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Ask Slashdot: How Can You Find a Good IT Consultant?
Slashdot reader Thelasko says his wife manages a small eight-person business -- but remains unhappy with the company's IT consultant:
She's had endless problems with Windows 10 Pro's update system causing downtime. Anytime she calls the IT consultant, they don't resolve issues to her satisfaction, and the company gets stuck with a large bill. She's resorted to researching and providing support for the company network herself.
The contract is up at the end of the year, and she wants to find a new consultant. The company owner however, doesn't want to switch because all of the work the consultant provided is covered under a "warranty" for 3 years (the company typically gets charged). I don't work in IT myself, and am unable to provide advice. What should they do? How would Slashdot find a reputable consultant?
Leave your best answers in the comments. How can you find a good IT consultant?
The contract is up at the end of the year, and she wants to find a new consultant. The company owner however, doesn't want to switch because all of the work the consultant provided is covered under a "warranty" for 3 years (the company typically gets charged). I don't work in IT myself, and am unable to provide advice. What should they do? How would Slashdot find a reputable consultant?
Leave your best answers in the comments. How can you find a good IT consultant?
TIP: Plain and simple. Do NOT use India.
REASON: If there was a good consultant in India, they received the H1B and are either in the UK, US, or Canada.
Much like you.
Easy: If they are based in India, owned by somone from India or employ even a single Indian then avoid like the plague.
Being told why you can't have what you want is the job of a good system administrator. Blaming the IT guy for Windows 10 update policy is beyond silly.
As for where to find a good IT guy there really is only one good source: recommendations. Find out who is doing the work you need doing and then see who they've worked for / currently work for. Contact those people, hear what they say.
It seems her boss doesn't value her work, and quality work in general. I wouldn't advise to stay at such a company on the long term. Nothing will change until she gets overwhelmed and burnt out, and then she'll be the scapegoat for the crisis.
She's had endless problems with Windows 10 Pro's update system causing downtime.
Yes, that is what it's there for.
Anytime she calls the IT consultant, they don't resolve issues to her satisfaction
Thought: Maybe this is not on the consultant, but the choice to use Windows for everything. But despite all that, lets move on to the main issue...
The company owner however, doesn't want to switch because all of the work the consultant provided is covered under a "warranty" for 3 years
What would a "Warranty" even mean even mean for IT consulting? Within a single year so much about the system would have changes because of Microsoft or hardware updates that any kind of warranty would be meaningless. Also if the work is covered under a warranty, shouldn't that mean they have to repair whatever even if not under contract?
If they are not happy move on, though as I stated before I do not think they can find happiness given what they are giving the IT consultants to work with.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
True dat. The original question is: "How do you find a good (Windows) IT consultant", which is a subset of "good Windows IT", which is, of course, the null set.
Neither belongs on Slashdot. Not to say there aren't people working in the midst of IT or politics that are actual nerds, but any of them that would use the term "IT" or talk about politics in a nerd forum are likely clueless posers. Likewise, anyone who uses the term "geek out", who watches "The Big Bang Theory", or any of the thousand variants of hipsters constant testing my gag reflex.
How can we answer with too little info. Need size of network, size of Company, how much in a price range is I.T. consultant making? Do you have any I.T. staff at Company at all? If so what do they do?
It matters where in the world the need is. Without a City and State, I'd be in the dark trying to help.
A 3 year warranty?! Is that normal?
No MSP I have worked for has come anywhere near that.
Regardless, we find we generate most of our business via word of mouth.
Ask your friends, have your wife ask her friends, there has be someone recommended in the area.
Review the company's offerings. What do they charge for after hours calls? Is someone on call 24x7? What is their response time? Are they certified in any way?
Not kidding. IT bro's are not your friend. If you can manage it have a male negotiate, even if you are the decider. I speak as a female business owner.
On one hand I have never seen a "good consultant", on the other hand, how could you expect a single person to fix the complete and utter mess that the Windows 10 update system is?
I have encountered some quite good freelance "support providers", though. They don't have a website, they don't advertise, they seem to be keeping as quiet as they can, because they get more than enough work just by word of mouth. So the only way to find them is to talk to other comparable businesses in your area.
I'm an ex-IT'er running a business that requires IT work to deal with our mission critical software, and I can't find anybody. I've been through 4 different firms in the past few years, and most of them can't even work professionally (return emails, calls, provide written estimates, etc.).
I don't respond to AC's.
You will be blamed for any changes you make.
Stupid bosses deserve to get what they ask for. Protect yourself, don't fall on your sword for someone guaranteed to yank it free then stick it in your back.
Do your job, get paid, and hand off all problems to the magic company supposed to fix them. Let them own their failure!
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Outsourcing IT is the worst idea you can possibly promote. Don't do it.
(1) Do it yourself ... or ...
(2) Find a competent freelancer
The problem is that most smart and competent freelancers get bored of doing network/IT support after a while and either go back to university and do something else, or move into a more interesting part of IT like programming or design.
This brings me to a third idea -- put up ads that you need someone at a local university. You might end up with a career-changer or former freelancer who needs a few dinars on the side to pay for school. Even better if you can pay promptly without too much drama.
If this guy is as bad as you say then make your case. You have to prove to your higher ups the cost to the company from not switching and staying with the status quo will be more than the up-front cost of hiring another consultant and foregoing the guarantee on that work.
You are not in a position to be successful.
You're asking the wrong question - instead of asking "how to find a good IT consultant" you should be asking yourself the questions "how can I position myself in order to be able to find a good IT consultant." If the actual decision maker (not you) is making decisions based on faulty understanding (warranty, cost, quality) then you are not in a position to make a good decision. Understanding this will help you resolve the actual problem (the decision making process) rather than the symptom (the poor performance of an IT consultant.) Once you address this, then you'll be able to do things like create evaluation time periods, measure effectiveness, measure cost, measure downtime, and other metrics that should help you solve the problem you initially tried to solve. Before that, you need to solve a deeper problem.
So, I believe you either need to change who is making the decision (delegation), change how they are making the decision (evaluation), or remove yourself from the equation (quit/stop caring), before you address the issue you initially asked about.
