Custom Application Monitoring Handling

Based on a monitoring and alerting workshop, and using VSHN-defined standard alerting systems, we handle alerts during VSHN office hours — or optionally 24x7 — for the defined Service Level Indicators (SLIs) of the customer’s application instances. This includes checking the involved VSHN-managed platform components, fixing issues (or escalating them to the relevant VSHN team), and investigating further based on predefined runbooks and shared documentation (covering VSHN services and 3rd-party services), taking predefined actions accordingly.

Building Block Type

This is an Add-On building block that adds monitoring and alert handling services by VSHN to a solution based on Custom Application Operations Support.

Type

🟨 Custom Software Support

Level

➕ Add-On

Add-On to

Custom Application Operations Support

Supported Service

Defined Service Level Indicators of a Custom Application

Included Services

Monitoring

VSHN systems are used to set up and continuously refine monitoring for your defined SLIs — usually HTTP checks to a health-check endpoint of the customer’s application instances. If this endpoint provides metrics, they are visualized in VSHN’s monitoring system and can be used for debugging, issue analysis, and improvement planning.

Alert and Incident Handling

VSHN DevOps Engineers respond to alerts, check the involved VSHN-managed platform components, resolve issues (or escalate to the relevant VSHN team), and perform additional checks based on predefined runbooks and shared documentation (e.g., for VSHN and 3rd-party services). Actions are taken according to the defined process.

If the root cause lies within the application itself, VSHN escalates the issue to the designated customer-side application owners or developers.

Problem Management

We log incidents in your ticket system, look for recurring patterns, and propose improvement measures during the next scheduled or on-demand review with your development team.

Pricing

We charge a monthly support fee for the monitoring service and for being ready to handle critical incidents. The final pricing is defined within the scope of the full Solution; volume discounts or surcharges may apply in more complex scenarios.

5x9 (VSHN office hours) 24x7

  • CHF 100.– / month per SLI and first instance

  • CHF 50.– / month per additional instance of the same SLI

  • CHF 1200.– / month per SLI and first instance

  • CHF 200.– / month per additional instance of the same SLI

An application typically has one health-check endpoint, which we use as the application’s SLI. In a multi-instance setup, all instances count as the same SLI.

Requirements

  • The application must expose a health-check endpoint, usually reachable via HTTPS. VSHN can assist in designing a suitable endpoint if needed.

  • The monitored SLI endpoint must be continuously improved to avoid false-positive alerts, as advised by VSHN.

Constraints and Limitations

In addition to the constraints of Application Operations Support:

Scope

  • This service is only available as an add-on to Custom Application Operations Support and only applies to applications explicitly covered in the custom solution.

  • Defined per SLI, for one or more instances of the same application.

  • The service does not entitle the customer to send arbitrary alerts to VSHN or expect incident handling outside the scope of defined SLIs. Manual incident reporting and emergency support are possible with a Support Plan.

Manual Effort by VSHN

Actual incident handling and problem management are billed by the hour according to VSHN standard rates, with a surcharge for out-of-office hours.

Switzerland-Only Restrictions

For customers with compliance requirements restricting support to Switzerland: Alert reception, triage, and escalation may be performed by VSHN engineers located outside Switzerland (e.g., EU or British Columbia, Canada). These engineers may not be permitted to access your systems, which can limit incident resolution.

Exceptions can be defined per solution. See also: Support Plan – Switzerland-Only Support.