Operations
The BMC SaaS Operations team manages all operational aspects of the service, from activation to decommissioning. The following table describes key areas of responsibility:
| Function | Description |
|---|---|
| Activation activities | Service activation focuses on the initial setup and configuration of your Helix environments so that you can begin using your service. |
| Data centers and architecture | BMC's data centers are top-tier data centers that are staffed and monitored 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Monitoring includes electrical, environmental, and backup systems. Primary data centers are backed up by a geographically-dispersed data center for disaster recovery purposes. |
| Lifecycle Requests | Operational and enhancement services included with your BMC Helix subscription are referred to as Lifecycle Requests. These services are fulfilled upon request by the BMC SaaS Operations team. |
| Customizations | BMC allows unlimited application customizations to your applications, assuming best-practice design is used. Ongoing maintenance of customizations is the responsibility of the customer. |
| Go-live assessment | Just before production cutover, the BMC SaaS Operations team conducts an extensive go-live assessment to evaluate production system parameters. Adjustments are made to the system if necessary. |
| Security | Led by its Security Operations Center (SOC), BMC uses a multilayered approach to protect your data, constantly monitoring and improving applications, systems, and processes. |
| Incident Response policy | Responding to incidents affecting your production system and restoring your service to normal levels is the number one priority of BMC SaaS Operations. Reporting on a service disruption involves an analysis of the issue, followed by a Request for Outage report. |
| Change management | The BMC Helix change management process involves close control of system changes throughout their lifecycle to ensure minimum disruption to supporting services. |
| Application patches | BMC manages all patching and maintenance of the underlying infrastructure of the BMC Helix services. |
| Application updates | BMC schedules and performs updates and patches per its published upgrade policy. Some services are updated per a schedule set by BMC SaaS Operations; others are by request. |
| Maintenance windows | Standard maintenance windows are published in advance and are typically outside of normal business hours for the region. Reminders are sent at least seven days before maintenance occurs for non-production systems and at least 21 days before maintenance occurs for production systems. Standard production monthly maintenance windows are a maximum of four hours in duration, with a goal of zero downtime. While most maintenance will not require downtime, infrastructure and common service updates might require server restarts within this window. |
| Data handling | BMC data handling includes everything from data backup and retention schedules to archives to final data exports. |
| Auditing | BMC provides continual auditing of OS security logs and application logs, to proactively assess system activity. |
| Disaster recovery | The BMC Information Technology Contingency Plan addresses actions required by BMC in the event of a disaster that impacts a customer’s primary service location. This plan is tested regularly. BMC offers two options for disaster recovery to suit a customer’s individual recovery point and recovery time objectives. |
| Data extraction | Service decommissioning is provided when a customer's service terminates or expires. In such case, BMC SaaS Operations provides a data backup file in a comma-separated values (.csv) format or provides a database backup file before permanent deletion of the data occurs. |
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