Server Management vs In House?

Just wanted to check quickly if anybody has any input. I have an IT consultation business that has done web hosting now for the past five or so years (mostly just to our existing clients and through word of mouth and development projects we get - so nothing major).

We've had some users recently asking about VPS services so I decided to break off the hosting from my consultation and just move it into its own brand. I've got all of those pieces (mostly) complete and I'm basically ready to launch it. We're a really small (even when compared to small) provider, and obviously we hope to grow this part of our business but I know we would not have the load for a full in house tech at this time. 

For the time being until it gains some traction I've been toying with the idea of using a server management company vs having someone in house since I seriously doubt the ticket volume would exceed a few per week to start. Additionally, unless I am on site and busy myself, I could likely deal with 90% of the stuff that comes in. In the case that there's something that's over my head, or if I am unavailable to respond to the ticket - I don't want the customer to be waiting on a response or resolution. 

Because of this I've thought that using a server management provider might be a good option, but my concerns are there don't seem to be that many out there who are reputable. I am mostly looking for SolusVM + KVM specific support, and there isn't much to be had it seems. I did reach out to Rack911 but Steven just seems fairly busy currently so not sure where that will lead to, but figured I'd check here to see if anyone has any advice to offer.

We're not looking for some budget $20USD per server type thing, but at the same time we don't want to dump a bunch of money every month into a service or a part-time in house staffer that won't get much use. 

Sorry for the long winded post. Thanks in advance for any responses.

It sounds like you have staff and competency... But perhaps are just busy or might be in future with other stuff.  I question your ability to run such a business big picture, because things to break in ugly ways and VPS companies are notorious of long hours for little return.    Not questioning your ability per se, but this takes the time to commit.

Outsourcing is typically a bad idea.  There are slews of outsource-to-them ticketing companies.  Getting someone that will handle headier issues, be timely and still affordable, that's asking for a high level of knowledge, 24/7 jump on it now, and at a low price.

Here's the deal, everyone in this VPS segment claims hyper responsive, around the clock support.  In reality, most aren't anywhere near close.   Stafffing 24/7 in a real work world is 168 hour work week and you are talking about 4-6 people to cover things.  At $8 per hour you are looking at $1344 a month and honestly, that's low. 

So resource sharing via outsourcing can maybe afford 50% reduction or $600-800 a month.  Mind you we are talking about highly competent folks.  That sort of money is certainly offshore where $400 a month is a high middle class salary.

Me, I'd lean towards keeping the support under your roof, with your staff, or yourself.   When there is a delay, communicate with the customer about the delay.   If other obligations extend things super long or continue to get in the way, yeah the business might not be for you.

I would have to side with drmike keep it all in house

 

drmike said:

Here's the deal, everyone in this VPS segment claims hyper responsive, around the clock support.  In reality, most aren't anywhere near close.   Stafffing 24/7 in a real work world is 168 hour work week and you are talking about 4-6 people to cover things.  At $8 per hour you are looking at $1344 a month and honestly, that's low. 

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Low?  That's illegal in quite a few states in the US 

But isn't your math:  4 people per hour, 168 hours per week, 4.3 weeks per month, $8/hour = 4 * 168 * 4.3 *8 = $23,116.80 per month?  Of course, in reality isn't much higher because of FICA, payroll taxes, etc.

Even if it's only one person per hour...$5779.20 per month.  If you were selling $7/month VPSes for pure profit, you'd need to sell 825 of them to cover that.  If your profit margin is more like 25%, then you need over 3,200.

No wonder most "support" is offshore snooze button support...you know, you open a ticket at 8pm and get a response "we've escalated to senior support" and then the next day at noon the real support responds.

drmike said:

It sounds like you have staff and competency... But perhaps are just busy or might be in future with other stuff.  I question your ability to run such a business big picture, because things to break in ugly ways and VPS companies are notorious of long hours for little return.    Not questioning your ability per se, but this takes the time to commit.

