How Long-Term AEM Support Contracts Reduce Risk

Many organizations view ongoing AEM support as a nice-to-have rather than essential. But in our experience helping dozens of companies maintain their AEM environments, we’ve seen firsthand how proactive support contracts dramatically reduce operational risk.

The Hidden Costs of Reactive Support

When Things Go Wrong

Without ongoing support, organizations typically operate in reactive mode:

The Security Patch Dilemma

A critical security vulnerability is announced. Your team needs to:

• Drop everything to assess the impact
• Test the patch in lower environments
• Schedule emergency deployment
• Hope nothing breaks in production

Cost: 40+ hours of unplanned work, production deployment stress, and opportunity cost of other work not getting done.

The Performance Problem

Your AEM instance slows down during peak traffic. Your team scrambles to:

• Identify the bottleneck (database? queries? cache?)
• Research solutions
• Implement fixes
• Test under load
• Deploy to production

Cost: Days or weeks of slow performance affecting users, plus emergency consulting fees if your team can’t solve it.

The Mystery Bug

An intermittent issue affects a critical business process. You spend time:

• Trying to reproduce the issue
• Searching forums and documentation
• Trial-and-error debugging
• Eventually calling in expensive emergency help

Cost: Lost business due to the broken process, plus significantly higher emergency consulting rates.

The Proactive Support Advantage

With an ongoing support contract, these scenarios play out very differently:

Continuous Monitoring

Before issues become problems:

• Automated monitoring catches anomalies early
• Trend analysis predicts capacity needs
• Performance benchmarks identify degradation
• Log analysis spots emerging issues

Result: Many problems are prevented entirely, and those that do occur are caught early when they’re easier to fix.

Regular Maintenance

Scheduled, planned work:

• Security patches applied promptly in maintenance windows
• Performance tuning based on usage patterns
• Proactive cleanup of problem areas
• Regular health checks catch issues early

Result: No surprises, no emergency work, just steady improvements.

Expert Availability

When you need help:

• Known consultant already familiar with your environment
• No ramp-up time explaining your setup
• Fast response times (hours, not days)
• Direct access via Slack/phone, not just email tickets

Result: Faster resolution, lower stress, and better outcomes.

Real-World Risk Reduction

Risk 1: Security Breaches

Without Support:

• Patches delayed while team evaluates and tests
• No one monitoring for suspicious activity
• Emergency patching under pressure

With Support:

• Patches tested and applied within SLA timeframes
• Continuous security monitoring
• Proactive hardening recommendations

Risk Reduction: Near-elimination of security incidents due to delayed patches.

Risk 2: System Downtime

Without Support:

• Issues discovered by users reporting problems
• Long resolution times due to debugging from scratch
• Multiple deployment attempts if first fix doesn’t work

With Support:

• Issues often caught before users are affected
• Rapid diagnosis by familiar consultant
• Higher success rate on first fix

Risk Reduction: Typical reduction of 60-80% in unplanned downtime.

Risk 3: Performance Degradation

Without Support:

• Gradual slowdown goes unnoticed until it’s severe
• Emergency performance tuning expensive and disruptive
• Band-aid fixes rather than addressing root causes

With Support:

• Continuous performance monitoring
• Scheduled optimization based on trends
• Root cause analysis and permanent fixes

Risk Reduction: Performance issues caught early before impacting users.

Risk 4: Knowledge Loss

Without Support:

• Critical knowledge lives in one person’s head
• Team turnover creates knowledge gaps
• Tribal knowledge not documented

With Support:

• Consultant provides continuity across team changes
• All work documented for knowledge transfer
• Regular reviews keep team knowledge current

Risk Reduction: Business continuity even with team turnover.

Risk 5: Capacity Planning

Without Support:

• Scaling issues discovered during traffic spikes
• Emergency infrastructure changes expensive
• Growth impacts not anticipated

With Support:

• Trend analysis predicts capacity needs months ahead
• Planned infrastructure changes during maintenance windows
• Load testing validates capacity before traffic spikes

Risk Reduction: Orderly scaling that stays ahead of demand.

The Economics of Support Contracts

Cost Comparison

Reactive Model (No Support Contract):

• $0/month until something breaks
• Then: $15,000-$30,000+ for emergency work
• Unpredictable budget impact
• Higher rates for emergency work (2-3x normal rates)
• Opportunity cost of other work not getting done

Proactive Model (Support Contract):

• Fixed monthly cost ($3,500-$12,000 depending on tier)
• Predictable budgeting
• Normal rates, not emergency rates
• Included monitoring and maintenance
• Dedicated hours for proactive improvements

Break-Even Point: If you need emergency help even once per year, a support contract likely saves money. And that’s before considering the indirect costs of downtime, poor performance, and security incidents.

What Support Typically Includes

Based on our support plans (and industry norms):

Essential Support (~$3,500/month):

• Monthly health check reports
• Security patch monitoring
• Email support during business hours
• Quarterly strategic reviews

Standard Support (~$6,500/month):

• Everything in Essential, plus:
• 20 hours/month dedicated support time
• Bi-weekly health checks
• Release and deployment support
• Phone and Slack support
• Priority response (4-hour SLA)

Premium Support (~$12,000/month):

• Everything in Standard, plus:
• 40 hours/month dedicated support time
• 24×7 emergency support
• 1-hour critical response SLA
• Weekly health checks
• Dedicated account manager
• Proactive optimization

How to Evaluate Support Providers

Not all support contracts are created equal. Key questions to ask:

Response Times

• What are the SLA response times?
• Are there different tiers for different severity levels?
• What happens if SLAs are missed?

Scope of Support

• What’s included vs. what costs extra?
• Are there limits on the types of work covered?
• How are dedicated support hours tracked?

Expertise

• Will you work with senior consultants or junior staff?
• How familiar are they with your specific AEM version?
• Do they have relevant industry experience?

Communication

• What channels can you use (email, phone, Slack)?
• How often will you have status updates?
• Are strategic reviews included?

Flexibility

• Can you upgrade or downgrade tiers?
• Do unused hours roll over?
• What’s the minimum commitment?

When Support Makes the Most Sense

Support contracts provide the most value when:

• Your AEM environment is business-critical - Downtime directly impacts revenue
• Your team has limited AEM expertise - You need expert backup
• You’re running custom implementations - Complex environments benefit most from expert monitoring
• You have compliance requirements - Regular security patching is mandatory
• Your team is stretched thin - Proactive support frees up your team for strategic work

Getting Started with Support

If you’re currently operating without ongoing AEM support:

1. Assess your current risk - How often do issues occur? How long do they take to resolve?
2. Calculate the true cost - Include emergency work, opportunity costs, and stress
3. Define your needs - What level of support matches your risk profile?
4. Start with a health check - Understand your environment’s current state
5. Choose a support tier - Match support level to your risk tolerance and budget

Our Approach to Support

At Infiniumtek, our support philosophy is simple:

• Prevent problems before they occur through monitoring and maintenance
• Respond rapidly when issues arise with consultants who know your environment
• Transfer knowledge to your team so you’re never dependent on us
• Optimize continuously using insights from monitoring

We offer three support tiers designed to match different needs and budgets. Compare our support plans or contact us to discuss your specific situation.

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Want to reduce operational risk? Let’s discuss how a support plan could benefit your organization. Schedule a consultation.