Habitat3 Cloud Operations Service Terms
These terms govern Habitat3's Cloud Operations Service. They apply together with the Service Schedule that identifies the Customer, selected plan, applicable fees, Service Commencement Date and customer-specific service configuration.
1. Parties and agreement
1.1 This agreement is between Habitat3 (Habitat3, we, our or us) and the customer identified in the Service Schedule (Customer or you).
1.2 The agreement consists of the Service Schedule, these Cloud Operations Service Terms, any policy expressly incorporated by these terms, and any later written variation agreed by the parties or made in accordance with clause 21.
1.3 For a new Customer, the agreement takes effect when the Customer signs or electronically accepts the Service Schedule or asks Habitat3 to begin providing the service.
1.4 Where Habitat3 has given an existing Customer notice that its previous agreement will terminate and has offered to continue the Cloud Operations Service under these terms, these terms apply from the date stated in that notice if the Customer accepts the offer. Acceptance may occur by written or electronic acceptance or, where clearly stated in the notice, by continuing to receive, request or pay for the Cloud Operations Service on or after that date.
1.5 If documents are inconsistent, a later written variation prevails, followed by the Service Schedule, these terms and then an incorporated policy. A specific provision prevails over a general provision to the extent of inconsistency.
2. Definitions and interpretation
2.1 Account Holder means an individual authorised by the Customer to manage the Customer's Habitat3 account.
2.2 Blocks-of-Time means additional prepaid Engineering Hours purchased in a minimum block of four hours under clause 18.
2.3 Cloud Operations Service means Habitat3's ongoing subscription service described in this agreement.
2.4 Engineering Hours means time spent by Habitat3 personnel delivering the service, including technical work, investigation, alert response, remediation, testing, meetings, reporting, documentation and runbook development, coordination, advice, research and communications.
2.5 Service Commencement Date means the date stated in the Service Schedule on which the subscription and billing commence.
2.6 Service Schedule means an accepted order form, proposal, onboarding form, service confirmation, email or other record that identifies the Customer and the selected plan, fees, Service Commencement Date and any customer-specific service details or Special Conditions.
2.7 Special Conditions means any customer-specific changes or additions expressly stated in the Service Schedule.
2.8 Standard Support Hours and Extended Support Hours have the meanings in clause 19.
2.9 Headings are for convenience only. Including and similar expressions do not limit preceding words. Writing includes email and an agreed electronic approval method.
3. Cloud Operations Service
3.1 The Cloud Operations Service is an ongoing subscription providing access to Habitat3's monitoring, operational support and AWS engineering capability.
3.2 The subscription includes the monitoring platform, agreed monitoring coverage, response targets, patching eligibility, reporting capability and monthly allocation of Engineering Hours applicable to the selected plan.
3.3 All time spent by Habitat3 personnel delivering the service consumes Engineering Hours, including consultations, meetings, alert review and response, incident investigation, remediation, reporting and advice.
3.4 Alerts and urgent Customer operational issues may take priority over planned work and reduce the Engineering Hours available for other Customer requests.
4. Selected service plan
4.1 Habitat3 provides Essentials, Standard and CloudOperations Professional plans. Professional or Pro means CloudOperations Professional.
4.2 The selected plan, applicable subscription fee and customer-specific service configuration are stated in the Service Schedule.
4.4 Prices are inclusive of GST unless otherwise stated. Additional Engineering Hours must be purchased in Blocks-of-Time of at least four hours at the rate stated in the Service Schedule or otherwise notified in accordance with clause 21.
4.5 The Customer may request a plan change. A change will take effect from the next monthly billing cycle or another date agreed in writing.
5. Onboarding and activation
5.1 Subscription billing commences on the first monthly Habitat3 billing cycle after the Service Commencement Date. Habitat3's ordinary billing-cycle dates are the 1st, 7th, 14th and 21st of each month.
5.2 Monitoring, alert-response and patching obligations commence only after relevant onboarding is completed, required access and integrations are provided, and Habitat3 confirms activation of the relevant capability.
5.3 Habitat3 will use reasonable efforts to complete onboarding promptly but is not responsible for delay caused by unavailable access, missing information, Customer dependencies or third parties.
