OpenLogic is revamping its commercial support offerings for open-source projects with a new three-tier system that will be available starting next week.

One level is "proactive support," which OpenLogic is providing along with Hyperic, maker of open-source infrastructure management and monitoring software. As part of this service OpenLogic will also conduct quarterly "health checks" of customers' production environments, offering tips on system performance and expansion planning.

OpenLogic will have proactive support available for Tomcat, JBoss, MySQL and PostreSQL, among others. The company said that overall it supports more than 500 open-source projects.

OpenLogic is also offering "problem resolution support," which provides help with matters such as product recommendations, installation, configuration and bug fixes, either during business hours or 24X7.

A step up from there is "consultative support," which can be used for performance tuning, architecture review and migration planning. "You get consulting hours built in," said Kim Weins, senior vice president of products and marketing.

OpenLogic's support pricing ranges from US$5,000 to $30,000 per project per year, depending on the level of support. Basic problem resolution during business hours, for example, would be $5,000, while proactive support tops out at the high end, Weins said.

The economy is actually helping OpenLogic's business, as companies investigate whether open source can save them money, Weins said. "The second half of last year saw a tripling of inbound requests for quotes on support pricing," she said.

Typically, 10 to 20 percent of inquiring companies sign on for service, she said. OpenLogic now has more than 80 customers. Some have enterprise-wide contracts, while others just want support on a couple of open-source projects, according to Weins.

OpenLogic's internal teams, who have "broad expertise across a wide variety of projects," provide first and second-level support, she said.

Those staffers are backed by some 200 "OpenLogic expert community" members who are under contract. Finally, OpenLogic partners with commercial open-source vendors who "backstop us when we can't resolve a problem," she said.

OpenLogic is planning to use its existing staff and resources for the new services offerings, but "if we get a large uptake we'll grow accordingly," Weins said.