Of the people I know only the worse have remained on Windows, and for the money.
A simple reason, you are just a slave of Microsoft, so, you just work for money.
It used to be that the changes where reasonable and bearable, but really, Win10 is sit
You really want to get better ? Start with replacing 1/10 of the computers that do menial work with Linux + Libreoffice.
It works, and the people dealing with it are better...
Hi,
I strongly suggest you look local. Stop by any computer shop or electronics parts distributor near your business and ask if they refer for computer services. Check in with businesses of similar size to yours and see who they use. Ask friends and family if they know an IT person "with the soul of a teacher" (as Dave Ramsey says about a good financial adviser, but I think it translates well here). Don't go for the absolute cheapest solution, unless you're very comfortable with them and they have very strong references.
Cheers,
Andrew
Just like Grandpa taught us, killing Nazi scum is a proud American tradition of the greatest generation. Kill em all, let them burn white-hot in Hell.
In other words, find someone who delivers you a working office IT solution.
Which preferrably should not include any microsoft software at all.
Exactly. Microsoft's commercial success really only comes from having pioneered "IT For Dummies" and its continuous market position abuses.
The best solution to Windows IT issues is to replace Windows with a Linux backend with a Mac front end.
I enjoy reading SuperKendall's insightful comments. I'm happy they are so easy to spot in any thread!
Contract? Never hire any consultant that wants a contract, their support skills should keep you coming back, not a contract. Start there. There are plenty of good small business consultants. Look around until you find one.
Crystal compuooooters they have the soluooooootion. I hear that on the radio every morning.
The real problem is that she is blaming the wrong people. The issue lies with those who designed windows update. It is unreasonable to expect third parties to fix design flaws for software they do not control. I have never seen such an error prone process for what should amount to copying files to directories and running a few scripts. It's worse than updating a 6 month stale gentoo installation.
She's had endless problems with Windows 10 Pro's update system causing downtime.
The problem here is Windows 10 Pro for which there is no magic fix other than not using it. If the product does not perform to your satisfaction then the solution is to not using the product.
People hate this answer because it means moving to another operating system which can be unpleasant but that doesn't make it any less true.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Try and think of the last place you had it.
You don't. They are overwhelmingly garbage.
Unfortunately, this is the correct answer.
And even if you do manage to find someone good, they can't change the fact that Windows 10 is completely broken and useless.
the obvious answer is take the "a large bill" money and buy people apple macs....! instead of throwing good money after bad, get rid of the problem --- so what is the use case for windows 10? the question doesn't have enough information about what the company does or why windows 10 is necessary --- you need a consultant to come in and redesign your IT so you don't have to depend on an unreliable, expensive piece that is causing you grief --- this small business is not effectively spending its money if it gets large bills for windows 10 problems each year --- what does this business do that absolutely requires windows 10? only you can answer that question, since the posting above doesn't bother to say
MS needs to let server 2016 have no active hours / let you set them to any time even limit them to say 1 day an week.
But windows needs to go back to the older update system. Stop pushing windows 10 as fast as they do and have SP come back.
The "warranty" acts as a "client retention tool", more than anything, and is probably routed to the sales department as an opportunity to push more billable services at them.
I was thinking of it as marketing, but had not considered the leverage it offered for even more sales - like "Great news! 25% of the problem is covered by your warranty, so you only owe us $10 for the server updates that failed!".
In fact the more I think about it the more I think any kind of unrealistic long term warranty offered seems like a huge red flag.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If only apple open mac os to more hardware! and did not lock there own hardware down to can't be repaired and is super thin.
Did we really need to mention that it was a guys wife? Was it really necessary for understanding the question? If anything it was done as a humble brag... "Look I have a wife and she works in IT". It was totally irrelevant to the question yet such a big point was made that it was somebody's wife.
Instead of finding a single consultant, consider hiring an outsourcing provider, aka a Managed Service Provider (another description). The problem with an individual consultant is that skillets vary and you probably won't find someone with *all* of the skills you need. In addition, individuals get sick, take vacations, etc. By hiring a MSP, you contract with a company which provides the support and manages the staff you need to keep your IT running. Because MSPs service multiple customers, you get the expertise of a bunch of people without having to hire and dedicate a bunch of people to just your IT. MSPs are formal businesses, with phone support, legal contracts, service level agreements, etc. Many individual IT consultants are not really good at running a business and don't have the ability to provide any real SLA. On the downside, when you go with a MSP, you will have to have some standardization in your environment and your users may not have the flexibility in their desktop configuration that they are accustomed to. This being said, standardization leads to stability and supportability - things you probably want in the end.
Sounds like they're growing past the small business that can get away without having a dedicated IT employee. Since price also seems to be a concern, they're probably not going to get anyone with experience, so maybe hire a high school senior or college CS student on a part time basis with the understanding that they'll be learning on the job.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
You probably donâ(TM)t even have a warranty. Do you believe the last IT consultant as much as you believe random ACs on the innerwebz?
Hire me. You'll have to pay me a lot more than my current employer though.
True dat. The original question is: "How do you find a good (Windows) IT consultant", which is a subset of "good Windows IT", which is, of course, the null set.
Which, while a popular opinion on Slashdot, is incorrect. There are plenty of senior Windows professionals. The problem is that not many companies are will to pay for expert advice. They want cheap service and they get what they pay for.
To find the best, find a company that has senior Windows professionals who are Windows NT experts. Why? Because the underlying Windows system hasn't changed much since Windows NT days. Windows has the same strengths and weaknesses that it had back then and they are well understood by the NT guys. The newer Windows guys are brought up with the philosophy that it's easier to re-image, but the worker loses a ton of downtime re-configuring all of their apps. The Windows NT guys were brought up with the philosophy of fixing the OS in place.
That alone will solve many of the problems.
I don't know any IT Consultant who can make Windows run well. It isn't possible.
If you must have Windows for 1 critical system, make people RDP into it and only give them Linux on their desktops. Probably don't want any of the new releases - stick with Ubuntu-Mate 16.04 to keep it simple, stable, well tested as your team learns the new OS.
