Effective management - Branch Offices & remote sites

Servicing branch offices  

Servicing branch offices requires a range of solutions that gives you the correct balance of swift response, control and economy. Time will be of the essence, but additionally you'll want control of core corporate resources. Depending on the situation with legacy equipment and the complexity of your network, you may elect to outsource a complete solution, a managed service on critical equipment and software or a service contract on the whole site. Typically an optimum solution will provide a mix of these solutions on a branch-by-branch basis.

With the long-term decline in connectivity costs, hosted solutions are also becoming more viable, typically delivered via Citrix or Terminal Services. They may also include Microsoft Hosted IT - such as Exchange and Sharepoint. Working in this manner allows you to contract for a colocation, Managed, Semi-Managed or outsourced solution. It also provides the basis for creating high-availability and the foundations for a Business Continuity solution.

The further a branch office is from a central IT resource, the more
compelling the case for managing it by some form of Service Contract.

Centralised IT & Star Networks  

Today's trend in IT is to provide as many services as possible from a centralised IT resource. This helps contain costs, maximise return on investment, maximise the utilisation of indivisibles and provide the scale to run high-availability services. Many businesses also have a legacy of 'star networks' where IT was introduced to head-office 1st and additional sites and branch offices simply connected to these remotely when IT rolled-out to them.

This model provides an excellent platform for providing high quality of service at head office and optimal use of IT staff time. However branch offices and remote sites exist because they're profitable.IT at these sites should be critical to operational efficiency and corporate communications (why else would it be there?). Outages and down-time at these locations will impact on profitability.

Whilst it is possible to fix some problems using Remote Access, some issues require an engineer to attend the site. In addition certain 'thick' applications exclude delivery from off-site due to bandwidth constraints. Often business-critical & database-driven, they require swift response.

Timely and swift responses  

Providing a timely swift response from a centralised IT site usually means a member of staff, or members of staff dropping their 'case-load'/project and driving to the site concerned. If they're lucky they'll be able to resolve the problem. if not they may require another trip with spare components or software. This can be time-consuming and very costly. Where problems are minor, but require specialist knowledge and an on-site visit, this can be exceptionally inefficient.

Examples might include replacing a hot-swap disk and verifying a RAID rebuild or worse, checking and rebooting a router - that having 'fallen over' is preventing online business, email and any sort of RAS solution being effected.

Time eaters                

DRIVE TO SITE	FIX PROBLEM	DRIVE BACK
2.5 HOURS	10 MINS	2.5 HOURS

20yrs experience, highly resourced  

With 20 years experience a qualified and experienced IT technical team and its own 33,000 sq ft hosting and disaster recovery centre, ABS is well placed to service its customers needs. IT Service forms a major platform in its business portfolio. A dedicated IT help and engineering control desk and established methodology for engineering management ensures optimal performance.

To discuss your Service needs and/or obtain a competitive quotation, click here