Support and Maintenance Terms of Service 

1. Overview

These Rancher Government Solutions Support and Maintenance Terms of Service (these “Terms”) govern the provision of software support and maintenance by provided by Rancher Federal, Inc., DBA Rancher Government Solutions (“RGS”).

RGS offers entitlement access and production support for RGS Products, potentially including consultancy, training, project management, implementation services or such other services as specified in an SOW (as defined below) (“Services”). Services are provided 100% from the United States by U.S. Citizens.  Services are provided only to customers with an active support subscription. A company (the “Customer”) may purchase a subscription from the RGS sales department. Once purchased, an RGS representative will deliver entitlement access to the purchased software and activate the Customer in the RGS Support Portal system, which will enable the Customer to obtain Services at the appropriate level of service. These Terms are used in conjunction with the Rancher Government Solutions Enterprise Agreement found here: https://ranchergovernment.com/terms-and-conditions.

Capitalized terms used, but not otherwise defined, herein shall have the respective meanings ascribed to such terms in Section 11.

2. Updates

These Terms will be updated periodically. For example, as new releases become Generally Available, the End of Maintenance and End of Service dates will be refreshed, and new products may be added, and older products may be modified or deleted from the Rancher Support Matrix.  All changes will be promptly published to the RGS website (https://ranchergovernment.com)

3. Rules of Engagement

3.1. No Obligation. The existence of these Terms does not obligate RGS to provide any Services, issue a quote or enter into any Statement of Work (SOW) or Order with Customer.

3.2. Initiating Services. All Services provided by RGS to Customer shall be provided pursuant to: (a) individual Statements of Work as agreed in accordance with Section 5; or (b) Orders, in which case only standard services available as Service Offerings shall be provided.

3.3. Agreement Structure. Each SOW and each Order is a standalone contract that incorporates these Terms, any Online Service Description referred to in such SOW or Order, and the terms of the Subscription Agreement (each such standalone contract being an “SOW”).

3.4. Change Order. Changes to these Terms or SOW will not be effective unless agreed in a written Change Order signed by each of the parties.

3.5. Order of Precedence. To the extent of any conflict or ambiguity between these Terms and the terms of a SOW, the following order of precedence applies: (1) all change orders, with later change orders taking precedence over earlier change orders; (2) the SOW; (3) these Terms (4) the Subscription Agreement; and (5) the Online Service Description (if any).

3.6. Services under a SOW. If the Parties have not executed a SOW, the only Services Customer may procure are Service Offerings via an Order. A binding contract for the performance of Services with respect to Customer is formed at the time an Order for Service Offerings is placed to and accepted by RGS.

4. Service Scope

4.1. Overview. RGS shall make available adequately trained personnel to provide the Services specified in an SOW or in an Online Service Description. RGS’s obligation to provide Services is only for the scope and as outlined in either these Terms, the Online Service Description, or the SOW and, except as specifically identified in an SOW, shall not include any deliverables. The RGS personnel providing Services shall follow the reasonable instructions of the Customer, provided that RGS personnel shall not be required to perform Services outside of the scope defined in the applicable SOW.

4.2. Customer Project Management. Except where the Customer has purchased Project Management Services, the Customer is responsible for managing the timely delivery of the Services in accordance with its requirements, and is responsible for ensuring that the Scope is adequate to meet its requirements.

5. Statement of Work (SOW) Process

5.1.  RGS shall provide a draft SOW to the Customer for the parties’ mutual review and agreement.  Once agreed to, the SOW will be incorporated into the order document for the Services. Once executed the SOW will be the “Scope” of the engagement for the Services.

5.2. An SOW will become effective after the incorporation and execution of an order and after the period of performance start date listed on the order. The SOW will expire with the order at the end of the period of performance.

6. Customer Responsibilities

6.1. Customer warrants that it has all consents necessary to grant RGS the rights to use, and will provide, all tools, systems, software, documentation and materials that Customer requires RGS to use to provide the Services.

6.2. Security. Customer shall not provide, permit or enable RGS to access personal data except where specifically agreed in an SOW and as necessary for the performance of the Services.

7. Service Level Agreement (SLA)

The RGS SLA is defined in terms of initial response time after a Customer files a support ticket. RGS has defined 4 severity levels under which tickets can be filed (depending on the level of support purchased), described in the table below:

The Customer will provide an initial view on the severity level associated with a ticket. The RGS Support Manager will determine, at RGS’s sole discretion, if the ticket was correctly classified and may increase or decrease the assigned severity level. Target response times are shown in the table below for each severity level:

8. RGS Support Plan

9. What is supported 

9.1. Functionality bugs where the product is not behaving as expected. 

9.1.1.   Functionality bugs as a result of customer-specific modifications may not be supported (in comparison to existing documentation). 

