Small, Virtual Sysadmin Services? 63
treesim asks: "I work for a tiny research company of five employees, with a growing need for a system administrator. However, our needs are unlikely to ever require a full time person, so I'm wondering if small, offsite sysadmin services exist (something like virtual assistants, since the larger corporate-sized outfits are just too much). On one hand, this seems an obvious niche to be filled by entrepreneurial moonlighters, but there are a ton of questions regarding trust. Nonetheless, we already have good relationships with offsite bookkeeping and payroll services. Am I just being naive, or does anyone have experience with outsourcing small-scale sysadmin tasks?"
Have you considered... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Have you considered... (Score:1)
This sounds like a good way to create employees who "know just enough to be dangerous"
Re:Have you considered... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Have you considered... (Score:2)
Re:Have you considered... (Score:2)
Re:Have you considered... (Score:2)
If the tasks were simple enough that a high school kid who "likes computers" could do it just fine, they wouldn't need a real sysadmin. Probably no one would. Augh. It doesn't matter if you're dealing with five boxes or five hundred - if the job's worth doing, it's worth doing
Re:Have you considered... (Score:2)
If the tasks were simple enough that a high school kid who "likes computers" could do it just fine, they wouldn't need a real sysadmin. Probably no one would. Augh. It doesn't matter if you're dealing with five boxes or five hundred - if the job's worth doing, it's worth doing *ri
Re:Have you considered... (Score:2)
My experiences... (Score:4, Interesting)
It can be done, but trust is key (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It can be done, but trust is key (Score:3, Informative)
Third (Score:3, Interesting)
ALL my work is with former employers, people who run their own businesses, are CIOs/IT Directores, etc., and people I've known for years. I do not advertise as a general rule because I don't need to, for one, and I find word of mouth much more meaningful a
trust is a two way street (Score:2, Insightful)
I tried the solo-operator tech to small business and I absolutley hated hounding companies (referred from people I know and trust no less) so that I could pay my rent.
Also, listen when your hired tech tells you that what you want can be done, but will take anywhere from x to y number of hours, they're not kidding!
Oh and one last
Sure they do! (Score:5, Funny)
Sure they do!
Send an email to these guys [bofh.net], and tell them they're interested in outsourcing your system adminstration tasks. I did, and they got me set up in a jiffy.
By the way, what was your username again? >clickity-click<
Re:Sure they do! (Score:1)
Everon IT [everonit.com] does it too.
Re:Sure they do! (Score:2)
bofh == Everon?? Hope not.
Yep, this is advertising (Score:5, Informative)
HandyNerds.com http://www.handynerds.com/ [handynerds.com]
That's the company I run, and that is the service I provide. Honestly it is hit or miss if you get someone worth their while. Unfortunatly you won't discover this until you are in the thick of it.
If you want more information, let me know. Always happy to help.
--Brett
Re:Yep, this is advertising (Score:1)
Wasn't made in 1995 either.
The about us -> about issue is a bug, and is fixed in the next release of the website. Thanks for pointing it out.
Two other questions that I have are...
1. Why post anonymously if you are critiquing something? If you respect y
It is possible... (Score:4, Insightful)
100% remote impossible imho (Score:2)
Yes! (Score:1)
Sure! Just tell me your ip and root password!
--
Superb hosting [tinyurl.com] 20GB Storage, 1_TB_ bandwidth, ssh, $7.95
Re:Yes! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Yes! (Score:3, Funny)
Whaddya know, it worked!
Re:You Can Afford a Sysadmin! (Score:1)
How about sharing? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're in a small office tower, consider pooling the resources together of everyone in the building or street. Maybe you need someone 2 hours a week, the office down the hall (or street) needs someone one day of the week, etc. There might be a skilled self-employed computer tech in your area who doesn't want to travel much. Check around.
You might find that in pooling all your resources together, you can find one or two techs you trust to do all the administrative tasks. You should get a better quality person in the end since they're virtually 'guaranteed' the hours to fullfill the tasks in the area. And it should eliminiate the chance you get a different person each time.
Re:How about sharing? (Score:3, Interesting)
They are seriously considering this and there's a solid chance they'll go for it. I think it's a win-win-win, really. I get a set committed # of billable hours for each of them for a time and they get a set
Re:How about sharing? (Score:2)
IT Services for SMB's (Score:1)
ASP. (Score:1, Informative)
That's what ASP [webopedia.com]'s are for.
Of course there is... (Score:2)
I wont bother mentioning who because we're in Australia.
But I find it hard to believe that _most_ IT companies in the US over 20 employee's wont do this.. you obviously didn't ask anyone from the real world.
Re:Of course there is... (Score:2)
Can you mention it anyway, please, because my current job only entails working 4 days a week and I wouldn't mind picking up some "moonlighting" work to fill the extra day - so I would be interested in joining your organisation for such jobs.
Erm, these exist... (Score:2)
They're really popular for accountants, lawyers, doctors... the sort of people who need computers, but only really ever have a few employees. Ask around.
Hoh boy... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Be prepared to sign an agreement for monthly support, and pay it regularly. Nothing makes contractors happier than knowing what to expect. And nothing makes them angrier than not getting paid.
