Frequently Asked Questions

The short answer is that it saves you money and frustration. Benjamin Franklin famously said “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” This is especially true in IT and cyber security. By spending time to ensure that basic network maintenance such as security patches and updates are applied regularly, basic cyber security measures are in place, and other IT maintenance activities are taken care of, you can prevent network downtime and the associated cost.

While i.t.NOW’s goal is to be the best IT service provider, not the cheapest, we also strive to provide significant value. This means we include many things in our support packages that some of our competitors charge extra for. These include Account Management, IT Documentation, IT Reporting, Quarterly Business Reviews, Cyber Security solutions and services, and much more. We offer our clients a service level agreement where we guarantee prompt responses and resolutions to your needs, and we carefully track these numbers. Our support team is 100% Utah-based. They all have background checks, speak English as a first language, and are highly trained to provide an excellent support experience to your users. Some of our competitors actually outsource their helpdesk to a third party or even offshore support teams. As you can see, it’s important to ask potential providers questions about their service team, as not all providers are created equal.

Many small business owners seem to cling to the idea of security through obscurity. This is a bit of a misnomer because of the way hackers are attacking. The vast majority of attacks aren’t targeting a specific business but rather scanning the internet for a particular vulnerability. Once found, an automated script will execute to see if they can gain access to your network. Once they have that access, they will see how they can profit from it. That could be a business email attack, ransomware, or another nefarious activity.
The bad guys are casing the block and looking for an open door or window, not targeting big-name companies that invest thousands in security. Whether you know it or not, your small business IS a target.

We support clients M-F from 8am-6pm MST. There is a technician on call for after hours support 24 hours a day that can be reached via our emergency support line. We charge $175/hr for these after hours support calls.

Costs for IT providers can vary widely depending on the complexity of your network and specific security needs. Most quality IT providers will charge somewhere between $70-$150 per user per month for an unlimited support package in the Salt Lake City area.

Hourly IT providers are typically paid for the time it takes to solve a specific problem. Once that has been solved their responsibility ends. Back in the early 2000’s i.t.NOW used to provide services using this model to our clients, but we changed to a manged services model because we feel that it allows us to provide a higher level of service to our clients.

Our owner Phil had an epiphany after an unfortunate incident with a client. They asked him to configure backups on their server. He did so, set the backups up to run, got paid for his time and left. 6 months later the client called him back because their server crashed. He rushed out to the site to find out that the backup he set up worked perfectly for the first 3 months, then something kicked it offline. The client hadn’t had a backup for 3 months and their data was lost. He was sick to his stomach.

Phil did his job. He wasn’t being paid to monitor or manage backups. He set it up correctly and it ran for quite a while. That experience left him wanting to do more for his clients. He never wanted to be in that situation again, and so i.t.NOW pivoted and moved to a managed IT service model which allows us to proactively monitor and manage client environments.

Problems like this are stil common with hourly IT providers. They also aren’t being paid to consider IT strategy or consult with your business which can lead to poor IT outcomes.

This can be a bit tricky. Many IT providers talk a good game, and have a long list of fancy acronyms they will throw at you to make their service seem superior. We’ve actually written exensively on our blog about this one, so for more information check it out HERE. The short answer is to ask a lot of questions. How many folks do they have on staff? What do their support processes look like? What are average response times? If they can’t tell you, that’s a red flag. Do they have an account management? Do they meet with you regularly to give reporting and offer proactive advice? Who helps consult on IT strategy? Do they have a team that helps with cyber security? Take your time and be focused on understanding their support processes. Process matters because it’s what will allow them to provide consistent results that you want as a client.

Most IT professionals can support around 150 computers as a full time employee. That means that if your business has 50 computers and hires a full time IT person, they will likely be idle a portion of the time. In addition to that, IT is a VERY broad field. It’s impossible to know everything about everything. So even a top notch employee will have significant gaps in their knowledge and you will likely have to hire outside help from time to time. Worse, they may not own up to not knowing everything (common in IT) and you’ll simply have areas of IT that are constant problems or poorly executed. Cyber security is one of the areas where you really need an expert. It’s too dangerous not to. An in-house IT person also only has one set of hands. That means they can only work on one problem at a time. If things really hit the fan everyone has to wait in a single file queue.

An outsourced IT provider is ideal for most small businesses because the solution is sized to fit the need. That means that if you only need 1/3 of an FTE’s worth of support, you pay for 1/3 of an FTE. This can save you a significant amount of money. You also get access to our entire team. That means that there are specialists in multiple areas at your disposal. No more worrying that cyber security isn’t done correctly. We can also tackle multiple issues simultaneously and respond much quicker in emergencies.

It’s a pretty long list. i.t.NOW’s staff is highly trained with over 200 years of professional IT support experience. We have numerous certifications including A++, Security+, CCNA, Multiple team members with bachelors degrees in IT. The list goes on. If you’re really curious contact us and we can get you a full list.

i.t.NOW is fully insured to protect ourselves and our clients. In most cases clients would first be looking to their own insurace policy for coverage in an incident. We highly encourage all of our clients to seek out a specific cyber security policy to further protect them.

All security threats are different, so our team will adapt this process based on the specifics of the incident. Generally, when remediating a security threat, we will seek to detect the incident, then isolate and contain the threat, eradicate the threat, and finally recover and conduct post-incident analysis. The post-incident analysis is important because it allows you to go back and put remedies in place that will help protect you against future attacks.

i.t.NOW is proud to support Apple devices and macs. We currently do not offer Linux support.

We have a dedicated team that provides onsite support for our clients in Utah. Additionally, we have access to a global network of qualified technicians, ensuring we can offer support at any location worldwide.

Response times vary based on workload and a few other variables. We also prioritize issues based on impact and severity. With that said, we’re extremely proud of the speed and consistency with which our helpdesk responds to tickets. Q1 2024 our emergency response time (server/network down) was 3 minutes. On average all other requests were 1 hour and 19 minutes.

i.t.NOW is located in Pleasant Grove, Utah. We’re proud to be a local IT provider with a national reach. All of our employees are based here in Utah, and we do not outsource.

We are happy to support users with work emails on their iphone or Android devices.

In IT when we talk about the cloud we’re talking about data stored on servers in a datacenter somewhere that is accessible via the internet. When you log onto a web based application it’s on the “cloud”. When you use Office 365 it’s on the “cloud”. When we talk about servers that are on prem, we mean that those servers are physically located at your office.

Maybe a little too deep to cover completely here. Know that i.t.NOW does have a detailed plan for disaster recovery that would allow us to continue to operate in a disaster scenario. We have a whole document written up with the details, but it’s too cumbersome for an FAQ. Contact us if you need those details.

i.t.NOW manages day to day operations of SQL for many of our clients. With that said some indepth SQL needs may require the skills of a specialized DBA which we are happy to refer you to.

We work with clients to manage their critical applications and work to ensure they have the necessary redundancy and security in place.

i.t.NOW currently supports clients in several different countries, and there are several languages in addition to english spoken on our helpdesk. However, we do not operate 24/7, so this may not be a great fit for every extended support need. Contact us to discuss your specific scenario.

We love fellow IT professionals! Our comanaged offering allows them to have an enterprise IT toolset and an entire team of professionals to back them up. Give us a call today to talk more about your needs.

Cyber security is vital for todays businesses. i.t.NOW is pleased to offer a free network security evaluation and report that will allow you to identify any gaps in your current solution. We’ll also make recommendations on what needs to be done to get you to a place of confidence in your cyber security plan.