IT Support Services...

Our IT support services
All of our IT support service offerings are specifically designed to allow small and medium sized businesses access to an efficient and effective IT support service normally only found within big businesses. How do we achieve this? Simple, we put you, the customer, in control of on going IT support costs by allowing you to decide the severity of problems encountered and the speed by which those problems are dealt with. Both of these variables dictate how much you will pay for your IT support service

IT Support is a critical part of operating an effective IT system. Companies need to be supported by a quality level of technical expertise that can solve problems as they arise and not leave themselves struggling with uncooperative IT equipment. Typically, IT Support comes in three flavours:

• 1 st Line (Helpdesk) – takes and progresses user fault reports and identifies whether problems are at a system level (hardware, software, communications, or documentation)
• 2 nd Line (On/Off-site Support) – progresses problems escalated from 1ST line support and identify specific design defects or procedural shortcomings. 2ND line support may also provide work-rounds pending the permanent resolution of a fault
• 3 rd Line – called upon by 2ND line support to seek a permanent solution to the reported problem. This may involve correcting bugs in software, repairing hardware or revising user documentation

Breakwater offers the following three types of IT support service contracts:

• 1 Year 1 st / 2 nd Line Service Support Contract
  The provision of a contracted (12 month commitment) ServiceDesk (Helpdesk) facility (within core BWIT business hours of Monday to Friday, 8am – 6pm) that records and manages all reported incidents against agreed Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Weekly and monthly reports provided to the customer on all open and closed calls. Calls get assigned to 2nd line support staff who can quickly and efficiently resolve incidents – either remotely or on-site. Also included is IT Asset (both software and hardware) management locking down systems against un-authorised configuration change
• Pay As You Go! IT Support
  This support proposal includes provision of the services detailed in above (excluding Asset tagging and helpdesk reports) but on a ‘Pay-as-you-go’ basis. In addition to a nominal retainer fee costs are incurred per incident (as detailed later)
• 1 Year 1 st – 3 rd Line Service Support Contract
  As 1 st option but extended by getting to the root cause of incidents and seeking a permanent fix as opposed to continually “plastering over the cracks!”. Also, it ensures best practices are applied when applying changes to the IT environment. This involves proving and testing in non-live environments prior to “Go Live” with continual review of applicable software patching and control of software distribution following proven techniques. Finally, the monitoring of system capacities across IT equipment thus proactively managing system bottlenecks avoiding foreseeable downtime. SLAs to monitor uptime, thus maximising systems availability within business hours, will also be created

Industry Best Practice - ITIL Modular Approach
Breakwater’s IT Support service is underpinned by use of ITIL (the IT Infrastructure Library) which is the most widely accepted approach to IT service management in the world. It provides a comprehensive and consistent set of best practices for IT service management, promoting a quality approach to achieving business effectiveness and efficiency in the use of information systems. Breakwater use the following modules:

Service Level Agreements
It is now widely accepted that IT service provision and receipt should be governed by an agreement. This is essential to define the parameters of the service, for the benefit of both the provider and the recipient. The SLAs detailed below illustrates how Breakwater approach’s Service Support.