Memorandum of Understanding and Terms of Service

This MOU is effective through June 30, 2025 and renews annually unless stated otherwise. Web Platform Services will review and update it as needed.

Web Platform Services has partnered with an off-campus vendor, Pantheon, to provide self-service web hosting to any UC Berkeley department or unit. UC Berkeley has negotiated reduced rates and other benefits for our sites participating in this program.

Pantheon provides tools and services for Drupal and WordPress website development. Their offerings may expand to include other content management systems in the future.

The service includes free hosting for sites in development. No billing information is required until a Site Owner wishes to launch their site at its permanent URL or enable automatic backups. However, this MOU and the vendor Terms of Service apply to all sites regardless of paid status.

The scope of this service is outlined in the sections below. Any items not specifically mentioned are not included in this MOU.

Site Owners who opt to use this service should have the technical knowledge and skills to create their own accounts and build and maintain their own sites.

Web Platform Services and Pantheon both maintain extensive documentation. See Hosting your site on Pantheon for details.

Support Summary

• Web Platform Services provides support for Hosting and Billing Forms and processes, as well as the UC Berkeley CAS Drupal module.
• Pantheon provides support for their own tools and processes, including any site downtime or platform outages.

For all other questions, Site Owners must use their own resources, publicly available resources, or third-party vendor resources.

Definition of Roles

• Site Owner: Refers to both the functional owner(s) and technical contact(s) for a UC Berkeley Drupal site.
• Web Platform Services: Team in Berkeley IT - Campus IT Experience that manages UC Berkeley Drupal sites and Drupal distributions (e.g., Open Berkeley platform) as well as UC Berkeley's relationship with Pantheon.
• Pantheon: External vendor that provides specialized hosting for Drupal sites.
• DNS Administrator / IT Policy: the DNS Administrator is the UC Berkeley entity that manages the UC Berkeley domain name service (DNS). The DNS Administrator works closely with IT Policy, the entity that approves offsite hosting requests for subdomains of berkeley.edu (e.g. https://example.berkeley.edu). IT Policy oversees other UC Berkeley policies, such as the Data Classification Standard as well.

Summary of Roles and Responsibilities

This chart indicates whether a given role has any hands-on responsibilities for an aspect of Pantheon hosting. For more detailed information on the roles and responibilites for each aspect, see Details of Roles and Responsibilities, or click on the individual links in the below table.

	Site owner	Web Platform Services	Pantheon	DNS Administrator / IT Policy
Pantheon account creation	yes	no	no	no
Site building	yes	no	no	no
Accessibility policy	yes	no	no	no
Initial launch	yes	yes	no	yes
Domain name changes	yes	no	no	yes
Billing changes	yes	yes	no	no
Cancel site	yes	yes	no	no
Hosting technical support	yes	no	yes	no
Drupal technical support	yes	no	no	no
WordPress technical support	yes	no	no	no
Training	yes	no	no	no
Authentication	yes	no	no	no
Vendor or collaborator accounts	yes	no	no	no
Applying core or distribution updates	yes	no	no	no
Applying other code updates	yes	no	no	no
HTTPS	yes	no	no	no
Backups	yes	no	no	no
Protected data management	yes	no	no	no
Site outages/downtime	yes	no	yes	no
Large-scale outages/downtime	no	yes	yes	no

Details of Roles and Responsibilities

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PANTHEON ACCOUNT CREATION

Site owner

In order to participate in UC Berkeley's Pantheon hosting program, site owners must:

• Use @berkeley.edu email addresses when creating their accounts on Pantheon
• Use a berkeley.edu domain as the primary domain for their site

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SITE BUILDING

Site owner

Site owners are responsible for all aspects of site building, including:

• Creating their development, testing, and live environments on Pantheon
• Creating, importing, and managing content
• Installing modules, plugins, themes, and libraries
• Maintaining their site throughout its lifespan

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ACCESSIBILITY POLICY

The UC system has a policy stating that all websites and web-based products must be accessible to people with disabilities. Additionally, UC Berkeley is under a Consent Decree with the U.S. Department of Justice. Websites must be WCAG 2.0 AA compliant by June 2, 2024, and must maintain their accessibility going forward. See the Digital Accessibility Program for more information.

