C26527 Applications Maintenance and Support Services (AMS)

The outsourced Application and Maintenance Support Services (AMS) will provide the following to Defra:

• Application Monitoring - collecting data from applications to measure their performance and availability. This data can then be used to proactively identify and resolve issues before they impact users. Issues can include situations where an application is not performing as designed or, in the worst case, there is an outage and it is not available to end users.

• Application Maintenance - as technology progresses and the needs of end users adapt over time, continuous updating and modifying of applications is required to ensure they are running to the best of their abilities. This constant re-evaluating process means that faults can be corrected, and performance continue to be improved.

• Application Support - specialist support that can be contacted by receiving escalations from the service desk when they are unable to resolve a user's problem. This includes fixing issues that vary in levels of priority (from P4 to P1), however always on a minor tactical scale as the focus is to enable the application to function (as opposed to large scale Application Development).

By outsourcing the provision of these services to a specialist external provider, Defra can allow its IT function to continue focussing on longer term, more strategic planning. Typically, leveraging AMS services enables an organisation to improve internal efficiency and increase user-satisfaction. This is because internal IT teams are not having to spend time fixing applications that are not working as the end user expects them to.

In Defra's case, there are also regulatory requirements that must be adhered to, which makes the ongoing support of multiple applications even more critical. As well as ensuring that applications do not stop working, the AMS supplier will work to reduce the impact from outages and release fixes if a critical incident occurs.

Performing these duties limits the impact to farmers, borders and trade as a number of Defra's application are integral to them carrying out their jobs. Solving critical issues is also key as the alternative is working via sub-optimal methods or workarounds that can cost significantly more.