This topic describes Acquia’s policies and procedures for change management and system maintenance on Cloud Platform.
Infrastructure and maintenance
Acquia hosts Cloud Platform subscribers using Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers; Amazon has overall responsibility for the infrastructure serving the website. Amazon maintains service agreements with the infrastructure and software manufacturers in use in its data centers, which is necessary to achieve ISO 27002 and SAS70/SSAE16 audit certifications.
Provisioning tools
Acquia uses custom APIs and central management tools to provision new hosting clusters, attach storage volumes, and install software and dependencies to provide uniformity in each subscriber’s environment (glossary term, activate to view definition). Acquia also uses these central management tools to manage OS and platform configurations and to apply security patches across all systems.
System maintenance and downtime
Acquia is committed to delivering industry-leading, reliable hosting services. Acquia’s policy regarding changes and updates to infrastructure in use by subscribers is to make the changes with as little subscriber impact as possible. Delivering these services requires, on occasion, system maintenance.
The Cloud Platform Enterprise 99.95% SLA applies to unscheduled downtime and does not include scheduled maintenance downtime.
Scheduled maintenance
The Cloud Platform Enterprise high availability cloud architecture ensures the vast majority of system maintenance takes place without impact to services.
Acquia notifies subscribers at least 48 hours in advance of a scheduled system maintenance that carries a risk of website downtime. This maintenance is scheduled from 11:00 PM (23:00) to 7:00 AM (07:00) local time for the application’s service region.
Emergency maintenance
From time to time, a website or infrastructure emergency may require immediate maintenance. Acquia reserves the right to perform emergency maintenance to correct website problems, address critical security issues, and respond to critical alerts. Reasonable efforts will be made to avoid website downtime.
Customer requested maintenance
Acquia Support will implement customer-requested changes that carry a risk of outage at a time mutually agreeable to the customer and Acquia.
Acquia Release Management
Release Deployment Strategy
Acquia employs a sophisticated multi-faceted approach to platform updates and releases. Acquia's release deployment strategies are deliberately designed to maximize platform stability, minimize customer impact, and ensure optimal performance across our infrastructure.
Release Methodology
Acquia maintains sole discretion regarding the deployment methodology utilized for any given release. Acquia's engineering and operations teams select the most appropriate deployment strategy based on multiple factors including, but not limited to:
- The nature and scope of the release
- Technical requirements and dependencies
- Operational considerations
- Risk assessment and mitigation planning
- Service optimization opportunities
Acquia's release strategies are crafted to prioritize the platform's stability and efficiency. Based on specific needs, Acquia may deploy updates to select infrastructure components or environments. This allows customers the opportunity to test in lower environments. Alternatively, Acquia might opt to release updates directly to all customer environments or apply changes across the platform as needed to maintain optimum performance. This flexible approach allows Acquia to maintain the highest levels of service reliability while continuously improving the platform capabilities. Acquia reserves the right to modify or select the release methodologies at any time to adapt to evolving technical requirements and best practices.
Related topics
Change management and maintenance
This topic describes Acquia’s policies and procedures for change management and system maintenance on Cloud Platform.
Infrastructure and maintenance
Acquia hosts Cloud Platform subscribers using Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers; Amazon has overall responsibility for the infrastructure serving the website. Amazon maintains service agreements with the infrastructure and software manufacturers in use in its data centers, which is necessary to achieve ISO 27002 and SAS70/SSAE16 audit certifications.
Provisioning tools
Acquia uses custom APIs and central management tools to provision new hosting clusters, attach storage volumes, and install software and dependencies to provide uniformity in each subscriber’s environment (glossary term, activate to view definition). Acquia also uses these central management tools to manage OS and platform configurations and to apply security patches across all systems.
System maintenance and downtime
Acquia is committed to delivering industry-leading, reliable hosting services. Acquia’s policy regarding changes and updates to infrastructure in use by subscribers is to make the changes with as little subscriber impact as possible. Delivering these services requires, on occasion, system maintenance.
The Cloud Platform Enterprise 99.95% SLA applies to unscheduled downtime and does not include scheduled maintenance downtime.
Scheduled maintenance
The Cloud Platform Enterprise high availability cloud architecture ensures the vast majority of system maintenance takes place without impact to services.
Acquia notifies subscribers at least 48 hours in advance of a scheduled system maintenance that carries a risk of website downtime. This maintenance is scheduled from 11:00 PM (23:00) to 7:00 AM (07:00) local time for the application’s service region.
Emergency maintenance
From time to time, a website or infrastructure emergency may require immediate maintenance. Acquia reserves the right to perform emergency maintenance to correct website problems, address critical security issues, and respond to critical alerts. Reasonable efforts will be made to avoid website downtime.
Customer requested maintenance
Acquia Support will implement customer-requested changes that carry a risk of outage at a time mutually agreeable to the customer and Acquia.
Acquia Release Management
Release Deployment Strategy
Acquia employs a sophisticated multi-faceted approach to platform updates and releases. Acquia's release deployment strategies are deliberately designed to maximize platform stability, minimize customer impact, and ensure optimal performance across our infrastructure.
Release Methodology
Acquia maintains sole discretion regarding the deployment methodology utilized for any given release. Acquia's engineering and operations teams select the most appropriate deployment strategy based on multiple factors including, but not limited to:
- The nature and scope of the release
- Technical requirements and dependencies
- Operational considerations
- Risk assessment and mitigation planning
- Service optimization opportunities
Acquia's release strategies are crafted to prioritize the platform's stability and efficiency. Based on specific needs, Acquia may deploy updates to select infrastructure components or environments. This allows customers the opportunity to test in lower environments. Alternatively, Acquia might opt to release updates directly to all customer environments or apply changes across the platform as needed to maintain optimum performance. This flexible approach allows Acquia to maintain the highest levels of service reliability while continuously improving the platform capabilities. Acquia reserves the right to modify or select the release methodologies at any time to adapt to evolving technical requirements and best practices.
Related topics
Cloud Platform