9.2. Troubleshooting related to: 

• Installation errors 
• Configuration errors 
• Out of the box not working functionality  
• Booting issues (e.g., after patching) 

9.3. Defect (bug) reports. 

• Support will file bug reports with the engineering team and provide updates on the progress as they become available. SLA/SLO cannot be guaranteed when escalated.  
• Fixes will be determined by the RGS engineering team and a patch will be provided in an upcoming maintenance release (or be back ported). SLA/SLO cannot be guaranteed when escalated. 

9.4. Performance degradation issues 

• Support will analyze whether a degradation of performance lies within the core product. 
• The default severity will be set to Severity 3 (Medium). 

9.5.  Root Cause Analysis (RCA) 

• Conducted upon reasonable request from the Customer.
• The default severity will be set to Severity 3 (Medium). 
• An RCA cannot be guaranteed for any of the following reasons:
  • If the logs are unavailable or inconclusive
  • Crash dump has not been enabled.
  • If the environment is not stable.
    

A single support case will only handle one issue from the above list. When the initial issue is resolved, it may be required to open additional cases to resolve further issues. If the Customer case contact fails to engage with their support engineer on Severity 1 cases the engineer will reduce the severity of the case.

10. What is NOT Supported

The following scenarios are NOT supported as part of the RGS support subscription. Where an RGS support subscription does not provide coverage for the Customer’s desired support, RGS Services may be needed to provide enhanced support.

• Unsupported versions. Please review the support matrix to verify that your infrastructure and applications are supported.
• System and network design and maintenance
• New configuration, installation & optimization (work requiring consulting and/or training services)
• Custom scripts
• Questions about design or architecture
• Third-party software/drivers and uncertified hardware/hypervisors (Customers shall engage with respective vendors on such issues)
• Limited commercial support for packages from the SUSE Package Hub. For further information please see here
• Limited support for situations with tainted kernels. Please see details here
• Performance improvements
• Products that are outside of the general life cycle support (EOL)
  • Customers may continue to use these products through the subscription term; but RGS will not provide technical support should any issues/queries arise.
  • When the subscription expires, customers will need to migrate to a new solution.
  •  Information pertaining toe Product Support Lifecycle can be accessed here

• Systems that are not properly patched
• Uncertified hardware/hypervisors
• Code development
• Modified RPMs
• Support may be limited in cases where systems have installed packages from different RGS Products, product versions or service packs. Complete support is guaranteed only for the program version that comes bundled with the corresponding product or version
• Consulting, Training, Scheduled stand-by support. These are paid services. Information pertaining to these professional services can be found here.
• Security Auditing
  • RGS Support will not comment on the output of vulnerability scans, audits, etc. performed by third party software.
  • Before inquiring about information regarding a specific vulnerability, please check the available resources via the following links:
    • SUSE Security
    • SUSE CVE Database
  • RGS recommends for Customers interested in information about a specific vulnerability that possibly affects their systems to please open a support ticket and share the CVE of that vulnerability and the estimated impact.

Many 3rd party scanners only verify the software package version and will thus provide misleading information for RGS Products, which will contain security patches and backports of upstream changes but with a specific version.

11.    Defined Terms

11.1.  General Availability (GA) means the date that signifies when a Customer may purchase a support plan for a new product release that is tagged “Stable”. Note: Support plans are only for published product releases that are tagged “Stable”. Any product release with the “Latest” tag is meant solely for open source community users and not covered by a support plan from RGS.

11.2.  End of Maintenance (EOM) means the date that signifies when a specific product release will have no further code-level maintenance other than security-related updates deemed critical by the software manufacturer, RGS. Security issues could be related to publicly identified security vulnerabilities or privately by RGS and its ecosystem partners.

11.3.  End of Life (EOL) means the date after which neither security-related maintenance builds, nor technical support through RGS, will be available for a product release.

11.4.  Long Term Support Service (LTSS) means LTSS provides up to 3 years of continued access to technical support, maintenance and security patches for selected products that have reached the end of general support date.

11.5.  Extreme Long Term Support Service (XLTSS) means XLTSS adds one additional year to LTSS.

12. Understanding Release Versions

“Major Releases” (X.y.z) deliver major features and enhancements. They are not guaranteed backwards compatible with any previous Major Release. “Minor Releases” (x.Y.z) deliver minor feature developments, enhancements to existing features, and bug fixes. They incorporate all applicable fixes made in prior minor and maintenance releases. “Maintenance Releases” (x.y.Z) deliver bug fixes that are severely affecting a number of customers and cannot wait for the next major or minor release. They incorporate all applicable fixes made in prior maintenance releases.

13.    RGS Support Matrix

RGS Products may be distributed with certain “open source software” or “free software” (“Open Source Software”) or contain open source integrations with other software. Open Source Software and integrations covered by RGS SLAs, for each supported version of a product, are those validated and certified by RGS and listed here: https://www.suse.com/suse-rancher/support-matrix/all-supported-versions/. 

14.    Support Tickets

A Support Ticket means a discrete technical or non-technical issue that is submitted by Company to RGS requiring a response as specified in these Terms. A Support Ticket exists in the RGS Support Portal and includes all the communication associated with the issue.