6. Delivery standard and personnel
6.1 Habitat3 will perform the service with reasonable care and skill and may determine the appropriate technical approach, working methods and personnel.
6.2 Habitat3 may use employees located in Australia and other countries, including India. Habitat3 remains responsible for their work and requires appropriate confidentiality and security obligations.
6.3 The Customer must advise Habitat3 before access is provided if it has restrictions concerning offshore access, data residency or personnel location.
6.4 Unless expressly stated to be binding, delivery dates, effort estimates and expected completion dates are estimates based on available information, access and dependencies.
7. Core service capabilities
7.1 Capabilities may include monitoring supported AWS infrastructure, security, backups, costs, compliance controls, system health and website availability; monitored-alert response; supported EC2 patch management; access to the Habitat3 Security Command Centre; AWS optimisation reporting; and AWS operational and advisory support.
7.2 The subscription may provide access to AWS Landing Zone services, AWS Well-Architected Framework Reviews, Foundational Technical Review readiness guidance, AWS escalation assistance, and guidance on AWS funding or credits.
7.3 All Habitat3 personnel time required to deliver a capability consumes available Engineering Hours. Access to a capability does not automatically mean associated consulting or engineering work is provided outside those hours.
7.4 AWS determines eligibility for its programs, funding, credits and technical approvals. Habitat3 does not guarantee approval.
8. Services not included
8.1 Unless specifically included in the Service Schedule, the service does not cover application development, application-layer troubleshooting, end-user IT support, Customer-developed code, third-party software support, legal or regulatory advice, or services outside the supported AWS environment.
8.2 AWS charges, licensing, software, data transfer and other third-party costs are payable directly by the Customer.
9. Monitoring and alert response
9.1 Where activated, Habitat3 will monitor the agreed production AWS environment between 6:00 am and midnight AEST/AEDT, seven days per week.
9.2 The precise monitoring configuration depends on the Customer environment and the alerts, thresholds and integrations configured during onboarding.
9.3 During the coverage period Habitat3 will aim to acknowledge a monitored alert and begin initial assessment within four hours for Essentials and Standard or two hours for CloudOperations Professional.
9.4 A response target is not a guaranteed response or resolution time and does not carry a service credit.
9.5 Alert work consumes Engineering Hours. Habitat3 prioritises alerts according to apparent urgency, risk and potential business impact.
9.6 Monitoring is limited to supported and correctly configured services and does not guarantee every outage, performance issue, security event, compliance issue or application failure will be identified or prevented.
9.7 One production AWS account is included. Additional accounts are $66 inclusive of GST per account per month unless otherwise agreed.
9.8 URL endpoint monitoring is provided under the URL Endpoint Monitoring Policy available at:
https://www.habitat3.com.au/url-endpoint-monitoring-policy
A material adverse change to that policy will be notified under clause 21.
10. Server patching
10.1 Where activated, proactive operating-system patching supports up to 5 servers for Essentials, 10 for Standard and 15 for CloudOperations Professional.
10.2 Additional servers are $33 inclusive of GST per server per month unless otherwise agreed.
10.3 Time spent completing server patching does not consume Engineering Hours.
10.4 Patching occurs during agreed maintenance windows and may require restarts or affect application or third-party software compatibility.
10.5 The Customer remains responsible for appropriate backups and application validation after patching unless testing is expressly included. Habitat3 may defer or exclude a patch it reasonably considers unacceptably risky.
11. Customer responsibilities and instructions
11.1 The Customer must provide accurate information, timely access, appropriate licences, authorised contacts, decisions, testing and approvals reasonably required for the service.
11.2 The Customer remains responsible for its business decisions, budgets, risk acceptance, application functionality, data, legal and regulatory obligations, backups, disaster recovery, business continuity and final use of advice or changes.
11.3 Habitat3 may rely on instructions and approvals from nominated authorised contacts. The Customer must ensure those contacts may request work, approve changes and costs, provide access and accept relevant risks.
11.4 The Customer must maintain agreed monitoring and security integrations, keep escalation contacts current, provide maintenance windows and promptly advise Habitat3 of changes that may affect monitoring, patching, security or delivery.
11.5 Habitat3 may decline or pause an instruction it reasonably considers unlawful, unauthorised, unsafe, technically inappropriate or outside the service.
