Compuquip

The whole concept of Managed IT Services is to be proactive and provide as many of the services as possible remotely.  That allows us to respond faster, be more efficient, and therefore provide the solution in a very cost effective manner.  But even in today advanced technology networks some onsite support is still required.  It could be as little as once a month or as often as a full 40 hours per week.

One of the benefits in the Compuquip model is we provide that year round coverage for onsite support and there is no vacation or sick days.  How is that possible?

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It’s all about COMMUNICATION!!

It seems that every time we begin working with a new client and we start reviewing their business continuity plan (that’s huge down here in South Florida with the hurricanes) we always find out that the expectations of Management are different then what the system can actually do.  Why is that?

Let me give you an example from a recent meeting that we present to the Board of Directors of a non-profit.  There were four people from the client and me and Jorge Azcuy, our Director of Technical Services.  When we got to part about Business Continuity one of the owners said, that’s an area we don’t need to focus on, we’re good.

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As our customer base has increased over the years the cost and workload to continue providing our services has also increased significantly. As our endpoint and user count increase, the amount of issues along with the proactive maintenance required and provided for each of these systems also increases. How can IT providers such as Compuquip continue providing the same services or better while at the same time not burdening their staff or having to increase operating costs?

One powerful solution is automation. Through the use of automation, IT providers such as ourselves can provide more services, have a faster support turn around, dedicate resources to more critical tasks and in essence provide better customer service just by implementing a few automated controls. Read more »

Throughout the past few months, I have had the opportunity of working as an intern for Compuquip’s Network Operations Center (or the NOC Services, as it’s better known). I started off working on very simple repetitive tasks, and proceeded in taking on more challenging responsibilities. I was trained to use Kaseya, Compuquip’s remote management and monitoring software. Through Kaseya, I had been reviewing simple configurations to make sure the Anti-Viruses (AV) and Windows Updates run smoothly. During this Proactive Maintenance, I look for machines missing an AV and install one if needed and will then check scan schedules to make sure they are current with client specifications.  Then I look for machines missing approved patches or patch configurations, such as patch scans and automatic update schedules, and remediate any discrepancies.

Once I became comfortable with Kaseya, I undertook another project that Compuquip has been implementing: AV conversions for all clients. We had been in the process of migrating to Kaspersky Anti-Virus, a more developed and secure AV solution. Sometimes this involved clicking on two icons. Other times, I was not so lucky and would have to remote into a user’s machine after working hours in order to manually uninstall a 3^rd party AV or spend a few hours trying to figure out why an installation kept failing. This would have never been possible during business hours. It is at this point that I discovered and began agreeing with Eric Dosal, Compuquip’s COO, that often times one can get more work done after hours and out-of-office.

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A normal day for an enterprise engineer meant rolling out of bed followed by a zombie like drive into the office and after fumbling with a few security cards and passwords I was in my dark cave performing my morning checklist routine.  It was nice and quiet and I seldom had to deal with people.  I rarely had to be asked what to do by my manager but when we spoke it was in the techno language that most civilians can’t understand.  Going to lunch was normally done with the same couple of people whom were also techno-geeks in their own right.  It is normally an antisocial being that you become when you assume the role of an enterprise engineer.

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