In the end, the company can continue to be screwed over by MSFT with zero recourse or spend 6 months moving to a different OS that doesn't force vendor lock in. If you don't like Ubuntu, there are other competing offers.
And 1 good consultant can usually manage 2-2,000 desktop systems, remotely, with fairly minimal effort. The only real issue is that if you only use desktop Linux, then the consultant won't have much work to do for a few years. It sorta "just works."
***Not for all small IT consultants.*** It's money vs. scruples vs. quality. Even when I was inexperienced I gave the customer what they wanted - Fixed. Really fixed. I would research the issues and really fix them. I billed for just the actual time fixing - I felt the ongoing research was my professional development. The problem is small businesses are rarely that complex. Once they are really fixed, you may not hear from them for a couple of years unless you are selling unneeded services. Most small consultants cannot maintain 1000 customers because it takes too long for call-backs and their emergencies require immediacy. If two customers have emergencies the same day, you lose one... You either have to bill every minute, and/or just fix the symptoms to be profitable. (most all) Good guys go out of business, (most all) bad guys live with the reputation. It is extremely difficult to be a successful, quality, honorable small IT consultant.
The problem is that not many companies are will to pay for expert advice.
No. The problem is that people that need an IT consultant are not able to judge quality. If they knew enough to make that judgement, they wouldn't need the consultant in the first place.
And don't give me that crap about "You get what you pay for." That is absolutely untrue in IT.
The best solution in this case is likely for her to build her team's internal skill set. Learn how to troubleshoot and use ServerFault, Microsoft.com, and Google for solutions. If she pays for a "solution", she should make sure she understands exactly what the consultant did, so she can do it herself next time.
I fire clients who mess with anything without my permission.
I train them to do the simple stuff I want them to do.
Beyond that they touch anything they get fired.
There is nothing worse than trying to fix an issue with someone else mucking it up changing things.
A lot of other consultants do the same.
It sounds like a nightmare client.
That system is under Microsoft's control. There is no way to predict what it will do. Updates cannot be disabled.
An IT consultant has only two options under these circumstances: A) Tell their clients that everybody is just along for the ride, that there are no guarantees and everything they do is just best-effort. If it doesn't work to the customer's satisfaction, they can complain to Microsoft. Windows 10 is their "OS as a service". The consultant still put in the work and gets paid. Or B) Not do it.
Option A is a surefire way to have unsatisfied customers. If you get it working, it requires constant maintenance, so it's going to be extremely expensive. If you don*t get it working, the customer doesn't get what they want and still pays. You can imagine what kind of person would keep choosing option A. Sane people choose option B, not to support Windows 10.
... googling Oxymoron, Inc.
They're the best.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
... named Dogbert in a tech magazine, "Dilbert."
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
True dat. The original question is: "How do you find a good (Windows) IT consultant", which is a subset of "good Windows IT", which is, of course, the null set.
Which, while a popular opinion on Slashdot, is incorrect. There are plenty of senior Windows professionals. The problem is that not many companies are will to pay for expert advice. They want cheap service and they get what they pay for.
To find the best, find a company that has senior Windows professionals who are Windows NT experts. Why? Because the underlying Windows system hasn't changed much since Windows NT days. Windows has the same strengths and weaknesses that it had back then and they are well understood by the NT guys. The newer Windows guys are brought up with the philosophy that it's easier to re-image, but the worker loses a ton of downtime re-configuring all of their apps. The Windows NT guys were brought up with the philosophy of fixing the OS in place.
Windows "NT guy" here. Windows Update. System Restore. Apps. An infinite array of security policy options. The bloody UI that still gets even seasoned professionals lost. I can think of another dozen things that are vastly different with Windows 10 vs. Windows NT. About the only damn thing that remained was NTFS. Sorry to burst your bubble, but you better find a Windows 10 professional. More specifically a desktop support specialist who specializes in Windows.
See, that is the inherent problem with the assumption that you can just go out and find an "IT guy" who knows it all. That world of IT is vastly larger than it was 30 years ago. It's like wanting to find "some mechanic" to work on your Ferrari.
Attention businesses running Windows. Learn to fucking specialize and get the expert you need. And understand you get what you pay for. It's that simple.
...that you don't want to be flooded with offers from random internet users. But, your best bet is to provide more information, such as the general area (local major city/state/country) and ask a group of experienced IT people for recommendations for a local IT guy that would be interested in a support consultant gig. Kind of what you are doing now, but with more detail. For a business of this size they are better off finding a local IT guy with a regular full time gig that wants to make a few extra bucks supporting small businesses on the side. I do exactly this in my area, and all of my work comes from recommendations from other technical people who either don't have the time, or don't want the relative frustration of acting as a consultant.
Good IT consultant here. My phone number has been unpublished since 1985. I have no business cards. I do zero marketing. If anything I do anti-marketing. Anybody who does have my info is under strict instructions to never give it out.
You donâ(TM)t understand what itâ(TM)s like to have the curse/ability to solve nearly any problem. There are a LOT of computer related problems out there, and if you can usually solve them, everybody wants a piece of you.
At social events everybodyâ(TM)s questions come out. I canâ(TM)t even simply be casual friends with people without the conversation eventually coming to, âoeWill you fix my computer?â And it turns out they heard about me and sought me out, feigning politeness just to get something from me.
Itâ(TM)s a curse.
Don't pre-pay for IT support. Don't buy into the myth that is the MSP (Managed Service Provider). Find an honest consultant that charges by the hour. It sounds like you're a small business, so you don't need a nation-wide support company. Looks for a small support consultant who has a personal stake in providing good, honest support.
Large IT support organisations have overheads that small companies don't. Using a small IT support organisation means you're likely dealing with the person who owns the company, or at most are one-step removed from the owner. Speak to the owner of the company, get a feel for their approach, meet with their technician and make a decision based on that. Find a company who send a technician out to you, not someone who does everything they can to work remotely.