11.6 Habitat3 is not responsible for delay or failure caused by incomplete or inaccurate information, unavailable access, delayed decisions, Customer instructions, removed or changed integrations, or third-party dependencies.
12. Access security and Customer data
12.1 The Customer authorises Habitat3 to access systems, AWS environments and information reasonably required to provide the service.
12.2 Each party must maintain reasonable security measures appropriate to its responsibilities. Habitat3 will limit access to personnel who require it, use appropriate identity and access controls, take reasonable precautions to protect credentials and confidential information, and remove access when no longer required.
12.3 The Customer retains ownership of its data and authorises Habitat3 to access, use and process it only as reasonably necessary to deliver the service, investigate incidents, maintain service records and comply with law.
12.4 Each party must comply with applicable privacy laws. The Customer must ensure it may lawfully provide access and must notify Habitat3 of particular privacy, security, regulatory or data-residency requirements.
12.5 Unless expressly included, the Customer remains responsible for data classification, retention, backups, records management and privacy compliance.
13. AWS and third-party services
13.1 AWS, third-party software, telecommunications, internet services and vendor support are outside Habitat3's direct control.
13.2 Habitat3 is not responsible for their availability, pricing, performance, compatibility or actions. Time reasonably spent investigating or coordinating third-party issues consumes Engineering Hours.
13.3 AWS cost estimates, forecasts and anticipated savings are indicative. Actual charges may vary because of usage, configuration, exchange rates, taxes or AWS pricing.
13.4 Habitat3 will seek approval before a material change reasonably expected to increase AWS costs, except for urgent action under clause 19.6. Habitat3 is not responsible for charges caused by Customer usage or changes, compromised Customer-controlled credentials, or third-party activity outside Habitat3's reasonable control.
14. Intellectual property
14.1 Each party retains intellectual property it owned or developed independently before the agreement.
14.2 After applicable fees are paid in full, the Customer may use, modify and reproduce deliverables created specifically for it under this agreement for its internal business purposes.
14.3 Habitat3 retains its general knowledge, methods, templates, processes, reusable scripts, tools, generic infrastructure components and other non-Customer-specific material. The Customer may continue using such material included in a Customer deliverable as part of that deliverable.
14.4 Third-party and open-source material remains subject to its licence terms. The Customer permits Habitat3 to use Customer-provided material as reasonably required to provide the service.
15. Confidentiality
15.1 Each party must take reasonable steps to protect the other party’s non-public confidential information and may use it only for purposes connected with this agreement.
15.2 Habitat3 will not sell Customer Data or knowingly disclose or use the Customer’s confidential information for any purpose unrelated to providing the Cloud Operations Service, except with the Customer’s consent, as permitted by this agreement or where required by law.
15.3 Confidential information may be disclosed to personnel, professional advisers and service providers who reasonably require it for purposes connected with this agreement and are subject to appropriate confidentiality obligations. Habitat3 remains responsible for ensuring that its personnel comply with these obligations.
15.4 Habitat3 may disclose information reasonably necessary to evaluate, prepare for or complete a genuine corporate restructure, merger, business sale or service transfer permitted under clause 24.2, provided the recipient is subject to appropriate confidentiality, privacy and information-security obligations.
15.5 These obligations do not apply to information that is publicly available without breach, already lawfully known, lawfully received from another source or independently developed. The obligations continue after the agreement ends.
16. Warranties consumer rights and liability
16.1 Habitat3 warrants it will use reasonable care and skill in providing the service.
16.2 Except for rights that cannot lawfully be excluded, Habitat3 does not warrant uninterrupted or error-free service or a particular technical, operational, security, compliance, financial or business outcome.
16.3 Nothing excludes or limits a right or guarantee that cannot lawfully be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law or other law. Where lawful, Habitat3's liability for services covered by a non-excludable guarantee is limited, at its option, to resupplying the services or paying the reasonable cost of resupply.
16.4 To the maximum extent permitted by law, Habitat3's total aggregate liability arising from or connected with the Cloud Operations Service is limited to the fees paid or payable for that service during the three months preceding the event giving rise to the claim.
16.5 Habitat3 is not liable for indirect or consequential loss, including lost profit, revenue, opportunity, anticipated savings, goodwill or business interruption, except where liability cannot lawfully be excluded.
