Short term support options to cover a holiday

[sidewinder]

I've been granted leave in Feb/early March, almost all in term time, to attend a friend's wedding in Australia. But I've heard no mention from the school about arranging support while I'm away.

 

I'm the network manager and in fact the only member of the IT department (it is a small school). I'm not concerned about day to day things while I'm away, the staff are reasonably competent and the IT teacher is good at helping staff with the basic problems. Also I'll be taking my laptop away so I'll be able to respond to emails, restore files, fix small server issues (albeit with a massive time difference).

 

It's more the power failure and physical server failures I'm worried about. The network is no trouble at all usually, but we all know what happens as soon as we take a day off, let alone be halfway round the world....

 

Thing is, the support is (hopefully) unlikely to be needed, so don't want to pay too much, just have someone on standby that could come and diagnose if necessary. Someone from a local school would be great, but we're an independant and I don't have great (any) links with NMs at other schools.

 

So are there any specialist companies that could do this type of support for a school? Only come in emergencies for a few weeks? Anyone done anything similar?

 

We used to be supported by Viglen, and I'm sure they would do short term cover, but from past experience things would end up worse than having no-one helping...

Edited January 24, 2013 by sidewinder

[SBennett]

This might be a weird suggestion but is there any local schools that you keep in contact with. Ask them to go in to help IF something was to happen?

[ICTonto]

Sidewinder,

 

Wherebouts is London are you?

[hardtailstar]

Im sure there is lots of companies that do short term cover and only charge for the time they are called in.

 

may be a good option to find out.