Get Uninterrupted Sleep with a Skilled Remote Hands Team

Vitrual hands

Consider this inconvenient scenario: It’s 3 a.m., and you’re snuggled into bed, a hundred miles away from your organization’s servers, when an urgent call wakes you. Something has gone awry, your network has crashed, and no one else is available. Begrudgingly, you head out in the dark for the long trek to the data center and spend the next several hours troubleshooting and replacing equipment.

Now imagine an alternate scenario: After waking to news about your crashed network, you contact remote hands, your team of onsite technicians, who begin troubleshooting, solve the problem and get your business back online while you enjoy a few more hours of restful sleep.

Or better yet, thanks to your remote team’s regular device status checks and proactive equipment updates, there’s no emergency to disrupt your slumber in the first place.

A remote hands service can (literally) save you from missed sleep — and they do a lot more than swoop in amid an emergency. Here’s everything you need to know about a data center’s remote hands services, and why you should never colocate without it.

What is Remote Hands?

Remote hands, also referred to as virtual Hands or smart hands, refers to a team of technicians and engineers who handle all data center maintenance and management tasks on behalf of colocation customers. Generally, virtual hands services are available year-round, 24×7, to ensure you’re protected should an emergency occur after regular business hours. (And as you’ve probably experienced, emergencies rarely happen at a convenient time.)

In most cases, virtual or remote hands teams work to prevent emergencies by handling routine maintenance and status checks, hardware upgrades, loading and unloading backup takes, part replacement and other proactive measures. While they work for the colocation provider, these teams usually defer to the customer for direct instructions to ensure all work is done to their preferences.

What are the Advantages of a Virtual Hands Service?

There are several benefits to working with a virtual hands service. Here are just a few of the advantages:

  • Fewer site visits
    Whether your servers are hosted in a data center across town or across the state, it’s challenging to take time out of your busy workday to visit the facility to check equipment, load new backup tapes or run upgrades. With virtual hands available to handle these projects, you can enjoy fewer walks through the data center.
  • Insight into equipment performance
    Sometimes, you just want to quickly check in on your servers and make sure everything is running optimally. But when your servers are offsite, this isn’t always possible. A great virtual hands team will not only evaluate your equipment on your behalf, but they’ll also send pictures for extra peace of mind.
  • Less downtime
    If something goes amiss and you or one of your team members has to travel to the colocation site, you can lose precious hours of service — which can translate into lost business. But because a virtual hands team is onsite, they can tackle the problem immediately and get your organization back online faster.
  • Trusted experts on-call
    As an IT leader, you and your team carry a lot on your shoulders keeping up with onsite tech, responding to user requests and helping improve your organization’s services. The last thing anyone wants after a long day in the office is a trip to the data center for routine maintenance or an unplanned emergency. Virtual hands can act as an extension of your team and can help save you time as well as the expense of sending your internal resources to cover server needs.
  • More options for data center locations
    If you find a data center provider with a remote hands service that offers a high level of expertise and availability, your team never has to go to the data center, opening your company’s options for potential data center locations in areas that are safer and/or closer to other markets you serve.

What to Consider When Choosing a Virtual Hands Service

It’s important to recognize not all virtual hands services are equal. Before you invest in working with one of these teams, be sure to consider the following:

  • Service offerings
    From on-site cabling and equipment installation to hard drive swaps and drop shipping, virtual hands services often offer a variety of maintenance and emergency-response services. Make sure your data center provider can cover everything your organization anticipates needing.
  • Technician certifications and experience
    It’s crucial the professionals working on your servers have the necessary experience and credentials. Be sure to ask about certifications, compliance and experience before you work with a virtual hands service.
  • Availability
    Some virtual hands services are available during specific blocks of time while others keep someone onsite 24x7x365. Make sure their availability aligns with your needs.

If you’re colocating your organization’s data center, checking in with your servers can be a time-consuming and inconvenient endeavor. By working with a virtual hands team, you can save time, money and headaches while enjoying more time to focus on improving your onsite environment — and maybe sleep a little easier, too.

Learn more about our virtual hands service.