Why Use ServerCare?
Cost
Hiring system and database administrators is extremely costly. In addition to salaries that are commonly above $100,000 per year, there are other “costs” as well, such as:
- Sign on bonuses
- Vacation pay
- Overtime pay
- Sick pay
- Coverage during sick or vacation time
- Training
- Conferences
- Medical Insurance
- FICA and other payroll costs
- Miscellaneous General benefits
- Office space and associated overhead
Overall, a DBA or Sysadmin on staff can cost well over $150,000 per year, and there are no guarantees of expertise or retention. With ServerCare, you always know your costs up front, and you retain control of how much or how little help you need.
No “Train and Leave”
Because the market demands skilled talent, and the availability of skilled technical talent seems to be getting harder to find, it can take months just to find a viable candidate. Many businesses are finding that the only available candidates have no skills to begin with, and they are forced to invest heavily in training. This is costly to your organization, and many employees who get training in this way will leave your organization as soon as they are able to contribute to it. With ServerCare you have access to expert staff from day one, and we will never leave you high & dry.
Time
Finding a DBA or Sysadmin can take months, and training them even longer. But when a problem happens, your junior DBA spends all of his or her time on the phone with the vendors, with their nose in a book trying to learn how to manage the system, or writing scripts from scratch. ServerCare saves you time by interacting with the vendors for you, having expertise immediately available, and providing packaged monitoring scripts and tools from the beginning.
Expertise
Finding extensive and broad expertise in the hardware, software, and cloud you use is extremely challenging. Sometimes it’s not enough to hire just one person – sometimes and entire staff is needed to manage just one system. ServerCare provides people with expertise in Databases, Servers, Operating Systems, and the Cloud, and at an expert level. We invest heavily in staying up to date in our respective technical communities so that you don’t have to. If we do not currently have the expertise you need, we’ll make every effort to get it.
Redundancy
While you may already have personnel on staff, or are in the process of hiring, ServerCare can add a level of comfort through redundancy of skills. We can provide anything from one-time upgrade assistance, to telephone support, to stopgap measures for a sudden illness, vacation, or termination, or other skill-set shortage. We can even help interview candidates for you. You may find that ServerCare is just as valuable to you as a backup service, because your staff can focus on the longer term business strategies of your organization.
Accountability
The Buck Stops Here. In too many cases one vendor will send you chasing another vendor, and both will points fingers at the other. With ServerCare you never have to worry. If you have an issue with a covered service, ServerCare will chase the vendors, follow up with information, troubleshoot systems, and provide you with as much information as you want. Most importantly, ServerCare becomes your single point of information, and we will do whatever it takes to get the job done.
Security
Sometimes it takes an outside party to implement internal security measures. Because ServerCare is a disinterested party in your data assets, we can be unbiased and consistent in the application of your security requirements. We can implement a formal security process and be the single conduit of access to your platform, thus ensuring that security practices are being followed. We also provide Penetration Testing on request.
Reporting
Regular reports on system health, growth, and issues are made available to you on our website at http://www.servercare.com/
. This can be very useful for trend analysis, problem resolution, and capacity planning.
Accessibility
Unlike hardware and software vendors, our business is service. Therefore, ServerCare strives for “Zero Hold Time,” meaning that we want your call serviced within 2 rings, your email responded to as soon as received, and your text/IM returned as quickly as it takes your DBA to get to a device. We achieve this by keeping our Client to DBA ratio at no more than 5:1. We also achieve this by providing round-the-clock service, so that whenever you have a problem, there’s always someone to help you with it.
Peace of Mind with services tailored to Your Business
You keep the control by determining exactly what needs monitoring and in what way. With our tailored levels of support, you can be sure that the system is being monitored in a consistent fashion, and should a problem arise, ServerCare can immediately respond. You can rest easy knowing that people will be reachable, issues will be pursued, and outages will be minimized.
“We already have contracts with Oracle and our hardware vendors…”
Oracle and other vendor support options generally provide software updates and telephone support for the initial diagnosis of a problem. Once you actually get through to a person, they can provide basic technical support provided they are speaking with a technical representative of your company. If you do not have an experienced DBA on staff, for example, your company’s entire system is being placed in jeopardy, as an inexperienced person will have substantial difficulty troubleshooting problems and interacting with technical support.
ServerCare offers implementation and product support services which are not covered by basic vendor support, including:
- Construction of hardware and O/S installation
- Basic operating system maintenance for Unix and Windows servers
- Installation and configuration of Oracle software
- Design and construction of databases
- Regular performance tuning
- Design and implementation of backup and recovery strategies
- Application of patches and new software releases
- Managing the system and databases for peak performance
- Monitoring your platform for any faulty conditions
We start by responding to your incidents promptly, with our goal of “zero hold time” when you call. Using our remote connectivity, we connect to your system immediately to begin the resolution process. With our extended services, we can even monitor your system to prevent disaster. When needed, we act as your technical representative when interacting with Vendors, so that we become your single point of contact for all technical issues. And when we solve the problem, we make sure we deliver complete solutions, not just “band-aid” fixes.
“We already have a DBA or Sysadmin on staff…”
Some organizations are fortunate enough to have qualified Database Administrators and System Administrators on staff. Finding and retaining that talent is difficult enough, so it becomes increasingly important that these employees have the time to remain focused on the strategic needs of your enterprise. Your people should not have to spend their time mired in the mundane day-to-day activities of “fire-fighting.”
ServerCare can complement your existing resources in whatever way needed, and can bring a pool of knowledge to your enterprise that might not otherwise be available. We have the expertise with hardware, software, and applications to fully support your mission-critical systems. Furthermore, we can act as the “eyes and ears” of your administrators through proactive management of your platforms.
What types of training can ServerCare offer?
ServerCare has a great deal of experience in providing custom education for your employees. Our staff has taught at the university level, has provided custom courses for Fortune 500 organizations, and has published and presented papers in technical user’s groups. We can provide expert educational services, custom tailored to your specific needs and requirements. We invest heavily in education for our own staff to keep at the forefront of our industries.
We can train your staff on new systems, hone their skills in existing technologies, or even provide presentations on future directions in the industry. We encourage small class sizes to ensure that each student receives the necessary time and attention, as well as hands-on application of the course material. The cost of ServerCare courses can be significantly lower than those provided by the hardware and software vendors, yet still be tailored to suit your specific needs.