16.6 Each party must take reasonable steps to minimise its loss.
17. Included Engineering Hours
17.1 All work performed by Habitat3 personnel in connection with the service is deducted from the monthly Engineering Hours except for server patching.
17.2 Hours may be used for alert response, incident investigation, remediation, patching, reporting, meetings, AWS advice, infrastructure management, architecture, Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD pipelines, security, cost optimisation and other agreed AWS operational work.
17.3 Habitat3 prioritises work according to operational risk, urgency, Customer priorities, dependencies and available hours. Alerts, incidents and urgent operational requirements may take priority.
17.4 Included hours provide access to capability and capacity but do not guarantee a particular deliverable or amount of planned work within a billing cycle.
17.5 Included hours reset each monthly billing cycle, do not roll over, have no cash or refund value and expire if unused.
18. Blocks-of-Time and additional capacity
18.1 If the Customer requires capacity beyond its included monthly allocation, it may request Blocks-of-Time at the selected plan's preferred additional-hour rate.
18.2 Blocks-of-Time must contain at least four Engineering Hours, are invoiced and payable in advance, expire 12 months after the date of purchase and have no cash or refund value except where required by law.
18.3 Habitat3 may limit additional hours available at a preferred rate during a billing cycle. All additional capacity, including hours offered and work to which the preferred rate applies, is subject to Habitat3's approval and resource availability.
18.4 When included hours are exhausted, Habitat3 will use available Blocks-of-Time. If none remain, Habitat3 may pause non-urgent work and ask the Customer to purchase capacity or defer work until the monthly allocation resets.
18.5 Except for urgent action under clause 19.6, Habitat3 will not knowingly work beyond available included hours or Blocks-of-Time without Customer approval.
19. Support hours requests and urgent alert work
19.1 Standard Support Hours are Monday to Friday, 8:00 am to 6:00 pm, excluding New South Wales and Australian national public holidays. All times mentioned in these terms are AEST/AEDT in Sydney, New South Wales.
19.2 Extended Support Hours are Monday to Friday, 6:00 am to 8:00 am and 6:00 pm to midnight, and weekends from 6:00 am to midnight.
19.3 Engineering Hours for work during Extended Support Hours are counted and charged at 1.5 times actual time. One hour therefore consumes or is charged as 1.5 Engineering Hours.
19.4 Requests must be submitted through www.habitat3.com.au/support or another nominated channel. Requests requiring attention during Extended Support Hours must be lodged by an authorised Account Holder through the secure Account Holder portal.
19.5 A response target means acknowledgement and commencement of initial assessment; it does not guarantee resolution.
19.6 If Habitat3 receives a monitored service alert and reasonably considers Extended Support Hours work necessary to investigate or respond, protect the Customer environment or prevent material loss, it may commence without prior approval, perform work reasonably necessary in the circumstances, and seek to notify an authorised contact as soon as practicable.
19.7 Urgent work required during Extended Support Hours first consumes included hours and then Blocks-of-Time, each at the 1.5-times multiplier. If exhausted, the work is charged at 1.5 times the applicable additional-hour rate. No prior approval is required for those charges unless Habitat3 and the Customer have agreed in writing that work must never be completed unless Engineering Hours capacity is available.
19.8 Customer-initiated requests outside Extended Support Hours will ordinarily be addressed during the next applicable support period unless otherwise agreed.
20. Fees invoicing and suspension
20.1 Subscription fees are invoiced monthly in advance and payable within seven days of invoice. Blocks-of-Time are invoiced in advance and must be paid before becoming available.
20.2 Additional monitored accounts, patched servers and optional services are invoiced with the monthly subscription unless otherwise agreed.
20.3 The Customer must raise a genuine invoice dispute before the due date and pay undisputed amounts on time.
20.4 If payment is seven days overdue, Habitat3 may suspend the service after notice until payment is received. If payment reaches 30 days overdue, Habitat3 may cancel the service. Reactivation after cancellation requires payment of all overdue amounts and a fee equal to twice the monthly fee for the Customer's last selected plan, inclusive of GST. During suspension Habitat3 need not provide monitoring, alert response, patching, reporting, specialist access or other services.