If you're signing on with a fixed-price, all-you-can-eat MSP, what motivation do they have to providing you with good service? They're getting a fixed amount from you each month whether they do an hour or a hundred hours of service. Clearly it's in their best interest to minimise the amount of time they spend on your account. This means minimising the amount of time they spend troubleshooting and working remotely whenever they can (so their technicians can likely be working on two or three things at once).
Look at what you're doing with your computers. Are you using specialised Windows-only software, or are you using email, cloud apps and other cross-platform apps? Look into switching to Macs. The initial purchase price will be higher than entry-level PCs but your ongoing support will be drastically reduced. Don't believe me? Ask IBM.
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3131906/apple-mac/ibm-says-macs-are-even-cheaper-to-run-than-it-thought.html
https://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?htmlfid=GTC03148USEN
Word of mouth is a great way to find a new consultant. Ask around your friends and people in other workplaces. Ask what their IT support is like and when you find someone who's happy with their IT support, then get these people in to see what they can do for you.
Disclaimer: I provide professional IT support with a 2-person company. This is my approach.
If the issue is not resolved, then why is the company paying the consultant? The business should only be paying the consultant once the issue is resolved. That is how you filter out the fakes from the real gurus. The good consultants in IT charge for results, they don't send bills for things they couldn't fix.
I don't really feel like there is enough information from the 2 or 3 sentences in the submission to make a huge determination on things, but rather it leaves some questions in my mind. I've been doing IT consulting for small businesses as a side gig for 25 years. Biggest things I run into is, they all want what I have at my main gig, but don't want to pay for it. I extrapolated that this fits the issue because of the, "Windows updates causing downtime" bit.
This could be easily solved if the clients were part of a domain that has a SCCM server installed. Group policies can setup when the updates happen (as well as keep the client PC's" well guarded. Also, why isn't there swap systems in place for this kind of downtime?
There was a time this kind of setup was a ton of money, but these days you can buy into the Azure cloud and be done with it. At a minimum you get office365, domain authentication, bunch of other niceties without having to pay for hardware.
> . Don't go for the absolute cheapest solution, unless you're very comfortable with them and they have very strong references.
This in spades! The per-hour rate is negatively correlated with the total cost.
A low rate per hour means "I'm going to spend a lot of hours poking around trying to figure things out". Someone who knows their shit, who has seen this problem before and knows how to fix it correctly, can probably fix it in 15 minutes. They're going to charge for that 15 minutes. It's going to be a lot cheaper overall to have it fixed right the first time, and fixed quickly, than to have someone would "knows a lot about computers" mucking around screwing things up for three hours.
The footnote to that is that there are several service companies which contract the work to contracting companies, who then contract the work to people who can actually do the work. Those layers of companies make it expensive because you're paying middle men, not because you're getting experts. Years ago I was a "Hewlett Packard Fied Engineer". HP contracted TCML to do their field service calls. TCML then contracted people like me. They'd pay me $30/hour, TCML would charge HP $60/hour, and HP charged the customer $120/hour. Going through companies like that, you can easily pay $120/hour for a $30/hour tech.
So you want to find a tech who is good enough to fix it right ans fix it fast - and is therefore good enough to get well paid per-hour. Not to be confused with paying a company who pays another company who pays a cheap tech.
I don't claim to know it "all", but I can tell you, that I know a lot about enough, and a little about a lot.
Quality IT guys these days have loads of experience. I'm part of a team that manages 4,000 mostly Win 10 (a few Win 7, 8) and I have seen weird things on Win 10, but most (almost all) of them are stable and don't have problems updating. The rare few that do have problems updating, we simply re-image. I also realize that is not really an option for a Mom n Pop Store. On the other hand, spending $500 to repair a 5 year old computer having update problems with win 10 is also not really an option IMHO, especially when you can get a replacement for similar or slightly more. How much time / money do you spend fixing a random Win 10 update problem is up to you. But sometimes, it does take 8 hours to fix. And figuring 60/hr for quality IT support is close to that hypothetical/mythical $500 bill above.
And then after spending $500 it still might not work right. Those kind of bills are almost always able to be mitigated by proper backups (who needs those!) and understanding that data is actually more important that the Operating System. Most mom n pop outfits have to weigh the cost of having good IT vs not going broke. The problem is that is far too often a fools gamble. Don't bet against the house, it always wins.
Good IT is expensive, bad IT is costly.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Exactly. Microsoft's commercial success really only comes from having pioneered "IT For Dummies" and its continuous market position abuses.
The best solution to Windows IT issues is to replace Windows with a Linux backend with a Mac front end.
Mac? Seriously? At least with Linux, OS updates don't permanently brick your box if you happen to change something inside of it ( even if the replacement was a verified OEM part).
Mac is no better than windows. In fact windows is better than mac in a lot of ways. If you want better than windows, Linux is the only way to go.
You can have it good, you can have it fast, you can have it cheap. But you only get to pick 2
I would recommend contacting the CS department or Engineering College at the local University.
First, since it is only an 8-person company, it is something that doesn't need a full-time person, which means you won't be the consultant's only priority; and, odds are, they will have a bigger customer that will always be their higher priority.
Second, there are usually many students who help run the University/College/Department systems - including computer labs - which means they have some experience with actual networks and figuring out work-arounds. The risk here is to make sure they think like admins instead of college students, but that should come out in an interview.
Third, Universities/Departments/Faculty like to keep a good reputation with their communities, so they generally only recommend good students.
Fourth, students charge less than professionals. If you offer a student something anywhere near a "professional" hourly rate, they will bust their butts for you - since it is going to be a really sweet gig for them and they don't want to lose it.
Good luck!
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
Great post and all points she should raise with her boss who wants to keep the contract.
If nothing else, even if they do really want to keep the contract, the company is wasting an opportunity not to re-negotiate the contract based on performance they have see. Either push for a lower price or some kind of performance targets they have to hit or face penalties.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Revert back to Windows 7 and have a pleasant day.
I noticed someone replied poo-pooing certs. Every time I've talked to people who say that in order to understand their thinking, it comes down to "entry level certifications don't guarantee expert knowledge".
