In this post, Application Development Manager, Deepa Chandramouli shared some tips on getting the most of your Premier Support for Developers contract.

Microsoft Premier Support manages the highest tier support programs from Microsoft. Premier Support for Developers (PSfD) empowers developers and enterprises to plan, build, deploy and maintain high quality solutions. When you purchase a Premier Support for Developers contract from Microsoft, an Application Development Manager(ADM) is assigned. He or she will guide you to use the contract in an efficient way that will benefit your developers and the business.

Premier Support for Developers and your ADM does not replace a development team, rather, it complements your team and helps with best practice guidance, products and technology roadmaps, and future proofing your solutions. Your ADM becomes a trusted advisor and a persistent point of contact into Microsoft with the technical expertise to understand your development needs, pain points, and recommend services that are right for you.

A Premier Support contract can be leveraged to validate architecture, perform design/code reviews against best practices and help teams to ramp up on the new technology as needed.  As with any Premier Support relationship, customers have ways to engage support — Reactive and Proactive.

Reactive Support – Reactive or the Problem Resolution Support provides a consistent way to engage Microsoft to open support cases when you run into issues with any of Microsoft Products and Service still covered under Lifecycle Policy.   You can use http://support.microsoft.com or call into the 1800-936-3100 to open a support case with Premier.

Proactive Support – Proactive or Support Assistance is used for advisory consulting engagements and trainings. Examples would be best practice guidance, code reviews, migration assessments, trainings etc…

A common misconception about the proactive support is that it is only meant to be used for training and workshops. It’s also common practice to use proactive hours for remediation work that comes out of critical, reactive support issues that may come up. There are many types of services and engagements customers can leverage through proactive hours to reduce the likelihood of reactive issues in the future. We understand ONE SIZE DOESN’T FIT ALL. So most of the services can be customized to fit your needs. As with any successful projects, the key to get the most of your investment in Premier Support is by Planning, Planning and Planning ahead of time with your ADM.

Premier proactive services can be grouped into 3 broad categories.

• Assess – Assessments are a great place to start since the results drive other engagements and services. If you don’t know where to start using Premier, start with an assessment of your most critical workload that has pain points. These findings can help align and prioritize next steps and Premier Services that can help.
• Operate – Operate is the next step after assessments to help address issues with applications and infrastructure. It could be front-end or middle tier or database. For example, performance assessment could lead to optimizing stored procedures. SQL Performance and Optimization Clinic is a huge favorite of lot of Premier customers because it addresses performance issues as well as educate developers around how to address bottlenecks in the future.
• Educate –  Educate focused on empowering developers with the skills and the tools they need to deliver successful applications. You have access to Premier open enrollment workshops and webcasts that you can register for at any time. There is broad list of topics available that your ADM can share with you on a regular basis. You can also plan custom trainings that are more focused and targeted to your needs and relate to the projects that your team is currently working on.

This is only a small subset of services to give you an idea of how best to use the Premier Support for Developers contract. Application Development Managers (ADMs) can provide more information on each of these topics and the huge list of services that applies to your specific needs and environment.  Another strong value proposition of Premier Support for Developers are custom engagements that cater to your needs and help achieve your goals.

Premier Support for Developers provides strategic technology guidance, critical support coverage, and a range of essential services to help teams optimize development lifecycles and improve software quality.  Contact your Application Development Manager (ADM) or email us to learn more about what we can do for you.  For more information on Premier Support for Developers, check out https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftservices/premier-support-developers.aspx