Most enterprises need to understand this term. Application support and maintenance services are aimed to ensure that applications are highly available, reliable, and relevant to evolving business needs.
Application support
Resolution of identified issues of different complexity (from basic usage problems to application code/database defects).
- L0 – Creating and maintaining detailed information for user self-service. Guiding materials for users:
- Product and technical information.
- Manuals.
- FAQs.
- Knowledge base with convenient search.
- L1 – Solving basic application usage issues.
- Receiving and registering requests submitted via phone/video calls, chat, social networks, email, self-service portal.
- Prioritizing support requests.
- Solving basic user issues (e.g., password reset, logging in/out, etc.).
- Escalating unsolved issues to the next support level and providing issue status updates according to an agreed SLA till resolution.
- L2 – Fixing application configuration and infrastructure issues.
- Resolving software configuration incidents.
- Administering application environment and user accounts.
- Software installations.
- Log investigation for root cause analysis of the issues.
- L3 – Resolving application issues on the code level.
- For custom applications: Fixing complex issues by introducing changes to the code and database.
- For platform-based applications: Correcting customization issues.
Application maintenance
- Continuous application monitoring and optimization.
- Agile-driven application evolution: introducing new app features and integrations, re-architecting, etc.
- Application evolution : Introducing application enhancements.
- For custom applications:
- Developing new application features.
- Adding software integrations.
- Application re-architecting, containerization.
- For platform-based applications:
- Introducing new application customizations.
- For custom applications:
- QA and testing : Ensuring the application quality and undisrupted functioning during the defects fixing, introduction of new app features and integrations.
- Manual and automated testing.
- Unit, API, and UI testing.
- Exploratory and regression testing.
- Functional testing.
- Integration testing.
- Compatibility and localization testing.
- Security testing.
- Usability testing.
- Application performance management : Ensuring app stability and scalability.
- Selecting and configuring tools for app performance monitoring and testing.
- App performance monitoring to detect unfavorable trends (evolving slowdowns or issues).
- App performance testing (load, stability, scalability, stress testing).
- Application security management : Ensuring the safety of business and customer data.
- 24/7 security monitoring.
- Scheduled app vulnerability and misconfiguration diagnostics.
- Penetration testing.
- Detailed vulnerability reports.
- Fixing discovered vulnerabilities.
- Compliance management : Monitoring and improving app compliance with industry-specific regulations and standards (e.g., HIPAA, GDPR, PCI DSS, GLBA)
- Automated scanning and manual analysis of the app.
- Mitigation of the detected vulnerabilities affecting compliance.
Additional services
- CI/CD and DevOps implementation : Automating implementation of changes and new features.
- Applying the infrastructure as a code (IaaC) approach.
- Setting up and maintaining continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) pipelines.
- Building test automation (if relevant) into the pipeline.
- Cloud resource management : Cloud consumption analysis, optimization, and maintenance.
- Examination of the cloud environment and identification of deficiencies.
- Resource consumption optimization.
- On-demand cloud resource management.
Support and maintenance costs optimization
To reduce application support and maintenance costs by 1.5 – 2.5 times,
- Proven ITIL-based support processes.
- Smart escalation matrix for application issues.
- CI/CD pipelines for quick and smooth application evolution.
- Cloud resource consumption optimization.
- Application performance monitoring for proactive resolution of app performance issues.
- Balanced manual and automated testing efforts.
KPIS applied for App Support & Maintenance
- Application support metrics
- First response time.
- Resolution rate.
- Average time to resolution.
- Meant time to recovery.
- User satisfaction score.
- Application maintenance metrics
- Application availability: actual uptime relative to the availability agreed, number of service interruptions, overall downtime or average duration of service interruptions, etc.
- Number of implemented change requests.
- Number of change requests in the backlog.
- Ratio between estimated and actual budget for the planned maintenance activity.
- Earned value of a specific maintenance activity.
Pricing options
- Per-ticket pricing : Best for L1, L2 support. At the start of cooperation, define the ticket cost, and you get charged based on the volume of incidents resolve monthly.
- Fixed monthly fee : Best for L3 support (defect fixes, minor functional changes) You pay in advance at a reduced hourly rate for a bunch of hours during which deliver continuous application support.
- Time & Material (hourly billing with a cap) : Best for application evolution (introducing substantial changes or adding new functionality) you receive the end-of-the-month invoice based on the hours or efforts reported per month.
- Mixed model (e.g., fixed monthly fee + T&M) : Best for long-term cooperation entailing miscellaneous support and maintenance services, application evolution. You can combine different pricing models best fitting the required app support and maintenance activities comprising your service suite.