The 4 Rs of Uptime Maintenance

REACT proactively against intruders, viruses and other detrimental elements to your network. Secure your network against  forces that steal or corrupt data.
From $3.00 a day*

REFLECT on the impact of data loss to your business. Backup your data and run failover systems and servers 
From $1.60 a day*

RESOLVE all IT issues timely by having a support team on standby. Seal your IT infrastructure with a bulletproof support and maintenance system
From $8.00 a day*

REASSURE yourself that you have spares for your out-of-warranty equipment  with our extended warranty programme
From $0.22 a day*

*Based on 1 year projections

Every business needs to seriously consider the value that IT has on the running of their day to day. What is the impact it has to the bottomline? On the flipside, what is the impact of IT downtime to your business. The latter question is what we shall address in our 4 Rs writeup here.

Every IT infrastructure requires maintenance, just like every car requires regular servicing, just like every human body requires periodical medical checkups.

IT maintenance can be done in three ways.

One is pre-emptive maintenance, whereby you, our esteemed customer buys prepaid batches of hours from us and we visit you over definite intervals of time to etch away at any issues that may be building up and clocking out the hours for each visit.

The second method of maintenance can be incident based support, where we snuff out IT gremlins as they appear or surface.

The third is a hybrid of methods 1 and 2.

We are also strong advocates of having Disaster Recovery (DR) measures in place, especially prior to us being engaged as your maintenance vendors.  They are your first line of defence against factors that cause business downtime. While we would like to dive headlong and support your existing infrastructure from the word 'go!', from our years of experience, we have learnt that this will only lead to misunderstandings and negative backlash against our dedicated team of engineers and our company when disaster strikes.

When we take on a pre-existing network without insisting on implementing our 4 Rs, we take on a probable legacy of a network that was built up without proper planning, on a tight budget and possibly  with equipment under specified for the heavy daily usage that they have been put through.

Most ever-present in the minds of business owners is that overheads be kept as low as possible. Compromising on that which is the lifeblood of most if not all businesses today will not be the wisest step to take.

We have dealt with data loss, expensive data recovery, total server failure, weeks of company's operational downtime due to bad backup procedures...been there, done that, burnt the T-shirt.

The 4 Rs.  They are indispensible methods, tools and equipment that keep your business running,  a combination of health supplements and viagra for your UPTIME.

REACT proactively against intruders, viruses and other detrimental elements to your network. Secure your network against  forces that steal or corrupt data.

The provision of defence forces against network intrusion and malicious attacks from virus and spyware is another often neglected area in any corporate network.  Most are just contented with having access to the internet and having an antivirus or firewall software installed into their workstations.  These solutions deter attacks at the workstation end, which means the interloper is already in the network.  We are recommending that the deterrence be moved further into the perimeter of your network so that it gets arrested at the fence, not while it is fiddling around with the keyhole to your front door.

Business owners should look into the overall security and regulating access into and out of their office networks. Surfing control can be effected to reduce employees getting distracted by activities not work related, thereby ensuring most of their work time is utilized productively.

With enhanced network security, you can begin allowing controlled access from outside your office for roaming users who will require connection into the office to retrieve files for that all important presentation.

We have had numerous success in setting up and implementing defence systems for corporate networks and all have immediately noticed a difference in their company’s overall productivity level with more focused efforts coming from within and a drastically reduced scope of attacks coming in from the internet disrupting workflow.

Among the systems we roll out are from the manufacturers below:

CISCO
WATCHGUARD TECHNOLOGIES
FORTINET 

Often neglected until it is too late, corporate customers are strongly advised to look carefully into their data backup and system redundancy needs.

The main difference between backup and redundancy is in the former, data is not available on the fly, ie when your file server goes down, we will need to access the backed up files, configure a temporary storage device for sharing the data and have the data copied out to this equipment before sharing the data out to the network users. Data in backed up system will typically be chronologically behind by a day.  Data is stored in its actual format, ie and excel file will be backed up as an excel file, not in any other compressed format.

Redundancy (or Failover), however provides for an almost seamless business operations in the event one equipment is down.  An example of redundancy: 2 servers that play the same roles and have data between them constantly synchronized, will keep tabs of each other’s condition. If one were to go down, the other ‘kicks in’ to take on the role of the failed device without the network users experiencing an extended downtime.

The downtime as a result of a failed file server or hard drive in a file and/or database serving system can be devastating to a business.  The downtime could escalate into a total loss of data and a complete closure of business altogether.

As a strong proponent for backup and redundancy in any IT environment, we have used our position as systems integrators to validate our claims for the importance of such a system to be put in place as we have time and again dealt with expensive data recovery jobs and seen businesses groan out loud when told that data cannot be recovered and is completely lost unless they are willing to spend copious amount of money having the storage device sent to data recovery specialist.  The last time a client lost 120GB of data, it cost $2500.00 to recover 60% of it.

