subject: 10 Best Practices for Maintenance and Support Contracts [print this page] 10 Best Practices for Maintenance and Support Contracts
The management of application infrastructures is difficult for most organizations; it's demanding on resources and tough to manage costs effectively. A dangerous and costly disconnect can occur between a company's business operations and the underlying technology when required IT assets are not identified.
This disconnect can reduce business application availability, hinder operational efficiency, and impair a company's capacity for utilizing new cost-saving technologies capable of reducing capital and operational expenditures. For these reasons, most companies require the ability to model and dynamically map business applications to the underlying infrastructures, including of course support.
These business applications mandate ongoing maintenance and support, requiring the management of support contracts a critical part of the overall IT and business management process. The information contained in the maintenance and support contracts must be readily accessible for budgeting and planning purposes, and most importantly in the case of emergencies. All this helps minimize the business risks associated with application support, capacity planning, and ongoing infrastructure issues.
Some best practices to consider:
Centralize and consolidate manufacturer's contracts
Identify the TCO
Get timely expiration notifications
Determine the needed support level & support service
Make informed decisions
Deploy similar support levels
Budget & forecast support costs
Track the relationship between hardware & software support licenses
Determine when and if to renew contracts
Identify & control asset information
In conclusion, the management of application infrastructures is demanding on resources and can be tough to manage costs effectively. Any disconnect can be a costly and dangerous error. Be sure to put some of these 10 best practices into practice in your IT environment.
More detail on these best practices can be found at the blog series: 10 Best Practices for Maintenance and Support Contracts.