MTA and MCSA are explicitly entry-level certifications. They are evidence that the person has sufficient knowledge to BEGIN working with Microsoft products in whichever role they are certified in.
MCSD is evidence of "moderate* knowledge.
MCSE, Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert, is the expert certification.
Each of these levels is available for several different knowledge areas. Someone with an SQL Server MCSE may not be an expert in Azure, and vice versa.
So "I have a cert" doesn't mean much. *What level* cert do you have in which *knowledge area*? A SQL Server MCSE probably knows SQL Server pretty well. They may know nothing about Linux.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-u...
Do you have cast-iron proof of that?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
If you need an IT consultant, you can't handle Linux.
What meets her satisfaction and what is expensive?
I'm a great IT consultant and I support Windows servers and desktops, as well as Linux, FreeBSD, Cisc, VMWare, Juniper, Palo Alto... and many more.
Despite my opinion that Windows 10 / 2016 and it's current patching system are a steaming pile of elephant shit, I've seen no meaningful issue to cause a business any downtime. Perhaps a couple of workstations out of hundreds. So, It's hard for me to understand where her IT people are having issues.
I do however encounter an enormous number of wannabe clients that want the sun and the moon from IT(us), but don't feel that they should have to pay for it. Certainly not more than a handful of dollars per workstation per month. The cheapest ones are typically the most demanding and the most unlikely to ever be satisfied. Warning signs of these types of people include not wanting to turn away from a bad situation due to a supposed "warranty" on bad service.(Why is it costing more if it's under warranty?)
So, is it that she can't fnd good IT support, or is it that her company, like so many others, is unwilling to pay for good IT support? Is her company investing 3-7% of revenue on IT?
Disclaimer: I work in this area.
The first thing is to figure out what her expectations are. Do they need to be able to be back up within 15-30 minutes after a catastrophic server failure? Are they willing to pay a premium for immediate responses and a Datto backup system that can spin up the 15-minute backup as a VM locally or in the cloud? Or do they want to pay $10/month for remote monitoring, patch management, managed AV and remote support? Because if they want that, she's going to be disappointed with what she finds.
The simple answer is to network with other small businesses, find out who's happy and who they're using. If she's at a company in a specific vertical market it makes sense to talk to vendors who are focused on that market, particularly if it's one with special needs (e.g. healthcare, accounting, finance, construction, etc.).
In terms of costs it'll vary some by area but it's not going to be cheap - if you want to avoid hourly charges, you're probably looking at $75/month per workstation and 3-4 times that for each server. One number I've seen is that on the vendor side for all-inclusive plans expect to have 20-30 minutes of technician time per machine per month, and figure if you have skilled techs they're making a minimum of $25/hour (or they're going elsewhere in today's market). With benefits, overhead, etc. figure there's $20-30/month of technician per workstation, plus another $5-15 of software licensing for RMM, AV, backup, another $1-5 for ticketing and documentation software, plus business expenses divided across the number of systems managed, and finally some level of profit margin. You can get all of that cheaper, but if it's too much cheaper then corners are getting cut somewhere. $30-40/month is not an unreasonable amount for just the monitoring, patch management, AV and remote support, but at that level expect to pay hourly for any time onsite - and backup's probably billed separately.
If they're paying $15-20/month they should be expecting to get charged for every call or visit because that's barely going to cover the cost of licensing plus basic business expenses, and likely corners are being cut in some areas.
Finally, do they have perpetual license versions of Office or are they on Office365? If it's O365 are they getting it through the IT vendor? If so that vendor's probably paying $12-15/month or more for each license depending on exactly what they have, or if they're paying it separately the vendor's maybe getting as much as 6-8% on Microsoft's CSP program - not exactly a way to get rich or cover the cost of any support being provided.
fencepost
just a little off
You're asking for your wife, who's part of an 8 person company, how to find technical talent she can't hire herself?
My brother's third cousin's twice removed gynecologist might be interested.
I love living in fantasy as much as the next nerd, but there are better uses of my "what if" time.
They can't be fixed by any consultant, but some of the impact can be mitigated. First, Windows in a business environment should be on the "Semi-Annual Channel" not "Semi-Annual Channel (Targeted)." The Targeted one is the default, and is also the faster deployment level.
A good RMM with patch management can also be used to exercise some control over patch approvals at least on business versions of Windows (you are using Pro or Enterprise, right? Not a bunch of Windows Home systems?) and can be used to push updates on a set schedule.
fencepost
just a little off
Do you have cast-iron proof of that?
I do not, perhaps we can arrange a taste test or a bake off? Sorry for the typo (but not the pun.)
Is this really a huge unknown mystery - solvable only by the Slashdot wizards?
Meh.
It's like finding ANY OTHER SPECIALTY (plumbers, doctors, lawyers, electricians, landscapers, etc). Ask your friends, relatives and business associates (people you trust) to tell you who they are using.
Wow, that was so totally not hard wasn't it?
Then, once you find a good solution provider - DON'T FUCKING NICKEL AND DIME THEM TO DEATH. To be good and to stay in business they have to make money - if you fuck them over on every invoice, kiss your "good" provider goodbye.
I'm an independent IT provider and I can't tell you how to find me. You have to know someone I currently work for, and be refereed over. The key is someone that fits personality wise with your company. Have you made you issues clear and with the right people? Have you made your frustrations known or is there just a lack of communication?
Let's flip this the other direction, and see it from the IT perspective? What's your monthly IT spend like? Are you paying for services or work and not receiving it? Is there a list of IT projects or tasks that are waiting on money? As an IT provider, my focus is on my customers, but the next thing on my mind is making sure my monthly bills are covered. Bill rates reflect a lot of things, everything from market size, and cost of living, down to if I have a day job and you're second fiddle for that 11am meltdown. Paying for a MSP styled package should give you a static costing for IT, which beats the snot out of an unexpected bill for a $1,000 because a system took a crap.
There are tools out there that an IT vendor or MSP can use to make life easier - things like a RMM package, but those come with a per-pc cost every month. RMM tools can make things like controling Windows 10 updates from happening, or at least not happening before you want. It also helps cut down on trip charges & response times if I can quickly see what you're dealing with and resolve it.
