Operations & Support

Operations

IBM SRE operations for all IBM Maximo and TRIRIGA on Cloud customers includes:

• System Administration and ongoing Security Compliance is performed to meet both IBM internal (ITSS) and external (ISO, SOC) and other standards

• Environment management to IBM internal IT Cloud Security Policy standards

• Application Deployment, Middleware and O/S updates, patches and fixes

• Ongoing system and database monitoring & tuning

• Environment refreshes (backflow) - for example from TEST to DEV

• 24 x 7 system administration support on call

• 24 x 7 support and monitoring for systems and applications

• Ongoing account management, onboarding and SRE Support

• 24 x 7 access to the IBM Support Community for case support ticket submission and updates

• ITIL managed operations (Service Request, Incident, Problem and Change management)

• Access to the Client Communication Center (CCC) for viewing status of environments and subscribing to environment alerts & notifications

• Close liaisons between SRE and IBM Software Support, QA and Development Staff

• Disaster Recovery and Backup / Restore support & services

Support - General

Technical support for the cloud service is available as part of the customer's subscription period.

Maximo and TRIRIGA on Cloud systems can be provisioned in multiple languages, however support for IBM on Cloud products is provided in the english language.

IBM Maximo and TRIRIGA on Cloud customers receive support coverage 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year. This includes IBM Support Community Portal access, comprehensive backup and restore, system monitoring and patching.

IBM SRE operations staff are located in Canada, United States, China, India, Brazil, Costa Rica, Ireland and Australia.

When the client receives confirmation to establish their service, IBM will include in the Welcome Kit an overview of the Support options available, which includes the Knowledge Center and access to our IBM Support Community. This system allows clients to create, submit, update and review support cases. IBM encourages the use of these technologies to engage support. We also provide emergency on call access for system down (Severity 1) situations. The use of these technologies allows us to engage the most appropriate resource to resolve customer question/concerns in a timely fashion.

Case (Ticket) Support Hours of Operation

8:00 AM – 8:00 PM Eastern Standard Time, Monday – Friday (excluding holidays)

Note: IBM SRE global resources provide coverage outside of these standard hours

24x7 emergency on-call support is available for severity 1 or system down incidents. This is reserved for production outages where the Maximo or TRIRIGA application is unavailable or service has been severely degraded. IBM leverages an automated alert system integrated with our ticketing system(s) to provide timely customer response to Sev1 issues. The IBM SRE team employs a two shift rotating schedule in which a Client Communicator, First Responder, Escalation Manager and DBA are assigned to each shift. Backups are also assigned to the Client Communicator and First Responder roles to insure redundancy. Sev1 tickets receive a response time objective of within 1 hour.

Information on off hours and weekend support can be found here

IBM Support Guides

IBM Support Guides for each product are available. See links below. The guides contains information such as Contact Information, Hours of Operation, Severity Level Guidelines & Response Time Objectives and Issue Escalation

IBM Support Guide for Maximo EAM SaaS Flex
IBM Support Guide for TRIRIGA Facilities and Real Estate Management on Cloud

Case Escalation

There is an escalation process for IBM on Cloud customers who wish to pursue a particular concern regarding an open case of any severity. Customers should submit a new case in the IBM Support Community (https://www.ibm.com/mysupport) with the issue summary of “ESCALATION” and the following information in the body of the ticket:

• Case number needing escalation in the format of "ESCALATION required for 99999."

• Reason for the escalation request on previously submitted cases, so we may prioritize your requests accordingly.

Note: To appropriately notify the management team, please do not request an escalation through a comment in an open case. Please note that while we may be able to process some requests quickly, there may be questions or issues that require a longer time for analysis.

Customers can also ask to speak to the Maximo or TRIRIGA on Cloud Client Delivery Team Lead. Escalations to a Client Delivery Team Lead will receive prompt attention. If you are unable to reach the Client Delivery Team lead, ask for the Service Delivery Operations Manager.

Case Severity Levels

Case tickets are assigned one of four different severity levels depending on Case type:

Severity Level: 1
Severity Definition: Critical business impact/service down:  Business critical functionality is inoperable or critical interface has failed. This usually applies to a production environment and indicates an inability to access services resulting in a critical impact on operations.  This condition requires an immediate solution.
Response Time Objective: Within 1 hour
Response Time Coverage: 24x7

Severity Level: 2
Severity Definition: Significant business impact:  A service business feature or function of the service is severely restricted in its use or you are in jeopardy of missing business deadlines.  
Response Time Objective: Within 2 business hours
Response Time Coverage: M-F business hours

Severity Level: 3
Severity Definition: Minor business impact:  Indicates the service or functionality is usable and it is not a critical impact on operations.  
Response Time Objective: Within 4 business hours
Response Time Coverage: M-F business hours

Severity Level: 4
Severity Definition: Minimal business impact:  An inquiry or non-technical request
Response Time Objective: Within 1 business day
Response Time Coverage: M-F business hours

Off Shift Weekend/Holiday Support (Severity 1 Only)

If you require support between the hours of Friday 8pm to Sunday 6pm US Eastern Time (and Christmas Day and New Years Day) for a Severity 1 case, the following steps are required:

1. Log a new case using the IBM Support Community and set the Severity to 1 (only if not related to an existing Sev1). Provide as much detail as possible, including the business impact and confirm it is a production system issue.

2. Call your local IBM Support Center (click here for IBM Directory of worldwide contacts) and request to speak to the duty engineer.

Failure to follow this process results in no support during off-shift hours.

Support Ticket system for Maximo and TRIRIGA on Cloud