Site owner

Site owners are responsible for all aspects of accessibility, including:

• Following accessibility best practices for content they feature on their sites, including but not limited to text, images, forms, interactive components, applications, audio, and video
• Testing regularly, including automated and manual testing
• Ensuring that third-party products and features developed by third-party vendors are compliant with the policy
• Maintaining the accessibility of their site throughout its lifespan

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INITIAL LAUNCH

Site owner

When the site owner is ready to launch a new Pantheon site, they must:

• Ensure that their live environment is ready for launch
• Ensure that their stakeholders approve the launch
• If a third-party vendor or other non-Berkeley affiliate is the primary Owner of the site on the Pantheon dashboard: request a transfer of ownership to a member of their department
• Fill out the "Upgrade to Paid Plan" form, including a hosting plan choice and a chartstring for billing
• Register for live CalNet authentication (see Authentication below)
• Fill out IT Policy's "Offsite Hosting" form
• Add their chosen domain names to the live Pantheon environment
• Provide timely responses to any questions from Web Platform Services, IT Policy or DNS Administrator

Web Platform Services

The Web Platform Services team will:

• Verify or transfer ownership of the site on the Pantheon dashboard
• Verify the chartstring and set up monthly billing
• Enable the site owner's chosen hosting plan

IT Policy

The campus IT Policy team will:

• Review and approve the Offsite Hosting request
• Forward the request to the DNS Administrator

DNS Administrator

The campus DNS Administrator will:

• Make the necessary changes to campus DNS records
• Notify the site owner when the domain will be live

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DOMAIN NAME CHANGES

Site owner

To add, change, or remove any domain names associated with the site, the site owner must:

• Fill out the IT Policy Offsite Hosting form for new domain names
• Email IT Policy directly for changed or removed domain names
• Add or remove the domain names on their live Pantheon environment

IT Policy

The campus IT Policy team will:

• Review and approve the Offsite Hosting request
• Forward the request to the DNS Administrator

DNS Administrator

The campus DNS Administrator will:

• Make the necessary changes to campus DNS records
• Notify the site owner when the domain changes will be live

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BILLING CHANGES

Billing is on a monthly basis. It is not prorated and cannot be refunded. Changes to chartstrings will take effect for the next monthly billing cycle after the request. Changes to hosting plan levels will be applied to the site immediately, but will be billed at the previous level until the next monthly billing cycle after the request.

Site owner

To change a billing chartstring or choose a new level of hosting service for a paid site, site owners should:

• Use the self-service Telecom Catalog to update their chartstring; and/or
• Contact Web Platform Services to request a different hosting plan

Web Platform Services

The Web Platform Services team will:

• Enable the site owner's new hosting plan choice

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CANCEL SITE

Billing is on a monthly basis. It is not prorated and cannot be refunded.

Site owner

To cancel billing for a paid site, site owners should:

• Contact Web Platform Services to provide the name of the site to be canceled
• If desired, download an archive of the site to offline storage
• If desired, delete the site from their Pantheon dashboard
• Contact IT Policy if there are any domain name changes resulting from the cancellation, including domain names no longer used or moved to a new host

Web Platform Services

The Web Platform Services team will:

• Cancel billing for the site, effective the next billing cycle after the request
• Change the hosting level of the site to the free plan

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HOSTING TECHNICAL SUPPORT

Site owner

To resolve issues related to Pantheon hosting, site owners should:

• Use publicly available resources such as Pantheon documentation
• Use their Pantheon dashboard to open a chat or submit support tickets if needed

Web Platform Services

The Web Platform Services team will:

• Maintain public documentation about aspects of Pantheon hosting that are specific to UC Berkeley

Pantheon

The Pantheon team (external hosting partner) will:

• Maintain public documentation
• Respond to chats and support tickets according to their own SLA

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DRUPAL TECHNICAL SUPPORT

Site owner

To resolve issues related to Drupal site building or development, site owners may:

• Use publicly available resources such as Drupal.org or Drupal Answers Stack Exchange
• Hire a third-party vendor

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WORDPRESS TECHNICAL SUPPORT

Site owner

To resolve issues related to WordPress site building or development, site owners may:

• Use publicly available resources such as WordPress.org or WordPress Development Stack Exchange
• Hire a third-party vendor

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TRAINING

Site owner

Site owners may:

• Use publicly available resources such as BDUG or BADCamp
• Attend CalPACT classes
• Attend third-party training classes

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AUTHENTICATION

All UC Berkeley sites should use CalNet authentication. Web Platform Services provides a helper Drupal module that includes the necessary code and configuration. As an alternative, sites that need to use standard authentication may do so if they run on HTTPS.

