In-house support - bad expensive service

We recently worked on possibly the worst ever internally managed network. Unfortunately the previous IT manager had grown a network similar to one rigged up at home - a 40 user site, over several buildings! We condemned the networking infrastructure, as it was an electrical hazard.

We found a network switch sat closely next to a sink and cables criss-crossing the floors and ceilings. There was no central server room, but several rooms full floor to ceiling with miscellaneous IT gear, some was new and obsolete. Not only was the existing network difficult to support but it was unreliable and I was informed email had once stopped working for several weeks! There was no working redundancy or disaster recovery.

Initially we produced a report with our recommendations. From this we agreed to start again and we built two servers from the existing 6 that were on site, whilst filling several bins with boxes with coffee cups and junk. We installed UPS power and back up solution and we reconstructed the domain.

The expenditure to fix this site was unnecessary. Had experts been consulted we estimate they would have saved over 100,000 in five years and resulted in a much more reliable system. Companies of 50 users or less are far better off with an outsourced IT company as they have the experience to know what works.

Outsourced IT outgrowing your supplier

We got involved in this externally managed network as they had corruption of their email database (Microsoft exchange), which the current contractor was unable to resolve.

We fully restored all their emails, which enabled them to continue the business effectively, both in time and cost.

The current contactor did not have the depth of experience to managed the growing network and was aware that he needed assistance from a well established IT support engineer, who specialised in small to medium businesses.