Outsourcing is typically a bad idea.  There are slews of outsource-to-them ticketing companies.  Getting someone that will handle headier issues, be timely and still affordable, that's asking for a high level of knowledge, 24/7 jump on it now, and at a low price.

Here's the deal, everyone in this VPS segment claims hyper responsive, around the clock support.  In reality, most aren't anywhere near close.   Stafffing 24/7 in a real work world is 168 hour work week and you are talking about 4-6 people to cover things.  At $8 per hour you are looking at $1344 a month and honestly, that's low. 

So resource sharing via outsourcing can maybe afford 50% reduction or $600-800 a month.  Mind you we are talking about highly competent folks.  That sort of money is certainly offshore where $400 a month is a high middle class salary.

Me, I'd lean towards keeping the support under your roof, with your staff, or yourself.   When there is a delay, communicate with the customer about the delay.   If other obligations extend things super long or continue to get in the way, yeah the business might not be for you.

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Appreciate the response. I don't want to outsource support of my customers to another company. More or less I want someone who can support me should I be busy at that point in time. 

The VPS' themselves are mostly self-managed, but if there's an issue with a node or something and I happen to be working on a server that's down somewhere else (because the world just always seems to work that way), I'd want to be able to resolve any issues. 

As I mentioned, we currently have two staff capable of support (technically we have a couple other staff that could be bodies that simply reply to tickets, but I'm not a fan of that type of practice). Though, having someone in house while starting out with a couple of nodes and only a few VPS' running out the gate just seems like you're setting yourself up for failure.

I feel your $8 per hour is not just low, but unreasonably low. In fact, if someone was willing to accept $8 per hour, I probably wouldn't want to even hire them since how experienced could they possibly be? I feel like most techs worth a damn would be wanting upwards of $16+ per hour with most even extending into the $20's.

I want to emphasize that I am not avoiding having in house staff - I am trying to ensure that I can grow enough to accommodate it. At the same rate - as a customer of many VPS providers myself, there's nothing more frustrating than low quality outsourced support so I will not in a million years go down that route. Rather than outsourcing support I was more or less interested in a proactive server management company who could support our company directly and all communication with the client would be handled internally by our staff. 

Hope that might help clarify some things.

ChrisB said:

I feel your $8 per hour is not just low, but unreasonably low. In fact, if someone was willing to accept $8 per hour, I probably wouldn't want to even hire them since how experienced could they possibly be? I feel like most techs worth a damn would be wanting upwards of $16+ per hour with most even extending into the $20's.

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I fubared math in big picture.  $8 x 168 hours x 4 weeks = $5376.  (don't type while juggling humans speaking with you).

50% reduction = $2500~ a month.

Outsourcing to 3rd world = $400 x number of people to cover  = $1600 on low end.  Maybe less where they are running an optimized outsourced help desk and need the business.   But, mind you, that's exploiting folks, not being smart.

Now I am 100000% happy you are anti-outsourcing.

I am perplexed by this however:

"I was more or less interested in a proactive server management company who could support our company directly and all communication with the client would be handled internally by our staff."

What would thos folks really provider and that seems like outsourcing.  In fairness, I feel like something isn't being communicated effectively.

What I do is run shifts of people responsible for covering overnights.  So people pick when they can cover off hours.  Then we set up priority notifications that both said folks as-needed where an emergency ONLY.  All other matter wait until the next business morning.   We check things 7 days a week, so delay at worst is like 11PM to 9AM.

drmike said:

don't type while juggling humans 

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My God man...you are one sick individual.

We do this for a few companies, feel free to pm me if you're interested.

ChrisB said:

...I was more or less interested in a proactive server management company who could support our company directly and all communication with the client would be handled internally by our staff. 

...

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I also this for several people in the same situation as you. Feel free to drop me an email with exact requirements.

As long as you have competent staff, good communication systems, it's fine in my books.

According to me in hoiuse will be best one you can easily communicate and you get work done quickly and he will handle your ticket only