IT maintenance contract: what it covers and why your business needs one

A website, an application or an automation workflow is never finished. Software needs updates, servers need watching, and something will eventually break. A maintenance contract makes sure someone is responsible when it does.

What a maintenance contract usually covers

• Monitoring: checks that your systems are up and fast, with an alert when something goes wrong.
• Updates and security patches: software and servers are kept up to date, which closes known security holes.
• Backups: regular copies of your data, and proof that they can be restored.
• Incident response: a person investigates and fixes the problem when something breaks.
• Fixes and small evolutions: bugs are corrected and small changes are made without a new project each time.
• Support: your team has someone to ask, in French and English.

Why it is cheaper than waiting

A system that is not maintained fails at the worst moment: during a sale, a payroll run or a launch. The cost of the stop, the lost orders and the urgent repair usually exceeds the cost of regular care. Updates applied late also leave the door open to attacks.

What to ask before you sign

• What exactly is covered, and what counts as a new project?
• How fast does the provider respond, and through which channel?
• Who has access to your systems, and how is that access protected?
• How are backups tested?
• Is the system documented, so you are not locked in?
• Is support available in your language and your time zone?

How we do it

Under a Prone Data maintenance contract we monitor your workflows, websites and applications, apply updates and security fixes, handle incidents and answer your team. We document every system we deliver, so it stays yours. Maintenance contracts are one of our four service lines, and we are starting several with clients in France and Côte d'Ivoire. See our client projects.

Talk to us

If you already have a system that nobody looks after, or you are about to launch one, contact us and we will describe what a reasonable level of care looks like for it.