Gig backbone and statewide collaborations..

Security (required)

This contact is the individual or group to which spam alerts, phishing attacks, DDOS, copyright violations or other Internet abuse notifications should be sent, for IP addresses allocated to your institution.

Security Executive

This is your (Chief) Information Security Officer (ISO/CISO) or equivalent individual with overall responsibility for information security, legal, security related service changes or policy related communications. This person will typically be the OARsec representative for the organization.

Site Access

This is an opportunity to provide a contact to allow OARnet access into a site (such as a reception desk, etc…).

Technical

This contact is authorized to make configuration change requests, including: routing, DNS, interfaces, etc…