21. Price service and terms changes
21.1 Habitat3 may review and adjust subscription fees, preferred additional-hour rates, additional-account fees, additional-server fees and other recurring charges from time to time. Habitat3 ordinarily expects annual adjustments to be approximately 5%, but an adjustment may be higher or lower because of operating costs, wages, supplier charges, exchange rates, legal requirements, service scope or market conditions.
21.2 Habitat3 will give at least 30 days' written notice of any price increase, material service change that adversely affects the Customer, or material change to these terms. The notice will state the date on which the change takes effect and provide or link to the updated terms where applicable. A change applies prospectively from that date and does not alter fees already paid or Blocks-of-Time already purchased.
21.3 If the Customer does not accept a change notified under clause 21.2, it may terminate the Cloud Operations Service by written notice before the change takes effect and will not be charged the increased price or bound by the notified change.
21.4 If the Customer continues to receive, request or pay for the Cloud Operations Service on or after the notified effective date, it will be taken to have accepted the notified change, provided Habitat3's notice clearly explained that consequence and the Customer's right to terminate before the change took effect.
21.5 Habitat3 may make changes that do not materially reduce the service or adversely affect the Customer without prior notice, including administrative, technical, security, compliance, formatting or clarification updates.
21.6 Habitat3 will publish the effective date of the current version of these terms on its website. Publication alone does not shorten or replace any notice required under clause 21.2.
22. Suspension and termination
22.1 Habitat3 may suspend the service where payment is overdue, required access or information is not provided, continuing would create a material security or operational risk, or the Customer materially breaches the agreement. Where practical, Habitat3 will first notify the Customer and provide a reasonable opportunity to address the issue.
22.2 The subscription continues monthly until terminated. Either party may terminate on at least 30 days' written notice. Either party may terminate immediately if the other commits an irremediable material breach or fails to remedy a material breach within 14 days after written notice.
22.3 Subscription fees already paid are non-refundable except where required by law. The service and remaining included hours continue until the end of the paid period, after which unused included hours expire.
22.4 Purchased Blocks-of-Time remain available until the earlier of:
a. 12 months from the date of purchase; or
b. termination of the Cloud Operations Service by either party.
Any unused hours expire at that time and cannot be used or refunded.
22.5 On termination, Habitat3 will remove monitoring integrations and operational access where no longer required. Requested transition, handover, export or documentation work may use Blocks-of-Time or be charged separately.
22.6 Termination does not affect fees, accrued rights or obligations. Payment, intellectual property, confidentiality, liability, disputes and governing law continue after termination.
23. Disputes and events outside control
23.1 The parties must first try to resolve a dispute through good-faith discussions between authorised representatives.
23.2 If unresolved within 14 days, either party may refer it to mediation in Sydney through the Resolution Institute. The parties share the mediator's fee equally and otherwise bear their own costs.
23.3 This does not prevent urgent court relief or recovery of an undisputed debt.
23.4 Neither party is liable for delay or failure caused by an event outside its reasonable control, other than payment already due. The affected party must notify the other where practical and reasonably minimise impact.
24. Notices and assignment
24.1 Formal notices may be emailed to the most recently nominated authorised contact and are treated as received on the next business day unless a delivery-failure notification is received.
24.2 Habitat3 is an independent contractor and neither party may bind the other. The Customer must not assign or novate this agreement without Habitat3’s written consent. The Customer consents in advance to Habitat3 assigning or novating this agreement, or transferring provision of all or part of the Cloud Operations Service, to a suitably qualified related entity or third party as part of a genuine corporate restructure, merger, business sale or transfer of all or part of Habitat3’s service operations, subject to clauses 24.3 and 24.4.
24.3 Habitat3 will give the Customer at least 30 days’ written notice of the transfer. The notice will identify the incoming provider and the proposed transfer date. The incoming provider must assume Habitat3’s ongoing obligations and maintain appropriate confidentiality, privacy and information-security protections. The Customer authorises Habitat3 to provide the incoming provider with Customer information, service records and access details reasonably required to prepare for and complete the transfer, subject to those protections. The Customer agrees to provide reasonable cooperation and sign any reasonable document required to give effect to the transfer.
24.4 If the Customer does not wish to receive the service from the incoming provider, it may give Habitat3 written notice at any time before the transfer date. The service will terminate immediately before the transfer takes effect, without any additional notice period or termination charge. Habitat3 remains responsible for its obligations arising before the transfer date, and the incoming provider is responsible for obligations arising from the transfer date.
