What support covers
- Cluster updates, patching and platform health checks
- Responding to alerts, capacity issues and platform instability
- Help with CI/CD incidents and deployment issues in Level 3
Platform Support
After go-live
Maintenance and response covered after go-live.
Fixed platform and delivery coverage for maintenance, operational signals and team questions without falling back to loose hours or generic consulting.
- Maintenance so the baseline does not slowly drift backwards
- Response to operational signals with real platform impact
- Targeted help with CI/CD and deployments when delivery friction appears
Principle
Support is fixed platform coverage, not a ticket factory.
The contents change per tier, but the boundary stays the same: agreed coverage on the platform and the delivery issues around it. Larger extensions stay separate scope.
What support is not
- Feature development in product or application code
- Sliding new platform modules into the subscription as project work
- Unlimited consulting without agreed boundaries
Sharp up front
- Which clusters, environments and delivery tooling are covered
- Contact lines, working windows and escalation path
- What goes to support and what moves into separate project scope
Why the model works
- The platform stays healthy without maintenance being postponed forever
- Response is tied to the right operational signals, not every random request
- Developer support is added only when it is actually needed
Comparison
The three support tiers side by side
| Tier | What it covers | Best fit for |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 - Platform Maintenance | Updates, patching, periodic health checks and small corrections on access, observability and cluster defaults. | Teams that use the platform themselves but want structural maintenance handled properly. |
| Level 2 - Monitoring & Response | Everything in Level 1, plus responding to alerts, resource pressure and signs that clusters, ingress, load balancers, WAF, networking or other platform layers are becoming unstable. | Teams that can build, but should not carry every operational signal alone. |
| Level 3 - Full DevOps Support | Everything in Level 2, plus support for CI/CD issues, build failures, deployment incidents and pipeline debugging. | Teams where platform and delivery become the bottleneck together. |
Keep the base healthy
Maintenance, patching, checks and drift prevention.
Respond to signals
Alerts, resource pressure and platform instability handled faster.
Cover delivery too
CI/CD incidents, build failures and deployment problems inside fixed coverage.
Examples
Where support creates value
- Pods stop scheduling because of capacity, nodes or underlying platform issues
- CPU or memory pressure makes workloads or platform services unstable
- ALB, ingress, WAF, networking or observability start showing abnormal or failing patterns
- CI/CD pipelines fail on authentication, artifacts or deployment stages
- Builds and releases break because platform defaults or tooling changed
Collaboration
How the work stays manageable
- Initial onboarding to confirm scope, repos, clusters and contact lines
- Fixed checks or maintenance moments based on the chosen tier
- Escalation into separate project scope when the work becomes a larger change or a new module
Important boundary
Mature support keeps the platform healthy and helps with real operational or delivery issues. If larger extensions, redesign work or application work are needed, we factor that in and can execute it as separate scope so the subscription stays usable and predictable.
Next step
Which support layer fits the platform?
Most teams start after Platform in a Week with maintenance or response. Once delivery friction becomes structural, the model moves into Full DevOps Support.
- Level 1 when maintenance is the main gap
- Level 2 when platform alerts need faster hands-on response
- Level 3 when platform and CI/CD slow the team down together
Pricing indication: Level 1 Platform Maintenance starts from EUR 1,990 per month. Broader coverage is priced to match cluster count, support windows and delivery support.
Contact
Website: devopswithasmile.nl
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sander-horst-16893b166
E-mail: shorst@devopswithasmile.nl