2) Be up-front about your needs. Don't try to hire someone for a few months and have them teach you everything they know. These people exist, but they bill at $150/hr and won't be worth your while. Micromanagement behaviour, especially from small businesses who claim they need outside services, sets off alarm bells for contractors. If they don't trust you, you won't trust them.
3) Be extremely clear with each other about what type of support is expected. Full service, I-have-the-root-password-and-nobody-installs-anyt
4) Pooling resources is also extremely beneficial. If you can find a few other small businesses in need of support, the odds of finding and retaining high quality help will increase.
5) And, most importantly, computer support is about more than just fixing mice and installing updates. Especially for small businesses, outsourcing IT means reaping the benefits of more efficient processes than you otherwise would be able to accomplish. Take advantage of those benefits.
Re:Hoh boy... (Score:2)
Local University (Score:1)
That way you can get a well qualified and competant person who is ready to work part time and doesnt expect a hefty salary.
DirectPointe (Score:2)
I remotly admin servers every day. (Score:3, Informative)
We drop in a linux box for a router, and set you up with a vpn from that to out network. We SSH to linux systems, RDP to servers and VNC to desktops all from our office. If it breaks too badly, we head onsite.
We run multiple companies, from 2 people to over 200 people with no problems and minimal cost - if you're in Ottawa, I can help. Otherwise, just look up the smaller IT outsourcing firms. They are always willing to let you keep some control of things. But we also will think your an idiot if you interfere with us keeping things running for you by breaking it.(have had one or two who do that constantly)
The confidentiality is part of the contract, and is about as good as any other outsourced finance or the like.
Just do the standard checking around before choosing someone, there are a lot of pathetic fakes out there too, and I hate cleaning up after one of them has messed up a network.
Anyway...
Enjoy!
That's what I do too. (Score:2)
Re:That's what I do too. (Score:1)
The best bet is ask your friends, colleagues, etc., for a reference of someone that is in the business. You may find someone that can't take you on, but may have another contact for you. I have one or two friends/colleagues that I trust that I sometimes send business to when I can't take it on myself.
sort of doing this now... (Score:2)
The WINDOWS server needs too much hands-on TLC to do remotely (yes, I now about VLC but it's too painfully slow and VNC does not support 120 reset), and the workstations^Wusers also need dace-to-face help. ANother guy is doing this.
It might work if the users don't mind getting their hands dirty once in a while (tunnel ssh through PSTN).
Of Course there are.... (Score:1)
Of Course there are: http://www.epicalliance.com/ [epicalliance.com] is one.
Outsourced IT Service (Score:2)
we do it, so we know why it's hard to do well (Score:2, Informative)
Individuals who do this are generally cheapest, and sometimes you can get past the trust issue by using a friend or a friend of a friend. On the flip side, they have a tendency to leave for day jobs when times get tight (or be hard to reach when busy if they're moonlighting).
Companies give you a few a
Re:we do it, so we know why it's hard to do well (Score:2)
Ultimately, any engineering services company's cost structure is directly dependent on payroll for engineers. Thus, when you say "you're finally profitable again", what you really are saying is that you're spending _fewer_ hours of work per customer than before. How this adds up to customer value is beyond me. Furthermore, by charging a flat rate, you are no longer aligning your interests (meet the SLA with the
Why does it have to be "virtual"? Local is better. (Score:1)
You can search for local service providers in Page's Computer Services Directory at http://DIRECTORY.pagecomputers.com [pagecomputers.com]. Any service provider can add their own listing fo [pagecomputers.com]
Re:Why does it have to be "virtual"? Local is bett (Score:1)
Pythian Remote DBA (Score:2)
My name is Paul Vallee and I am a co-founder here of Pythian [pythian.com].
As part of our DBA services, we outsource systems administration support for a variety of platforms. Our services are definitely enterprise database-centric, but there's nothing preventing us from helping out even if there's no database at play.
Cheers,
Paul
Common (Score:2)
The firm we deal with consists of five people each having their own specialty, (Oracle, programming, systems admin, etc) but each generally knowledgable in most aspects of operations of OS, programming, DBA, and other differen
I was going to recommend.... (Score:2)
I'm just about to start! (Score:1)
Interestingly I'm just about ready to start doing this kind of work.
In the past I've had several clients who've heard of me and asked me to spec/setup a new server for them. Usually that is all it is, but sometimes I get asked to do security scans, or apply updates.
Whilst I do work fulltime I'm beginning to think that I could do a good job if I were to allocate one day a week to dealing with clients (applying patches, general preventative work, etc) and looking for new clients.
I don't expect to be able
Consultant - Collective Technologies (Score:1)
sysadmin worth their beans can do what they do from offsite. But there will always be some tasks involved in sysadminning that they need to be physically present for (or at very least have to walk someone else through it over the phone).
There may be some setup (upfront expense) involved in them setting themselves up for remote access.
There are many sysadmins out there consulting, full or part-time as you need. As you point out, trust is an issue. I would ar
Nut up (Score:1)
Now if you need some one to do run updates and change the toner, goto a local college IT dept and ask for an intern that the prof can double check. That way you know you have a m
Re:Nut up (Score:1)