Support and Maintenance
There in your time of need
Relax in the knowledge that Cloud Construct will take good care of your cloud software, services and infrastructure ensuring your business continues to run smoothly
Support Service
We’ll ensure the ongoing success of your project with support from our experienced expert team having an intimate understanding of your configurations, here in the UK.
We want to ensure you’re covered in the event of failure, that’s why we now offer three support levels for your project and business:
What’s covered?
Support of your Cloud Apps, Hosting Environment and Infrastructure as developed/configured by Cloud Construct.
- Monitoring of services and automated alerts in the event of a problem
- Resolving outages or other issues resulting in significantly impaired performance
- Monitoring of CloudCheckr security and billing reports (for AWS accounts)
Further Details
Hourly Rates: Standard office hours are 09:00 to 17:00 UK time excluding UK holidays. Standard Hourly rate is £95/hr ex VAT
Essential – support available during office hours at Standard Hourly Rate
Essential+ – support available 07:00 to 19:00 weekdays (excluding UK holidays). Double Standard Hourly Rate for hours outside of standard office hours, otherwise Standard Hourly Rate
Ultimate – 24/7 cover. Support hours are included.
Maximum of 5 tickets a month included, thereafter charged at Double Standard Hourly Rate outside standard office hours, otherwise Standard Hourly Rate
Keep your software and data secure
Maintenance Service
What’s the difference between Support and Maintenance?
Our Support Services are designed to ensure we’re there for you in your time of need.
Maintenance Service ensures the upkeep and ongoing health of software and underlying systems:
- Software updates and patching
- Management and monitoring of backups
- Essential for ecommerce hosting to maintain PCI compliance
- Operating system and web services security updates and maintenance
The key difference is Support Services are a subscription to ensure resources are available to receive a timely response, whereas Maintenance is simply an agreed reserved time per month to ensure the upkeep of your systems.
The budget recommended varies on the complexity of your software and supporting services, but it’s important to remember this budget is never lost and may be reallocated if unused.
Why do I need to maintain my software?
Cloud Construct develops software built with industry standard practices to ensure they’re as secure and stable as possible from launch. Our recommended technology choices are based on performance, reliability and value for money.
However, like everything in the IT industry this technology is constantly evolving.
There are several layers involved:
| Layer | Description | Who's Responsible? |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
The Cloud:
Internet and Network |
Cloud support from providers such as Amazon We Services (AWS).
Cloud Construct can manage your cloud hosting for you. |
| 2 | Server Hardware and Operating System | |
| 3 | Programming Language | Software/application support from Cloud Construct. |
| 4 | Software Framework | |
| 5 | Custom Code | |
| 6 | User Environment / Device / Web Browser | Your IT department or provider. |
Just like your computer, mobile phone or tablet device – server Operating Systems, programming languages and associated coding frameworks are constantly being updated to support new hardware, offer improved features and defend against newly discovered security vulnerabilities.
Most vendors provide support periods where they’ll actively maintain and support a version of their product, typically for 18-24 months. Once the end date has passed, they will no longer provide updates and security patches.
With each version comes changes, often introducing improvements which are not backwards compatible – or removal of old features.
For this reason it is essential to keep your software up to date with underlying code changes to run on the current supported version.
What if I choose not to maintain our software? 😱
The short answer is the software will go stale, insecure and we will be unable to effectively (or responsibly) support it.
Your business will be unable to pass Cyber Essentials certification which may be a requirement of your supply chain and potentially invalidate certain business insurances.
The longer it is left, the more difficult it will be to recover – sometimes leading to complete rewrites which can be comparatively expensive and disruptive.
- Security vulnerabilities leading to data leaks, expensive fines and embarrassment.
- Rising costs as your users become frustrated and inefficient
- Ultimately leading to lost sales or poor service
I recommend reading our own blog entry “6 Reasons Why Your Business Needs Ongoing Website Support and Maintenance” here
What does it cost?
We will work with you to establish a sensible ongoing essential monthly maintenance budget to ensure the upkeep of your systems. This recommendation will be appropriate to your tech stack to cover your code, server and hosting configurations (ie AWS).
Pre-agreed budgets help ensure you receive improvements to your software without the need for board spend approval for minor changes.
We prefer to schedule regular update meetings to ensure alignment of your software to your current business goals and maintain a high level of communication between us.
Maintenance is charged at standard hourly rates, with no minimum contract and can be cancelled at any time. Monthly maintenance time will be scheduled as normal priority.
All prices Exclude VAT.
Ready to elevate your support services?
Complete this contact form below and we’ll get in touch to learn how we can help support your business and ensure continued success.