Connecticut suffers from an acute shortage of IT support personnel. It is hard to find and retain skilled engineers anywhere in the country. It is especially difficult here due to our high cost of living. Though many companies outsource IT support to Managed Service Providers, MSPs also struggle to hire capable and affordable technical talent. They too can use some help.
CAPS employs skilled engineers to support its colocation, data backup and restoral, disaster recovery, and business continuity clients. These engineers are experts in electrical power, air conditioning, cabling, networking, software licensing, backup and recovery, business continuity, and data security.
CAPS’ clients have found that the ongoing free support from CAPS’ professionals helps them get more done with less. Here are some recent examples of free IT support provided by CAPS’ engineers.
Electrical Power Consulting
A media company client was growing dramatically and needed to expand its colocation footprint. Its applications are power intensive so cabinet designs must be planned carefully. The engineering team at CAPS, led by a licensed electrician, helped the client select the best cabinet layout and power distribution plan to support its immediate and future requirements.
Data Backup and Recovery Consulting
A consumer products company repatriated a large database from the Public Cloud and purchased new servers which it collocated at CAPS. While meeting with a CAPS engineer to plan for additional colocation space, the company’s data backup challenges were discussed. The engineer explained how it would be possible to restore data faster and at a much more granular level using Veeam Backup and Replication software. When the client decided to migrate to the Veeam solution, the CAPS engineering team provided training and assistance enabling a successful cutover in under a week.
Network Monitoring
A telecommunications service provider was experiencing high packet losses on some of its internet circuits. Network engineers at CAPS monitored the circuits and worked with the client’s engineers to identify a configuration problem that was quickly resolved. While working with the client to isolate the problem the CAPS engineers temporarily added bandwidth in increments to establish that the problem was not primarily due to transmission capacity.
Remote Hands
A bank needed to reseat a drive on a server. Rather than dispatch one of their own personnel they asked the CAPS engineers for help. This saved at least an hour plus the cost of driving to and from the data center. CAPS includes four hours of free remote hands services per month for its colocation clients.
Technical support is frequently a secondary consideration when selecting a colocation provider. However, many of CAPS’ clients have found the ongoing expert help included as part of a colocation engagement is a very significant benefit given the scarcity of available engineering talent.
