Guidance

Rule 17: ICT shall have defined support arrangements

Updated 16 October 2023

1. Rule requirement

  1. Support arrangements

1.1 An Annex A assists the Duty Operations Team in the GOSCC to understand the support wrap for each Defence Digital Assured Service.

By having a depositary of Annex A’s, the GOSCC have the necessary information to understand the impact of major incidents and know what the relevant support wrap is.

1.2 An Annex A must be completed for all new systems and services to abide to rule 17 of JSP 604 ICT joining rules.

On completion, the Annex A must be sent to ISSOps-ODOps-AnxAApplication@mod.gov.uk for approval.

2. Rule rationale

ICT should have then necessary funded support arrangements in place to satisfy the customer’s requirements for levels of service. Support arrangements should be considered from the earliest stages of the project lifecycle.

Gartner have identified that, on average, the cost to maintain an application for a service life of 5 years accounts for 40 percent of the total cost of ownership. With increasing financial constraints, Defence must ensure that the logistics burden of its ICT is minimised.