As to finding another IT vendor, chat with other business owners and see who they use. A referral generally is going be be better than opening the yellow pages or Google. Know that when you switch vendors there is going to be a large expense - you're paying the old firm to transition over knowledge and documentation to the new firm, plus the new firm will want to resolve any immediate issues in their eyes. There is many different ways to do the same thing in technology, and determining right and wrong is really a matter of opinion - which we all have.
Do not make business decisions based on a 3 year warranty - it generally only covers the hardware and returning the system back to square one. Make sure you have a solid backup plan, and remember that unless you're an emergency room, no one is going to die.
First, you need to do a budget benchmark for your organization and know what you should be spending. If you're spending less, what are missing? If you are spending more, what are you getting that gives you a competitive edge? You also need to really undersatnd how technology works for your company. If your management does not know this, expect the technology consultant, or internal staff, to engage in revenue capture. Expect to get locked in to people you may not like, and expect them to leave and come back as consultants you have no choice but to pay $150-250 an hour for hundreds of hours to get the "tribal knowledge" transferred.
Second, If your concept of an "IT Guy" is helpdesk, and you have no concept of the difference between a software developer, systems administrator, or IT management, then you are never going to get competent people, becuase they cannot interface with you in any meaningful way except to take over. See #1 to know how that goes. If you are ignorant, you will never get competent people to work for you.
Third, if it makes good sense for your enterprise to "go digital" and customize systems around business processes that don't change much, understand you will need to be hiring great, honest IT staff, offering incentives for them to make an investment of their time long-term, paying them above market wages, treat them like engineers ought to be treated, give them an almost skunkworks budget depending on the problem being solved and ensure you have someone that understands the cost\risk of the R&D efforts they do, and expect that your comprehension of your business is going to change while they are there. You will also need to say please and thank you to things you have no comprehension of, be appreciative, and stop threatened middle-managers and employee's from side-lining them because to them, firing all the geeks shifts responsability and enables them to make bank; by the way, often that setiment creates a total catastrophe that puts them out of a job. You will be keeping people in house for decades, and you will be hiring apprentices to take the place of established staff. If you don't understand the reasons why the above must be done, don't "go digital". If that's a necessity of your business to survive, then either get out now, or start studying how to manage systems engineers.
But you need an actual consultant, that can provide business level consultation, not just break/fix windows, because its always broken and can't be fixed.
The only complaint called out by OP is windows update on Win10Pro, and its probably not the consultants vault, or within their skillset to do anything about. I'd argue Win10 Pro is really Win10 Pro(sumer), and probably shouldn't be used by anyone not content to accept all the defaults and by happy there aren't even more outages than you already get. If you want to get it under control at all, you need some dedicated IT resource that can move the environment over to the enterprise sku and responsibly group-policy the endpoints to get things under control. Even that won't save you from Microsofts lack of testing, updates that delete all your files, and other nonsense that just comes with the windows logo.
Nothing beats Mac desktop or laptop. You still get all the Microsoft software without their shitty OS.
In summary, switch to Linux servers and Mac desktop /laptop . And never hear of replacing hardware for the next ten years.
Windows is good for a very large corporate IT shop, able to run AD, SharePoint and all that crap, and al just to make 100-200 IT people busy. A small business can do G-suite on Mac just as well without all the costs.
I am confused by these comments. Whoever does the crazy ones needs to increase their meds.
There are, or seem to be, a variety of problems here. The office mgr isn't the decision maker when it comes to something critical for office management success. That's one. The owner either isn't listening to his office mgr, or has listened and concluded that the cost and risk of changing is too high. This may be exacerbated by the free labor the office mgr has donated. What is the cost to the owner if she spends nights and weekends on something outside her scope? Zero. That's two. The other employees, all 8 of them, have either don't care or don't see the problem. That's three. I mean, why haven't they been complaining to the owner if his decision is adversely impacting their productivity. Finally, if she is unaware that she's already blown it, then she should consider upping her game. (or finding a different career). She has a known problem and has talked to the owner prematurely. Why prematurely? Because only the weak and/or clueless come in to the boss with a problem and without a proposed solution. She seems to have done just that - otherwise she would have been asking this question months ago and before seriously addressing it with the boss. Its management 101 that you don't bring up problems without some sort of (hopefully acceptable to all stake-holders) path forward. So, her problem is credibility. Perhaps a short written survey (or Survey Monkey) canvassing the employees on their satisfaction with the software is one step forward. (I don't know what "to her satisfaction" means). If the grunts in the trenches are ok with it, and the boss is ok with status quo, she's tilting at windmills. Or to put it more usefully, perhaps she needs to start interviewing IT consulting firms to find out whether they have any better proposals. I mean, they do it for a living. She should probably also stop with the DIY fixes. Firstly, ever heard of too many cooks? Secondly, she risks being blamed (or perhaps already is blamed) for things going wrong. At the very least, she needs to be on the same page as the IT. Has she had the tough/blunt talk she should have had with them when she first realized she wasn't being satisfied? If not, WHY not? That's exactly what she's being paid to do, I'd guess.
either we're treated like garbage,
given no bonuses or raise increases to keep up with cost of living,
or we're "laid off"
while all the lazy stupid ones that do nothing, get all the bonuses, promotions, etc.
companies do it to themselves.
Find one that recommends you move away from Windows 10. Then you have found one that actually wants to solve your problems instead of seeing you as a perpetual cash cow.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This is pretty much the same as any service/contractor.
Surely you've tried to hire someone for a home renovation or tried to find a good mechanic.
It's mainly by reputation.
Any service can screw you over. Either unintentionally in that they can't diagnose the problem correct. Every had a mystery car problem? They literally just try telling you to swap out parts until it is fixed.
Now try telling any service person to 'fix' or 'workon' a botched job that someone else setup. That's even worse. That's the vast majority of IT though.
So find someone good based on reputation in the domain they know. Beyond that, it's the same as anything else.
