Play along and imagine this scenario:
You’re at your buddy’s house watching the game when you get a dreaded email alert saying the corporate network is down. Who’s fixing it? Pin the tail on the donkey, you’re on call this time. Time to drop everything so that you can troubleshoot and isolate the problem — just when the game was getting good.
Perfect…
If you had a $100 cash in your pocket, you might ask your buddy to help fix the problem so that you could get back to the game, but he’s not technical — worse, he’s in sales. The company is relying on you and you alone to fix this issue.
First, you have to get to your computer, which is at your home four miles away. After grabbing all of your stuff and leaving your buddy’s house, you arrive at home — now 20 minutes into the outage. You quickly log into the network and look up the carrier’s contact information.
Oh wait! Before you call them, you have to isolate whether power is available. You login to network management software in order to see the status of your Smart-UPS. Okay, it’s indeed a network outage, so back to contacting the carrier.
You’re now 35 minutes into the outage and in the background you hear cheering on the TV because you had to flip on the game. After all, it’s your team and it’s a big game. Right about now you’re probably frustrated by your job and how much it interferes with your personal time off.
Finally, after an IVR from hell and a disconnect, you now have the carrier on the phone. It has been 40 minutes into the outage. They begin asking you the typical questions:
- Have you checked power?
- Who’s the site contact for dispatch?
- What’s your email?
- How do you want to be contacted?
- What size shoe do you wear?
Okay, maybe not that last one exactly, but you get the point.
Twenty minutes later, and now one full hour into the trouble, you finally have a ticket number and have been advised that you’ll be contacted with further information as it’s provided. With your laptop in your hands, you turn back to the game, but you have to check email every 15 minutes for a status update.
Perhaps you drive back to your buddies house with laptop in hand just in case you need it, and resume the festivities…sort of.
Does this sound familiar?
The world has evolved when it comes to network management. Now, businesses like Wired Networks specialize in providing 24/7/365 remote management of the voice and data WAN network, or even just after hours management. We also tend to do it faster and more efficiently, letting your network team lead a normal life after‑hours which tends to improve job satisfaction.
Better yet, the investment is returned back to the company in the form of more revenue because our SLAs can open tickets within 15 minutes of the outage, consequently reducing your downtime and keeping the company more productive. In addition, your IT personel’s day isn’t completely derailed due to an unexpected WAN networking issues.
In other words, you have choices when it comes to remote network management and you might be surprised how much value this service can provide your business.
For more information, we invite you to read more about network uptime and SD WAN solutions by checking out our free white papers and case studies.
