New Service Announcements
Today, I'm excited to make a few announcements on behalf of our company.
New Staff Additions
One issue I'm aware of is our struggle to address some issues in a timely manner. Also, I haven't liked the fact that our clients end up talking to a voice mail system much of the time on their initial call for help. With those things in mind, we've made two recent additions to our staff.
Cortnie Talbot started working with us in January, and brings along her experience in IT project management, dispatching, and issue handling. Cortnie is likely to be the voice you'll hear when you call us or when we schedule a visit to your office. She's also tasked with advocating for our clients, to make sure your issues are being addressed in a timely manner. Cortnie lives in Houghton Lake with her husband (Jonathan) and their two children.
Charles Rocheleau started with us earlier this month. Charles has a strong background in Windows Server management and networking infrastructure, along with experience in a wide range of Windows systems, hardware, database maintenance, and troubleshooting. Charles lives in Houghton Lake with his wife Amber and their son.
If you haven't already had the chance, please welcome Cortnie and Charles to our team...you're sure to hear from them in the near future.
Discounted Blocks of Time
At the request of some of our clients, we're now offering 'blocks' of time for pre-purchase, to make budgeting simpler for many of you.
You can now pre-purchase time in 10-hour blocks, with discounts applied for purchasing larger blocks:
| | Purchased Block | | | Service Call (discount) | | | Hourly Rate (discount) | |
|---|---|---|
| On Demand | $35 | $55 |
| 20+ | $33 (5.7%) | $52 (5.5%) |
| 40+ | $32 (8.6%) | $50 (9.1%) |
Pre-purchased time blocks have a one-year expiration timeline, and you will receive reports as a reminder of your remaining purchased time.
Server Monitoring
For about 20 months, we've been building a system that will allow us to monitor servers 24 hours per day. During that development time, the system has warned us of impending problems for our clients (sometimes without the client even knowing the problem was there). We've now reached a point where this service is mature, stable, effective, and ready for commercial offering to our clients.
Essentially, we can monitor the condition of your server 24 hours a day, receiving notifications of impending problems. Here are examples of the kinds of conditions we can monitor for you:
- online backup status - online backups are great, but only if they're happening, without errors
- Internet connectivity - is the server online? Often, we can tell if it's a problem related to your office specifically, or (if it affects many clients at once), if there is an Internet Provider problem
- hard drive condition - are the hard drives filling up? Have any of them failed?
- memory usage - is the server using too much memory for some reason?
- database condition - Is SQL Server up and available? BS&A? Oracle?
- CPU load - is the server working within normal parameters, or is it struggling with a piece of software that's out of control?
- Windows Updates - does the server need the latest Windows Updates applied?
You will also have the option of receiving notifications of server issues, via email and/or text messaging. This service is available starting at $35 per month per server. Please contact us if you'd like more information about the service and it's capabilities.