Clark sat at his desk staring at his monitor, the frustration mounting. He felt tired. He loved his work, and he was damn good at it. This was simply too much.
He had started work at a new company a few months prior. As an IT administrator he was excited to get his hands dirty with new systems and learn the intricacies of IT support for the manufacturing industry. It was a big change from his background doing IT for a construction company.
There were challenges immediately. Clark lived in Portland OR. Right before he started, the 2 full time IT staff that the company had in Salt Lake City had quit. This left their 150+ users without an IT presence in the Salt Lake manufacturing facility. Clark found himself working long hours and to support that location remotely. It also necessitated frequent trips to Salt Lake.
Clark wasn’t a stranger to hard work, so that was no problem. However, spending every weekend away from home and his fiancé was starting to wear on him a bit. He missed her, and his dog Wookie.
The problem was that things were bad…. really bad. Based on the track record of his former teammates at the SLC plant he guessed there might be some things to address. He just never guessed how deep it went, and how long it would likely take to fix.
The Problem
Clark rubbed his temples as he finished some analysis on their servers at that location. This thing is like a rotten onion he thought. It has layer after layer of disgusting. He shook his head. His boss wasn’t gonna like this.
It showed that the company had numerous servers that were past end of life, and therefore impossible to secure. The database was super old garbage, and the whole network seemed held together with string and bubble gum. The deeper he got, the less he thought he could salvage. He was looking at a complete rebuild.
This was a big problem for a few different reasons. The main one was that those servers at their manufacturing plant were essentially the engine of their $140,000,000 business. If the network went down, it would likely cost them BIG TIME. They would be unable to make, pack, and ship their products, and it was their busiest time of year. Part of his job was to be a worrier, but he didn’t sign up for this kind of stress.
Add to that the endless requests for user support that just never stopped coming. Even if he could untangle this entire mess and figure out what needs to happen, he would never have the time to do so without leaving his team without his support for months. He needed help.
The Decision
A couple of days later Clark sat across the desk from his boss Theo and gave his report on what he had found so far. Luckily, Theo didn’t react negatively to the bad news. There was some surprise at the extent of the problem, but he was a savvy executive and knew how vital their computer systems were to smooth operations. There was no question, it had to be fixed.
It was also obvious to everyone that while Clark was capable, his current workload made it impossible for him to do the work himself. They would need to enlist some outside expert to help tackle the problem. He asked Clark to take the lead on finding a firm that could help.
Selecting a Provider
This was a big job. Essentially, they needed a redesign and deployment of over 50 virtual servers spread across numerous hosts at both the Salt Lake and Portland offices. The core network infrastructure needed to be overhauled as well. It was such a large project that Clark knew he would have to find a provider that could handle the scope and complexity of it.
He had a company that serviced some of their printers and did IT support as well. Since he already knew them, he asked them to quote the project. They did some discovery and informed him that they didn’t have the capacity to take on a project of that size.
He found another provider and asked them to look at the project with them. He wasn’t thrilled with their approach. It seemed like they didn’t have the best tools, and they wanted to assign 1 guy. Their whole methodology didn’t sit well with him.
Finally, he called i.t.NOW. They asked a LOT of questions and did some discovery on the network. They talked with him about the project and his goals. Ongoing support needs were discussed. They talked about tool-set and automation. There were a lot of solutions they brought to the table that filled his needs and made his life easier as an overworked IT admin.
They had plenty of manpower. Examples were provided of large projects like his that they had completed successfully in the past. He was impressed by how professional they were, and relieved that he finally had found a partner that could fulfill his needs.
Planning
Together they decided that the best course of action was for i.t.NOW to work with him supporting the environment for a short time to help unburden him while they made more in depth plans for the project. Their tool-set would shortcut the needed discovery process and give them all the access they needed to do the work.
Currently they’re working on rolling out that solution for remote monitoring and management. Once in place a dedicated team of project specialists will do a deep dive and come back with a detailed plan of attack. There was a lot of work ahead, but Clark was relieved to have the right partner helping him and optimistic about the future.
Conclusion
If your business has a large IT project and needs the right partner, i.t.NOW can help. We’ve helped hundreds of businesses with their IT needs from simple desktop support issues to complete enterprise network overhauls. We have the right tools and people for the job and can put them to work for you. Best of all you can finally get rid of your stress about IT knowing that the professionals at i.t.NOW have your back.
*Names were changed for privacy.
*There will be a part 2 to discuss the project after it’s completion.
