Colocation or server housing providers often offer their customers a ‘remote hands’ support option. This enables customers to instruct the data centre’s staff to carry out routine (and short-notice) maintenance tasks on their IT equipment.
A remote hands service is attractive for businesses that house their servers and other hardware in a third party data centre and that lack the resources or time to venture out themselves. Tasks such as rebooting servers, replacing faulty hardware, checking cables or even installing software are just some of the things that can be done by remote instruction.
Pros and cons of remote hands
A remote hands support service has many benefits, including time and cost savings. Companies can instead focus on their core business and respond more quickly to issues by delegating routine and emergency activities to the data centre teams. Nevertheless, you should also consider the significant disadvantages.
One of the main problems with this kind of service is the loss of control over your critical infrastructure as key tasks are carried out by an external team. This can compromise data security and the quality of service. Quality of service can suffer due to differences in the standards applied by service providers.
Another disadvantage is the communications barrier: getting your message over to the service provider’s personnel can be difficult and time-consuming when you have particularly complex requirements.
And finally you need to consider the expenditure incurred on the service itself. Even though remote hands can save you money in the short term, using server housing or colocation services can cost you more in the long run. Businesses need to carefully weigh up the pros and cons of outsourcing their IT infrastructure before choosing a remote hands support service.
