AIS5 3

• The responsibility of the technical support function is to provide specialist knowledge of production systems to identify and assist in system change/development and problem resolution
•   IT help desk is a software platform that helps businesses provide technical support to employees and customers through single (or multiple) point of contact.
• Types of help desk:

   IT support help desk

  Customer service help desk

  Business help desk
• IT service desks help teams proactively maintain services, manage incidents, and enable communication with end users and customers. It’s a customer centric communication centerpoint
•    IT help desk reactive solution equipped with ticketing software that provides technical support to users as needed.
• IT help desks were created as a tool used exclusively to help IT teams, instead of end users
• IT help desk main focus is on incident management. IT help desks are typically used to provide reactive, rather than proactive, assistance via basic ticketing
• IT service desk (ITSD)A help desk with expanded capabilities, including self-service, workflows, and proactive support methods. Ultimately, an IT service desk’s goal is to resolve issues quickly, maintain services, manage incidents, and fix issues that impact business goals.
• IT service management (ITSM)Facilitates the delivery of IT services, including problem management, incident management, asset management, and service request management.
• Desktop support Focuses on hardware issues, like fixing desktop computers and laptops
• Change management used when changing hardware, installing or upgrading to new releases of off-the-shelf applications, installing a software patch and configuring various network devices
• Changes are classified into three types:

  Emergency changes

   Major changes

  Minor changes
• Patch Management an area of systems management that involves acquiring, testing and installing multiple patches (code changes) to an administered computer system in order to maintain up-to-date software and often to address security risk
• patch management software is a tool that automates the patch management process of an enterprise starting from scanning and detection of missing patches to testing, deploying and installing them on the required endpoints
• software patch is a piece of code, tailored to fix existing bugs/vulnerabilities in the software, add new features, or enhance its security
• patch management process (also referred to as the patch management system) includes scanning computers in the network for missing patches, testing them in a test group of machines, and deploying them manually or automatically via patch management tools
• Types of software patching:

  security patches

  bug fix patches

  feature update patches
• Security patches the process of deploying security patches to address security vulnerabilities in the software, drivers, and other related components helps secure it from being exploited by vulnerabilities and other threat actors
•   Bug fix patches ensure that the software is up to date with the latest, bug-free version
• Feature update patches introduce newer features and functions to software. In addition, they also enhance performance, making software faster and more efficient.
• Security patch management is the process of detecting, testing and deploying security patches or updates to the systems to address the security vulnerabilities and issues.
• Server patch management is the process of detecting, testing, and deploying the missing patches to prevent the servers from being exploited by vulnerabilities and external threat actors
• Patching an Operating System (OS) refers to the process of installing the latest patches to add newer features, improve functionalities or mitigate vulnerabilities in it
• Server patching refers to the process of installing the latest patches or software updates in the servers to mitigate the vulnerabilities or bugs in them and to add newer functionalities
• Software release management is the process through which software is made available to users
• The release can be of three types:

  minor release

  major release

  emergency release
• Major release Normally contain a significant change or addition to new functionality. A major upgrade or release usually supersedes all preceding minor upgrades
• Minor release Upgrades, normally containing small enhancements and fixes. Generally used to fix small reliability or functionality problems that cannot wait until the next major release
• Emergency release Normally containing the corrections to a small number of known problems. Emergency releases are fixes that require implementation as quickly as possible to prevent significant user downtime to business-critical function
• release management is the process of actually putting the software changes into production.