25. General
25.1 Failure to exercise a right does not waive it. If part of the agreement is invalid or unenforceable, it will be read down or removed without affecting the remainder.
25.2 The agreement may be accepted electronically or by conduct in the circumstances described in clauses 1.3, 1.4 and 21.4. It is the entire agreement concerning the Cloud Operations Service and replaces previous discussions and proposals, without excluding liability for fraud, misleading or deceptive conduct, or anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded.
25.3 A customer-specific variation may be approved by email or another agreed electronic approval method. General changes to the service or these terms may be made only in accordance with clause 21.
25.4 This agreement is governed by New South Wales law, and the parties submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of its courts.
Schedule 1 Monitoring and patching service description
This Schedule describes the types of supported controls Habitat3 may configure and monitor where applicable to the Customer environment. The final configuration depends on the selected plan, services present, technical suitability and onboarding decisions.
AWS security and network controls
- Security monitoring using supported AWS services such as AWS CloudTrail, Amazon GuardDuty, AWS Security Hub and AWS Config.
- Security group, VPC, IAM, DNS and SSL-related operational monitoring or management where agreed.
- Cost Anomaly Detection, budget alerts, outbound data and supported network-traffic logging controls where configured.
Backup and recovery controls
- Monitoring supported AWS Backup schedule failures and recovery-related alerts.
- Maintaining agreed backup schedules and supported recovery-point configurations.
- Monitoring of one production AWS account is included; additional-account charges apply under clause 9.7.
Infrastructure health controls
- Supported monitoring of EC2, load balancers, target groups, Auto Scaling Groups, RDS, EBS, EFS, Route 53 and related infrastructure components where implemented.
- Monitoring may include service status, CPU, memory, disk or storage utilisation, connectivity and other configured thresholds.
- Monitoring is infrastructure-focused and does not include application debugging unless expressly agreed.
Server patching
- Proactive operating-system patching for the number of supported servers included in the selected plan or recorded in the Service Schedule.
- Patching occurs during agreed maintenance windows and consumes Engineering Hours.
- The Customer remains responsible for application testing and appropriate backup and recovery arrangements unless expressly included.
Schedule 2 Secure access model
Habitat3 uses a controlled access model for authorised personnel connecting to Customer AWS environments. The implementation may evolve over time as security technology and operational requirements change, provided Habitat3 continues to maintain reasonable security measures.
- Habitat3 personnel use Habitat3-provisioned and managed computing environments maintained by its IT Operations team.
- Authorised access is protected by identity controls and multi-factor authentication, and is limited to personnel who require access to deliver the service.
- Encrypted private connectivity based on technologies such as Tailscale and WireGuard may be used to route authorised traffic through Habitat3-managed infrastructure and monitored static IP addresses.
- Customer systems are accessed through controlled and auditable workflows designed to support endpoint compliance, access logging and centralised access management.
- Habitat3's Powered Ops Centre may assist authorised engineers with incident investigation and approved operational remediation through controlled workflows and runbooks.
Schedule 2 - Secure Access Model
Habitat3 uses a controlled access model for authorised personnel connecting to Customer AWS environments. The implementation may evolve as security technology and operational requirements change, provided Habitat3 continues to maintain reasonable security measures.
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Habitat3 personnel use Habitat3-provisioned and managed computing environments maintained by its IT Operations team and subject to appropriate operating-system patching, endpoint security and ongoing monitoring.
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Access is identity-bound, protected by multi-factor authentication and limited to authorised personnel who require access to deliver the service.
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Encrypted private connectivity using technologies such as Tailscale and WireGuard may be used to route authorised traffic through Habitat3-managed infrastructure and monitored static IP addresses.
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Access to Customer systems may be routed through a Habitat3-managed access host, secure gateway or equivalent controlled access mechanism restricted to approved devices, networks and authorised identities.
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Customer systems are accessed through controlled and auditable workflows designed to support endpoint compliance, centralised access management and logging of relevant access activity.
ABN: 81 617 873 006
Last Updated: 11 September 2026
Effective date for new clients: 11 September 2026
Effective date for existing clients: 12 October 2026