You ask for customer references. To be fair, this is the same process used to find good construction companies, architects, handymen, whatever. If customers experience a shit service, they will tell you. If the business can't provide actual industry contacts, they disqualify themselves. The great thing is, experience is subjective and can't be considered slander
Look for a local managed services provider. Where are you located? I'm part of an international IT organization. I can probably direct you to someone reputable.
The customer gets a fixed budget every month for IT, so no surprises. The IT service provider has extra incentive to make sure there's no drama by being proactive with maintenance, and they get a predictable cash flow. If there's more work than usual in a given month, the service provider eats the extra cost, but on other months when there's less work, they make up for it. Because the service provider's main goal is to be proactive, they generally invest in tools to help support that goal that the break/fix shop does not. Some of those tools even allow them to fix common problems behind the scenes without ever having to interrupt staff, ultimately reducing wasted staffing costs that were incurred with a break/fix scenario.
Depending on how skilled the managed service provider is and how long they've been in business, they will often know about problems before the client's staff knows there's a problem. So, the problem could be fixed before anyone's even aware there was a problem.
If you're serious about finding a competent IT provider, do a search online or through the yellow pages for business computer services and ask them if they provide managed services or all you can eat plans.
Another way you find them is to talk to different management platforms and ask them for a referral to an IT company in your area. Some of the different management platforms are: Autotask/Datto , Connectwise , Continuum , Kaseya
I worked for several small businesses in college. It was good for me and them. I got experience and extra cash for college. They got a working network.
You may find that some people aren't good but you can also fire them easily.
Linux under the hood can be quite effective though. At 8-15 people, a Synology or QNAP NAS makes for a great server. You can automate backups with a simple GUI as well.
But, when your issues are desktop support, you need a different approach. 8 People should be around $500 per month on a managed services contract. Getting a better level of service would require you to spend about 2-5x that, with results largely proportional to the spend.
Most managed services shops I have interviewed outsource desktop support, so you can see where the value comes in.
My suggestion to the OP would be to hire someone who is IT savvy, and dump some of the education responsibilities on them.
There's your problem right there, you know.
Not universally. As a business owner, the absolute worst use of my time is desktop support, even if I can do the job and even shame people into self-support.
I also struggle to find a consultant that won't screw up, leaving us without any servers for most of a day after a botched Windows update that they failed to realize deleted all of our VMs' virtual network adapters.
Similar to your suggestion, I hired a college student at $15/hour to run interference on the desktop side while I try to teach him a few things and let him learn on his own. It cuts my time to 1-2 hours per week from 6-8. For me, that is a positive return on investment. Unfortunately, for most it wouldn't be.
...and by guarantee, I mean your satisfaction, you don't pay until after you're happy, every time.
I've been working this way for 25 years.
I come with references, both male and female, micro, small, and medium businesses.
I'm in the Greater Toronto Area.
I have no problem keeping windows 10's update system out of someone's way. It's not difficult. Been dodging it since Vista. Maybe it takes 25 years of experience to learn how to configure windows update. It isn't a challenge.
10 years? You might get 3 or 4 years out of an Apple computer before they compel you to upgrade.
It's not the OS, knee jerk recommending Linux ignores if there is even software addressing the business needs of the company. It's beyond a basic spreadsheet, email, document editor, etc workload.
From personal and professional experience with Windows:
- 1. Uninstall apps/applications you do not use,
- 2. Create an account for regular users
- 3. Do not let regular users login into the admin user account
- 4. Uninstall third party browser plugins, MS office add-ins, etc.
- 5. Don't install very outdated software on the machine, a big problem for small businesses as they don't have the time/money to get new versions from a different software vendor
- 6. Update the device drivers on the system
- 7. Turn off most everything in the startup folder or autostart parts of Windows 10
- 8. Turn off the network/communication parts you don't need (e.g., bluetooth, wireless network on a wired setup, etc)
- 9. Manually run windows update once a month.
and most importantly, correctly shutdown the machine once in a while, don't just close the laptop lid.
A usual culprit is not shutting down the machine, outdated device drivers, well outdated software (i.e., Windows XP/7 era on Windows 10), obsolete hardware (i.e., a scanner from 2010).....
the problem isn't the consultant (probably*).. it's windows 10
*if the consultant was any good, they would have said as much. don't 'fire' your consultant yet.. but talk to them and tell them your concerns. see how they answer.
things you can do, or ask for:
schedule 'active' hours to include the whole fucking work day and then some. windows 10 supposedly will not install updates or request a reboot after them during these hours.
use intra-lan p2p for update delivery. this reduces the load on your actual office internet connection. if you have dsl, even just a single windows 10 system downloading big updates can fuck up internet access for all systems on the same network.
limit bandwith usage for update downloads to 33% max (for same reason as above)
*always* defer the big updates (the semi-annual bugfest) so you can install when you want, not whenever the hell microsoft feels like fucking up your systems. backup one system first and test, before rolling out to others.
and most importantly, BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP: file history to one drive (per system), manual folder copies and full hdd images to another, and encrypted sync folders online. THREE BACKUPS, two different methods, one of which is off-site.. aka the '3-2-1' rule.
We have 150 servers, some are Linux. Some are BSD. Some are Windows.
4000 Desktop/Laptops.
We have automated so much, we do it all with a staff of 12 in the IT department. It is all about being able to manage systems effectively, efficiently.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I am biased, but the consultants I have found focus on desktop support as the primary value-add and then do some hand waving about programming, custom solutions, and process optimization. Very few will support even the most basic Linux system, and mention Asterisk and they decide to cut and run.
Likewise, referrals are generally useless, because most companies don't actually know what they are getting-- the best case scenario is they feel like IT is a "3" on the pain scale, so the consultant must be pretty good.
I have learned however to stay away from consultants whose primary clients are accountants, doctors and lawyers.
The solution is easy:
Have two completely independant consultants. Once for establishing what needs to be done, plan that and write down the plan.
Another to execute. Have clearly defined milestones and performance indicators to measure if progress was made.
Anyone who want's to really solve a problem does it this way.