Site owner

Site owners must:

• For Drupal sites, either:
• Use UC Berkeley's recommended CalNet authentication modules; or
• Run the site at a secure HTTPS address (see HTTPS below)
• For WordPress sites, either:
• Use a secure and supported CAS authentication plugin; or
• Run the site at a secure HTTPS address (see HTTPS below)
• For any site using CalNet authentication:
• Register their live site URL by contacting the CalNet admin team

Web Platform Services

The Web Platform Services team will:

• Maintain their CalNet authentication Drupal module with security and other bug fixes
• Continue development of features and improvements to the module
• Make the module and its updates freely available to all UC Berkeley Drupal sites

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VENDOR OR COLLABORATOR ACCOUNTS

Site owners may choose to hire third-party vendors, or may collaborate with people who are not affiliated with Berkeley.

Site owner

To allow non-Berkeley affiliates access to their sites, site owners should:

• Do due diligence before allowing access to their dashboards or sites
• Add team members via their Pantheon dashboard if needed
• Sponsor all individuals for a CalNet Affiliate or Guest account
• Set roles and permissions appropriately
• Exercise oversight over third-party activities
• Revoke third-party accounts when needed

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APPLYING CORE OR DISTRIBUTION UPDATES

Site owners are responsible for maintaining the security and performance of their own sites by keeping up with core and distribution updates.

Pantheon provides updates to WordPress and Drupal core for sites not using a specific distribution. Web Platform Services provides updates to its own distributions. For sites created using other distributions, site owners should contact the distribution maintainers with any questions about security updates.

Site owner

Site owners must:

• Use the Pantheon dashboard to monitor for updates and apply them in a timely fashion
• Test updates before deploying them on live sites

Web Platform Services

The Web Platform Services team will:

• Make updates to UC Berkeley Drupal distributions available on Pantheon site dashboards

Pantheon

The Pantheon team (external hosting partner) will:

• Make Drupal and WordPress core updates available on Pantheon site dashboards

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APPLYING OTHER CODE UPDATES

Site owners are responsible for maintaining the security and performance of their own sites by keeping up with module, theme, plugin, and library updates.

Site owner

Site owners must:

• Monitor all installed modules, plugins, themes, and libraries for security updates
• Test all custom code for security issues and other bugs
• Apply all security updates in a timely fashion
• Apply other code updates as needed
• Test updates before deploying them on live sites

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HTTPS

Site owner

To run a Pantheon site at a secure HTTPS URL, site owners must:

• Choose a paid hosting plan (See Initial launch or Billing changes above)
• Configure live domains according to the instructions for HTTPS

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BACKUPS

The Pantheon platform supports backups of site code, databases, and files. Manual backups are available to all sites. Scheduled backups are only available to paid sites. Site owners who want access to scheduled backups for sites in development may submit the "Upgrade to Paid Plan" form at any time before their intended launch date.

Site owner

To use Pantheon's backup system, site owners should:

• Use the Pantheon dashboard to take manual backups as needed
• Submit the "Upgrade to Paid Plan" form with a chartstring and hosting plan choice to get access to scheduled backups (see Initial launch above)
• Set a backup schedule for each environment
• Download critical backups to offline storage if needed
• Restore backups if needed
• NOT install other backup modules that save backups to the site's filesystem

Web Platform Services

The Web Platform Services team will:

• Verify the chartstring and set up monthly billing
• Enable the site owner's chosen hosting plan

Pantheon

The Pantheon team (external hosting partner) will:

• Maintain the backup system
• Store backups for the time period specified in the backup schedule

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PROTECTED DATA MANAGEMENT

Protected data is not allowed on Pantheon sites. All data stored on Pantheon sites, whether available to anonymous visitors or only logged-in visitors, must be PL1.

Site owner

Site owners must:

• Ensure that their Pantheon site does not store or transmit any protected data
• Contact IT Policy with any questions about protected data

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SITE OUTAGES/DOWNTIME

Individual site outages can be caused by a variety of issues.