What we can do for you:

Provide consultation services on how to go about getting yourself prepared for the worst

Provide both consultation and equipment to get you on the ‘Reflect’ programme

Setup and Configure the backup/redundancy equipment you either already owned or purchased in your effort to be disaster-ready

Manage and administer your backup/redundant devices monthly to ensure they are always ready and up-to-date

Run monthly hardware diagnostics on the backup/redundant equipment to ensure they are in a satisfactory operating condition

Other redundancy programs:

>> Failover for internet connectivity
>> Failover for firewalls and other networked equipment/devices

RESOLVE all IT issues timely by having a support team on standby. Seal your IT infrastructure with a bulletproof support and maintenance system.

An incident is a single issue, problem or question related to the system at your site that come under our care – regardless of the volume of correspondence required to solve it. Support incidents are used to cover such topics as hardware/software usage, configuration and installation.

Technical support is provided via web-based helpdesk system available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When you initiate a support incident, our support team responds within one business day.

Same day response plan is available with support dispensed within 4 hours of report of incident.  First call to initiate same day response is at 8am while last call will be 2pm.

Incident support is sold through a points system. Technical support query (issue) is evaluated with "support points".  Each support point costs SGD10.00.  Support points used will be invoiced at the end of every month with the new monthly subscription.  The first monthly subscription is payable 14 days prior to the start of RESOLVE coverage.  You can track your point usage online.

Each customer will be provided with a physical toolkit*, which is on loan to them from us while they are covered by RESOLVE.  This toolkit will be required by our technical staff for each remote support, so the responsibility is on the customer to make sure that it is always ready.

All support will be done via remote login.  Upon agreement to be covered by RESOLVE customer agrees to our staff going down onsite to install the remote access software on each PC/server the customer wishes to place in the support plan.  This will be done within 7 days prior to the commencement of the programme and after receiving payment for the first month. For the first 10 PCs and/or server, installation is free.  Subsequent PCs and/or server will be billed at $10 per unit for installation of remote access software.

*toolkit comprises

1 X USB Mobile Broadband Modem (this is on a case by case basis)
1 X USB Flash drive with proprietary software

Monthly Subscription

NOTE: the issue costs are approximate, as the ticket rate may change during the problem solving.

While the problem is being solved, the initial ticket price may be changed. For example, if additional investigation is required, the rate will be increased. But if a problem turns out to be a result of our previous actions, the points will be returned fully. We are prepared to revise the ticket cost if you think you were charged incorrectly or unjustly.

All the points management is displayed in your helpdesk account online.

REASSURE yourself that you have spares for your out-of-warranty equipment  with our extended warranty programme.

As Personal Computers (PC) are reported to be one of the most repaired electronic products out there, it makes sense for you to safe guard yourself against all the repair costs that may come along with it. Computers are known to outlive their warranties. If they do, the manufacturers charge a  premium for you to extend hardware warranty for another year or 2, depending on what the initial warranty plan that came bundled with your PC.

We recognized that the 5 main issues that you will face in the subsequent years will be hard drive, memory, motherboard and processor, and power supply failures. Motherboard and processor warranty extension without manufacturer cover is not possible as they are almost always ‘tied’ together with you operating system’s(OS) license. Therefore, we can only cover 3 areas of failures for your computer hardware.

Prices shown below are per PC/notebook, in SGD and before GST.  They cover only 1 replacement of parts under the period of warranty.  Subsequent replacement of replaced parts will be covered by the parts manufacturer’s warranty.  We will only charge for labour and logistics when such an event occurs but there will be no charge for the faulty replacement part. NOTE: Replacement parts are near equivalent to the originals or one that is compatible with the entire system.

What you will need and be prepared to do before you consider getting covered:

1)     Copy of invoice for purchase of PC/Notebook

2)     Ensure PC/Notebook is not past 3.5 years old

3)     All manuals and CDs/DVDs belonging to your PC/Notebook is available, especially the one that holds your operating system and drivers

4)     Wait 5 working days for a resolution to your problem

What we are obliged to do for you:

1)     Run a systems testing and inventory gathering software  on the intended
PC/Notebook to be covered. A satisfactory report will be required before your coverage can be purchased for that PC/Notebook

2)    Run diagnostics to ascertain fault.  We will only replace parts based on the recommendation of our diagnostic report. If report shows that none of the parts under extended warranty coverage is faulty but your OS is still not loading, we will inform you and check with you on how you would like us to proceed.

3)     For hard disk replacement, we do not do data recovery.  That will come under a separate job and we will generate a quotation for that if required.  We will re-install your OS and drivers back to factory state for hard disk replacements.

4)  Have your system ready within 5 working days (if stocks for parts are readily available)

Other fine print:

This warranty does not apply:

      (a)  to damage caused by accident, abuse, misuse, flood, fire, earthquake or other
            external causes;
      (b)  to damage caused by operating the part outside the permitted uses described by
            manufacturers or warranty provider;
      (c)  to damage caused by service (including upgrades and expansions) performed by  
            anyone who is not a representative of the equipment manufacturer or a T. W. O.
            Authorized Service Provider authorized to perform service;
      (d)  to a part that has been modified to significantly alter functionality or capability 
            without the written permission of the manufacturer or warranty provider;
      (e)  to consumable parts, such as batteries, unless damage has occurred due to a defect
             in materials or workmanship; or
     (f)  if any serial number has been removed or defaced.