Who do YOU turn to for help?

[howartp]

So we are a team of 3 running the school of 1800 students (11-18), running RM CC4.

 

Our combined skill set is absolutely fine (we have 11, 12 and 16 years experience in this school alone), and this thread is NOT about the ratio of IT to students.

 

However there are times where something is wrong, Google-fu and Edugeek can only help so much, and you need that person who can bring practical knowledge of a situation rather than theoretical web reading.

 

We've had 12-18 months of poor IT user experience as we bounce from one Big Thing ™ to another and management are understandably wondering what's going on.

 

RM are responsible for CC4 when we need them, but this current issue is vSphere-wide and even LAN-wide, well beyond the reaches of CC4.

 

What sort of support beyond your four walls do YOU have when you need it?

 

If the answer is 'a support company' or 'a consultant' - what form does that take?

A named individual who knows your network and you can talk to directly or a 1st/2nd/3rd line helpdesk where you have to fight through the scripts to get anywhere near someone helpful?

Pro-active or re-active?

Access on demand or school-initiated response?

 

Management know we don't want or need another one of me, telling me how to change my network - we need someone I can turn to for help when I want it.

 

Answers on a postcard...

 

Peter

[kingoranks]

lol, Seems like you need a very good support company behind you. The **** thing about this is they will try and take over. You dont want that. Edited October 18, 2021 by Zoom7000
Please keep it clean

[dhicks]

If the answer is 'a support company' or 'a consultant' - what form does that take?

 

An external consultant, with suitable access to SMT to get them to sit and listen when a decision is needed from them.

[TechMonkey]

We have an MSP as a third line support. We pay a fixed annual amount that covers calls and if we don't use that up they generally suggest review services or something else that will make up the difference and then the cost will be reviewed for the next year. They also know our network well so if something awful were to happen they could either step in or help who ever does step in.

The company works by having an account manager I talk to about general things and then he can bring the experts from the company to help. We are assigned to a team so we have consistency with who we speak to and we know their team leader incase we need to escalate anything. They have a lot better contacts in various large companies, MS for one, than we could ever hope for.

 

We try and update them if our documentation changes but generally if we do major network upgrades, they are the ones doing it.

 

If we paid more they could be more pro-active. They use a monitoring service that could go on every endpoint and let them know everything is working, and we would be able to have visibility of that, but we opted out of that, just having the bare minimum monitored. We still get calls occasionally as they have had a flag for disk space or Veeam Backup going wonky, or a major outage, but we are generally sorting it already or have done it. We let them know when we are having downtime so they don't try and contact us for no reason.

 

I have also had occasion to contact them at the weekend when we had a major issue with our infrastructure and they had an engineer on standby to come to site to help us, but in the end we managed to sort it. But it s good to know the option was there, for a cost.

 

Ultimately it comes down to an insurance policy. Some may see it as a waste but ultimately when the doo doo hits the whirly device, I know I can have someone to contact or even an extra pair of hands, that is more likely to have come across the issue or know the people that will.

[kingoranks]

I was going to suggest a consultant but it aint cheap, infact I used to work in oil and gas. The guy we used back then costs £800 per visit.

[6Foot2]

Our LEA provided good support when required.

 

They offered a tiered service where you could pick how much support you wanted.

 

It suited me and our network nicely. There was little or no IT/network experience/knowledge within the school, so I had nobody on-site when I needed someone to bounce ideas around with.

 

Perhaps your LEA offers something similar?

[kingoranks]

The LEA shout by @6Foot2 is a good one, explore that

[Squelch]

Not exactly the answer you are looking for but dumping CC4 cured all the unknown and downright bizarre network issues I used to have.

With a vanilla network all the help you could ever need is easily accessible on here and via Google if not.

[howartp]

Thanks for the replies.

 

I want to clarify that SLT are fully behind me on this; it's me that needs to know where I can turn to, so I can suggest to them how much money they need to fork out. (No point them asking the meerkats for the best networking company and booking them without my involvement!)

 

I'm not sure our LEA have anyone high enough - I know their 2nd line guys fairly well and I think they are there to provide 2nd/3rd line to the primaries and smaller secondaries - we're one of the biggest schools in the county and have IT to match it. However I will give them a call.

 

The comment about CC4 is spot-on and part of the problem. Removing CC4, changing MIS, moving into Cloud and Cyber Essentials certification (*) are all on the agenda but when it's 9am before staff can expect to log on and 6 staff are entering cashless catering transactions manually because we've an unidentified problem, I can't begin to look at the planned stuff.

 

(*I challenge any CC4 school to achieve CE with the PingCastle rules implemented on a CC4 network)

 

Can anyone name MSPs or consultancies that they use and/or would recommend?

 

Peter

[jamesrhart]

It really sounds like you need an extra person so that you can concentrate on moving the project work forward and ultimately resolve the issues, or an extra person qualified to move forward the projects under your direction.

[kingoranks]

Here is another thread, take a look. http://www.edugeek.net/forums/behind-red-door/154670-do-you-have-someone-call-support-case-disaster-5.html