Brief info
Application Maintenance Services (AMS) is the name Consist Software Solutions uses to describe the transfer of responsibility for maintenance and continued development of individual IT applications and system environment.
Typical AMS scenarios
What customer situations make AMS a good solution approach?
- The software to be maintained was not developed in-house, or has already been maintained and cared for by a service provider for some time.
- Know-how is no longer available internally (possible reasons due to leave of personnel or restructuring).
- The software to be maintained will be replaced in the medium term by standard software.
- The technology of the software to be maintained is no longer strategic, and your own maintenance personnel are needed for new development due to their technical expertise.
- Maintenance volume is low, that is, the effort only corresponds to a maximum of a single person.
- It is not sufficiently know-how for databases and system environment at the disposal.
- Maintenance must be ensured during special cases, e.g. during moves, restructuring, mergers, or system migrations.
For which technologies AMS can be used?
- Classical development environments (e.g. Cobol, Natural, PL/1)
- Object oriented development environments (e.g. Java, .NET, C++)
- Operating system administration (e.g. Unix, Host)
- Database administration (e.g. Adabas, Oracle, MS SQL)
- Office applications (MS Access, Visual Basic)
Customer advantages
- Flexibility (resources, availability)
- Transparency and effectiveness (clearly defined processes, SLA)
- Cost reduction
- Concentration on core competences
- Protection of investment
Flexibility
Except for a base amount – the basic maintenance – you only use the extended maintenance you actually need. This allows an IT manager to react flexibly to the various demands of his department. In peak times or for additional projects, additional qualified staff can be provided on a short-term basis; generally other Consist AMS team members are already trained for internal staffing reasons and thus already have a solid basic knowledge.
Particularly for smaller maintenance issues, AMS can bring you a great deal of flexibility. You profit from the synergistic effects in our AMS team and, for instance, no longer need to worry about replacements during vacation or bottlenecks in case of illness. Regular hours of standby service can also be organized smoothly.
Transparency and effectiveness
Maintenance activities fall into the area of the customer's day-to-day business, that is, errors which occur are corrected as quickly as possible according to their priority. But sometimes this area is not process-supported and offers potentials for optimization. By introducing clearly defined AMS work processes, methods, and interfaces, which are all developed together with the client, you achieve greater transparency in the area of maintenance, that is, you can see what is actually happening in the area of maintenance. Furthermore, work is no longer performed ad hoc, so that for example a quick little change is moved directly from development into production or even made directly in production, but instead is subject to quality control during its lifecycle from development through testing into production.
The AMS processes are tool-supported at Consist, among other things by the use of the Applix IService service desk solution. Monthly status reports and Web-accessible status pages offer you an overview at any time on open problems and the work of remote AMS.
A customized Service Level Agreement (SLA) is concluded, guaranteeing you the service and reaction times you need, and defining average problem solution times. Here, too, monthly reports (the SLA review) ensure the needed transparency for the customer and shows how well the Service Level was satisfied.
Cost reduction
Costs can be reduced, for instance, if the customer can use the outsourcing of maintenance tasks to profit from the synergistic effects in the Consist AMS team. This is particularly the case if the maintenance tasks transferred are only a partial load for one person, or if you transfer responsibility to Consist Software Solutions for different partial areas together, e.g. for maintenance, DBA, and system monitoring. Communication paths are made shorter and expenses can be saved; the different activities at Consist are partly performed by the same person.
Cost reductions are also achieved due to the improved transparency and flexibility. In contrast to "anyway" costs, with AMS you only pay for what you really use.
Concentration on core competences
If the software to be maintained will be replaced by introducing standard software in the medium term, or if the technology of the software to be maintained is no longer strategic, then you need your own maintenance personnel for new development due to their technical expertise. You can concentrate on your core competences and the development of business processes, while freeing yourself of responsibility for the maintenance of your legacy systems.
Protection of investment
As a part of extended maintenance, legacy applications can be modernized, for instance by porting them to object-oriented technologies or by connecting them to the Internet. This allows you to protect your investment and meet the increased requirements of your own employees and customers.
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