15.    Support Portal Access and Support Ticket Entry

RGS provides a full featured, web-based support ticket management system. The support portal is available to Customers who have an active support subscription, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and is the primary method for support ticket submission. The support portal allows Customer to enter support tickets, add information to existing support tickets, receive information and updates about support tickets, close support tickets, and lists Customer’s open and closed support tickets.

16.    Customizations

Customizations are defined to include any changes to the original source code, including but not limited to changes to the User Interface, the addition or modification of adapters such as for authentication, Virtual Machines or server provisioning, deploying the Software (e.g., the management server) on the operating system or Docker versions that are not certified by RGS, and altering the scripts and byte code included with the RGS Products. Customizations to this Software may have unintended consequences and cause issues that are not present with the original, unmodified Software. Customer agrees that any bugs, defects or other issues that are present in areas of the Software that the Customer has altered must be reproduced by the Customer on an unmodified system prior to the submission of a Support Ticket or bug report.  Additionally, Customer is required to state all customizations present on the system when submitting a Support Ticket.

17.    Escalation Path

RGS recognizes that there may be times when additional attention or assistance is required for support tickets. RGS may make its Support Manager available, at RGSʼs sole discretion, to discuss cases that have gone unresolved for a duration deemed concerning by Customer. Upon request, the Support Manager will provide Customer with contact information for the Vice President of Engineering or the Vice President of Customer Success to discuss issues that the support team has been unable to resolve or that were resolved in an unsatisfactory manner.

18.    Effect of Termination or Non-Renewal of Support Services

In the event Customer terminates, or elects not to renew, RGS Support Services, Customer may continue to use open source versions of the Software that were available to the  Customer while the subscription was active.   Customer will have no further right to Services for such Rancher Software and will not have access to the secure Carbide registry.

19.    Reinstatement of Support Services

In the event Customer does not renew the Services term and the Services lapse, Customer may reinstate the Services at terms to be negotiated with RGS.

20.    RGS SUSE Linux Product Specifics

20.1.  SUSE Product Lifecycle & Support Phases

SLAs only apply to products found in the lifecycle chart found here: https://www.suse.com/lifecycle/ with their corresponding phases of product lifecycle.

SUSE License– RGS SUSE Linux products supported by RGS are still held to the SUSE End User License Agreement found here: https://www.suse.com/licensing/eula/

21.    Support Level Definitions

22.Technical Account Manager

Technical account managers (TAMs) provide excellent senior-level technical advice and support to customers to ensure their satisfaction with RGS’s product. The TAM works closely with RGS customer support, sales team, product development, and other departments to produce a deep understanding of product offerings to Customers to enhance their environment and mission. Any additional responsibilities for RGS’s TAMs not listed below would have to be agreed to in writing by both parties before work commences.

22.1.  A Technical Account Manager (TAM) provides the following functions:

• Primary point of contact for all technical support issues;
• Architecture reviews to determine the environment and best practices;
• Gain a deep understanding of Customer’s existing environment, including infrastructure, system footprint, and applications to help drive mission objectives;
• Guidance around day two operations and how to improve monitoring and resiliency,
• Understands current and desired future state regarding scalability, security, performance, and integrations;
• Provides recommendations for products, tools, and services and a clear rationale for how these accelerate the mission;
• Capable of whiteboarding and building architectural diagrams centered around SUSE and Rancher technologies regardless of the infrastructure it’s run on;
• Helping Customers learn about a product’s technical specifications and features, including demonstrations;
• Evaluating Customer needs to suggest upgrades or additional features;
• Maintaining customer relationships and ensuring customer satisfaction;
• Tracking releases, bug fixes, security vulnerabilities, product End-of-Life (EOL) and End-of-maintenance (EOM) schedules for Customers
• Upgrade and maintenance assistance;
• Assist with disaster recovery planning;
• Regular meetings with Customers;
• Intimately familiar with customer’s near and long-term goals;
• A champion for product bug and feature requests, ticket tracking, or escalations;
• Complimentary to any Customer consulting engagements.

22.2.  Availability. TAMs are available from 0800-2000 eastern time with a maximum of 8 hours in one day.  The number of hours in a given week and month that a TAM is able to be utilized by Customer is dictated by the level of service that was purchased and is described below:

23.    General Provisions

23.1.  Separate Software Subscriptions. Unless otherwise agreed in an SOW, the Services are in support of Customer’s deployment of RGS products. RGS shall not be required to provide the Services unless and until Customer has acquired appropriate subscriptions to RGS products. These terms do not modify in any way the licensing, warranty, or other agreement provisions under any other contract with RGS.

23.2.  Jurisdiction. These terms shall be construed in accordance with and governed by the laws specified in the Enterprise Agreement (EA), and the courts of the jurisdiction specified in the EA shall have exclusive jurisdiction with respect to disputes arising under these terms.

23.3.  Survival of Terms. The provisions of the SOW which by their nature extend beyond termination will survive termination or expiration of the SOW.

Last Updated: 08/15/2025