Maintenance windows

The BMC SaaS Operations team performs regular application and infrastructure maintenance to your non-production and production environments. Here are the types of maintenance you can expect from BMC: 

  • Monthly Maintenance (includes standard and scheduled maintenance)
  • Customer Requested
  • Emergency

BMC will notify you in advance. Customer approval is only required for customer-requested changes. 

You can view the schedule and maintenance windows on your Change Calendar (Support Central > Case Management > Change Calendar).

Related topics

BMC Helix Notification policy

BMC Helix Upgrade policy

Zero-downtime (ZDT) upgrade for BMC Helix Innovation Suite and applications


Monthly maintenance

BMC manages all patching and maintenance of the underlying infrastructure of the BMC Helix services. Monthly maintenance can include: 

  • Updates to underlying infrastructure including database, network components, and virtual hosts
  • Infrastructure migrations and service updates
  • Application patches

Standard maintenance windows are published in advance and are typically outside of normal business hours for the region. Reminders are sent at least 7 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 shared service updates might require server restarts within this window.    

Application maintenance may occur in a monthly push to proactively apply the latest patch, hotfix, or update.  Maintenance is typically performed according to the following schedule: 

EnvironmentSchedule
DevelopmentFirst week of the month
QASecond week of the month
ProductionThird week of the month


Infrastructure maintenance may occur in a monthly push to proactively apply server, backup, and security activities. Maintenance is typically performed according to the following schedule: 

EnvironmentSchedule
Non-Production (Development and QA)First weekend of a full week at the beginning of the month
ProductionThird week of the month
*varies for London and Santa Clara BMC Helix ITSM service locations

Customer requested maintenance

Most BMC Helix services are updated and maintained proactively by SaaS Operations. However, customers may request service updates or hotfixes.  Other customer-requested changes can include Lifecycle Requests or other normal, pre-approved or emergency changesExamples include a request based on a support ticket opened with BMC, an service update request, or a configuration change. 

Emergency maintenance

Emergency changes are required to address a current outage situation in a customer’s environment, or to prevent an imminent outage situation from occurring. Notifications are sent as soon as possible and may be addressed to a specific subgroup if the application is related to a certain set of users. BMC will send a global notification in case of application downtime or other general announcements.  

For more details on notifications, see BMC Helix Notification policy.  

Standard and scheduled maintenance

IT Operations Management services

Service NameStandard production maintenanceActivities performed in the maintenance window
BMC Helix Operations Management serviceBi-weekly during a maintenance window that is a maximum of one hour in duration, with a goal of zero downtime. While most maintenance does not require downtime, infrastructure and shared service updates may require downtime within this window.
  • Updating of underlying infrastructure including database, network components, and virtual hosts
  • Infrastructure migrations, service updates, and maintenance
  • Application updates
BMC Helix Capacity Optimization and BMC Helix Cloud Cost services
BMC Helix Automation and Security services
BMC Helix Discovery service

IT Services Management services

Service NameStandard production maintenanceScheduled maintenanceActivities performed in the maintenance windowNotifications
BMC Helix ITSM serviceStandard production monthly maintenance windows are a maximum of four hours in duration, with a goal of zero downtime. While most maintenance does not require downtime, infrastructure and shared service updates may require downtime within this window.

Scheduled maintenance is applied to your systems on a monthly cycle. Your non-production and production systems are assigned to three separate windows in the month based on your geographical region of operations, hosting location, and other architectural factors.

Windows for non-production and production environments are typically scheduled two weeks apart. All windows are designed to be executed during off-business hours.

Each production maintenance window is scheduled for four hours.



  • Updating and patching of underlying infrastructure including database, network components, and virtual hosts
  • Infrastructure migrations, service updates, and maintenance
  • Application updates

Notifications are provided in advance of the next month’s maintenance and contain the following:

  • Payload information
  • Impact to service
  • Actual schedule (date and time)

For non-production environments, notifications are sent out approximately seven days before the change window.



Line of Business service (BMC Helix Business Workflows)
BMC Helix Digital Workplace service

BMC Helix Innovation Suite service

BMC Helix Client Management service

Upgrades for the BMC Helix Client Management service are by request. To request an upgrade, submit a request through Support Central.
BMC Helix Innovation Suite service

Standard production monthly maintenance windows are a maximum of four hours in duration, with a goal of zero downtime. While most maintenance does not require downtime, infrastructure and shared service updates may require downtime within this window.

Scheduled maintenance is applied to your systems on a monthly cycle. Your non-production and production systems are assigned to two separate windows in the month based on your geographical region of operations, hosting location, and other architecture factors.

Windows for non-production and production environments are typically scheduled five business days apart. All windows are designed to be executed during off-business hours. All windows are designed to be executed during off-business hours.

Each production maintenance window is scheduled for four hours.


  • Patching of underlying infrastructure including operating systems, databases, and virtual hosts
  • Infrastructure migrations, service updates, and maintenance
  • Application patching
  • Application updates
BMC Helix iPaaS

Standard maintenance activities for the BMC Helix iPaaS service are performed with zero downtime and therefore a pre-defined maintenance window is not set.

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