Then we run it.This is what that means.
Monitoring, updates, backups that are restored and verified, and the changes the business needs as it changes. Three levels, and what each one does not cover.
What is actually covered.
Maintain
A system that works and needs to keep working.
No build allocation. Nothing new is being made.
Included
- Monitoring, so we hear about a problem before you do.
- Security and dependency updates, applied and tested.
- Backups taken, and restored into a scratch environment to prove they work.
- Bug fixes.
- Small changes — a field, a label, a report column.
- A quarterly review of what has happened and what is coming.
Not included
- New features. A change that needs design or a schema migration is quoted separately.
- Work on systems we did not build, unless we have agreed to adopt them.
- Out-of-hours cover.
Improve
A system that is still changing because the business is.
A build allocation is included every month, so change does not need a quote each time.
Included
- Everything in Maintain.
- A monthly build allocation for new work, agreed at the start of each month.
- A monthly working session with whoever runs the process.
- Unused allocation is not banked. It is a rhythm, not a bucket.
Not included
- Allocation carried forward. A month you did not use is a month you did not need.
- Work outside the system under management.
- Out-of-hours cover.
Software Department
More than one system, and nobody internally who owns them.
We hold the roadmap across your systems, rather than executing against yours for one of them.
Included
- Everything in Improve, across every system under management.
- A larger allocation, and priority on where it goes when two things collide.
- We propose what should be built next rather than waiting to be asked.
- We are the escalation point for anything software-related, including things we did not build.
Not included
- Hardware, networks and end-user IT support. We will tell you who to call.
- Being your data protection officer. We can help the person who is.
- Out-of-hours cover.
There is no monthly figure here. Our tiers exist and they are draft: priced against systems we run ourselves rather than against retainers anybody has signed, and the build refuses to publish a number nobody has stood behind. You get a real one in writing, for the tier that fits, after we have looked at what is actually being run.
All of this is business hours. Monday to Friday, Irish time. If your system goes down at two in the morning we will find out when we start work, the same as you. We are not going to sell you cover we cannot yet staff, because the moment you need it at 2am is the moment you would discover it was theatre.
What this is instead of.
- One developer, who is excellent and is also on holiday, ill, and eventually leaving. A retainer is a team that does not have a single point of failure — which matters most in exactly the weeks a single hire is least available.
- Nothing, which is the usual choice. A system with nobody looking after it does not fail on a schedule: it accumulates unpatched dependencies and unverified backups for about eighteen months and then has a very bad week.
- Calling whoever built it when something breaks. That works until they are busy, and it prices every conversation as an emergency because by the time you are calling, it is one.