Site owner

Site owners should:

• Monitor their sites for downtime
• Troubleshoot the cause of the downtime - it may not be hosting-related
• Check Pantheon's status notifications
• Open a chat or file a support ticket on their Pantheon dashboard if needed

Pantheon

The Pantheon team (external hosting partner) will:

• Provide timely notification of issues that might cause downtime
• Respond to chats and support tickets according to their own SLA

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LARGE-SCALE OUTAGES/DOWNTIME

Web Platform Services

In case of large-scale maintenance or outages of multiple UC Berkeley sites on Pantheon, Web Platform Services will:

• Follow its notification procedure to inform the campus
• Work with Pantheon to resolve the outage
• If the outage is DNS-related, work with the DNS Administrator to resolve the issue
• Review and document the outage
• Make recommendations to prevent or mitigate similar incidents in the future

Pantheon

The Pantheon team (external hosting partner) will:

• Provide timely notification of planned maintenance and other issues that might cause downtime
• Respond to chats and support tickets according to their own SLA
• Work with Web Platform Services to resolve outages
• Review and document outages
• Provide additional information to Web Platform Services if requested
• Report on their actions to mitigate or prevent similar incidents in the future

A valid chart string is required to pay for Pantheon hosting and site owners are responsible for monitoring the chart string's fund sources to ensure that the chart string will continue to work. If a chart string becomes invalid (e.g., if a fund source expires), the site's billing administrator must update the chart string directly in the Berkeley IT Billing system (Telecom Catalog). If an invalid chart string is not updated in the Berkeley IT Billing system, then the site will be suspended until the chart string is updated. 

Web Platform Services offers multiple levels of hosting service. Higher levels of service provide faster performance and improved availability in case of scheduled or unscheduled outages. Plan details are available at Web Hosting (Pantheon). Site Owners with mission-critical websites should choose a plan that meets their business needs.

Site Owners are billed monthly for hosting. Current rates are available at Web Hosting (Pantheon). Rate changes will be posted at this URL and announced to Site Owners via email.

Site Owners may terminate service at any time. Terminations and other billing changes will take effect in the next monthly billing cycle after Web Platform Services receives the request. Requests made within 5 business days before the end of the billing cycle may require one more cycle to take effect.

Charges are not prorated and cannot be refunded.

Pantheon provides free service for sites in development. There are limitations on the service: scheduled backups and custom domains are not available; support is limited; and performance will not match performance of paid sites. Some examples of appropriate use of the free Sandbox plan are experimental sites, test-drives of different distributions, and sites provided via CalPACT classes or other training.

Experimental and training sites can remain at this "Sandbox" level indefinitely, but any site intended for production use must switch to a paid plan before being put into production. This includes sites that are not available to the public.

From time to time Pantheon may schedule maintenance to improve service or conduct repairs. Pantheon will announce scheduled maintenance to registered Site Owners via email, and will post notifications on their status page and their Twitter feed.

Web Platform Services will also post notification of large-scale scheduled outages on the campus System Status page.

If a large-scale unscheduled outage occurs, Web Platform Services will work with Pantheon to resolve it. Notifications will be posted and sent as described above for scheduled outages.

Web Platform Services strives to provide the best possible service, but circumstances beyond our control may interfere. We apologize for any disruption in service. Neither Web Platform Services nor its vendors are responsible for loss of data or business, security breach, or other damages.

History of changes to this MOU:

• 2024-07-03: Update effective date. Add information about accessibility policy.
• 2023-05-04: Update Plans, Rates, and billing section.
• 2023-03-07: Add row headers to table.
• 2022-07-06: Update effective date. Add changelog section.
• 2022-01-21: Update for organizational name change.
• 2021-12-10: Update effective date.
• 2021-08-13: Update effective date. Add response time section. Update links.
• 2021-05-26: Update title and terminology for DNS Administrator.
• 2020-09-16: Update effective date. Update links. Add Berkeley domain requirement.
• 2020-02-05: Update terminology for protected data management.
• 2018-07-23: Update links.
• 2018-02-09: Update effective date. Update responsibilities for HTTPS certificates.
• 2017-11-29: Update effective date.
• 2016-02-25: Update links and fix misspellings.
• 2016-01-15: Update for organizational name change.
• 2016-01-05: Add collapsible sections.
• 2015-12-30: First published version with links.