Another thing small business owners need to get into their thick scull: Technology is strategy. A decision for a certain type of IT (let's say MS Windows and stuff) is *always* a strategic decision. Don't do it with the right amount of thought, planning and foresight and you'll pay the price later (sic!).
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Look for a company that has a majority of employees which have been there 5+ years. Ask them about the their job and what the company does for them. Happy Employees that stick around do so for a reason and are most willing to go the extra mile but still arn't over worked to the point of not caring.
How many things can you keep track of? You are a professional in how many fields? Do you know tax law? Do you know contract law Do you know labor law? In most corporations they outsource the labor for professional services. An IT consultant is not a windows technician. Unfortunately most business don't want a solution they want to buy Microsoft even when it doesn't suit their needs.
Yup. All the talented people have long since been starved out of IT.
Just hire a team of 50 offshore IT guys who each work for $2/hr. Together they should be *almost* as effective as the American IT consultant you refused to pay $100/hr
If you tell me you want linux, I'm skeptical that I want you as a client; because you'll probably want to choose your distro, and managing all the distros is a PITA. I'd much rather a client who talks about their use case, their business needs, and how much they want to pay.
Renew the contract ;)
They said good, you said senior.
They said good, you said expert pay.
NT is only a few old DLLs at this point.
But I do agree with one thing; you pay for a Windows consultant, you get a Windows consultant.
I wouldn't touch it; my code is either non-platform-locked, or an embedded system that isn't windoze.
Don't hire a consultant to do desktop support, hire a professional services company that already staffs a quality support line.
Consultants should not be doing things other than writing code, configuring and architecting networks and systems, etc. One-time or up-front work that is expected to be maintained by different workers.
Hiring a consultant for desktop support is absurd. The sort of help you can get that way is similar but lower quality than just hiring a college student as a floating assistant. And the college student costs less.
I have a bunch of friends who need IT services who want to find a good consultant. I also run a small MSP IT company. The classic nonsense of business owners wanting to pay nothing, and keeping a crap IT consultant around. It's obvious when you walk into a business where your lowest level MSP support level they ask for half that, and I tell them to kick rocks. They do let me know when their stuff explodes since I'm happy to charge $150 an hour, $250 emergency hourly which suddenly they are happy to have a steady monthly bill.
Yeah, I was just thinking this too...especially the FUBAR "major OS changes every quarter" of Win10. However, I can give this advise, for free:
-Implement a WSUS server, force all systems to go to it ONLY via GPO
-Have someone on-staff to do patch management, with scheduled times for releasing patches from WSUS
-Stay at least one "Feature Update" behind the most recent Win10 release. See the most recent 1809 screw-up.
Windows 10 "software as a service" means you can't just install it and let it sit there. Patches come out at LEAST once a week, major updates at least every quarter. We spend several hours a week just patching servers, and I always find "secondary servers" (like our MDT / WDS box, our HPDM server, etc) that didn't get patched and rebooted. And you can't just slap on patches, many also require registry changes too to enforce them.
She needs to not have a "single consultant" that just does breakfix. I would suggest a local consulting company, one that has a help desk with remote capabilities, ticketing system, and higher-level staff that can do more complex items like firewalls, vlans, GPOs, iSCSI storage, off-site backups, etc.
Standardizing on "business class hardware" would also be useful; pick a company for desktops like HP (HP ProDesk series), Dell (Optiplex), Lenovo (ThinkCentre) and ONLY buy those so your not trying to support multiple vendors, hunting for drivers, no warranty, etc. Don't screw around with stuff like eMachines, bespoke desktops, etc. The initial savings are just not worth the support cost when every desktop has different internal hardware.
Finally, make sure whomever does all of this that they document everything. A small business should demand an itemized bill, and demand that their consultant document every role they do on the servers, IP addresses, software rolled out, serial numbers, vendor support contacts, etc. SO MANY small businesses have faced the nightmare of realizing they have a bunch of software they don't know who to call for support once their "consultant" disappears / goes out of business, or their "consultant" had been installing pirated software, or has done some non-standard configs that no one knew about until it was far too late.
The only "code" desktop / server support should be touching in Windows is PowerShell, maybe some VBScript for very specific tasks.
If you "need" to first put a fuck-ton of work into the "turn-key" default install, then that "turn-key" install isn't.
I agree the answer isn't automatically "linux". For IBM --o irony-- it is "apple macintosh". But the observation that microsoft[tm][r] windows[r][tm] isn't cutting the mustard, is quite correct.
The sad fact is that a lot of IT consulting is essentially what a colleague of mine calls "competency simulation". Some people are really good at it and that makes it hard to spot the real deal from those only pretending.
The solution is called a tender offer. It is why large companies make these tenders. So they can weed out, and question and check. I'm working on a large tender offer right now, and it includes a proof-of-concept phase specifically for this purpose.
You need to have your consultants demonstrate actual ability, in an observed environment. No other way. Everyone can come with a convincing presentation and flashy flyers. Most larger consulting companies have backoffices where they can offload work and you'll never figure out that the guy you pay for didn't actually do it, or didn't actually know it and the backoffice did research work to figure it out.
If you need it quick, your best bet is to find someone who is really, really good in the field but doesn't work as a consultant, or is too expensive for you. Hire him for just one hour and let him roast the guy you want to check. In my field (information security), I can figure out reasonably fast if someone actually knows something or is a typical consultant with surface knowledge. You just talk until he says something he seems sure about and then you drill down. Three or so deep-knowledge questions is usually enough.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I'm mostly a Windows person, but I LOVE Asterisk. Especially when you can get some cheap used Cisco phones, reflash them, and have all the features of an expensive PBX for less than $100. But I also know how to work with Linux, am the SME for our HP thinclients (they all run Linux, and I've had to dig into xTerminal a few times on them), and back in the day did PHP stuff; now I just use various TurnKey distros for most of my lab stuff on a VM.
If they recommend Windows 10 find someone different.
You publicly announced that you're blaming the consultant for all the problems caused by the Windows 10 updates. Google some IT sites and you'll notice it's not only you, but the whole world, and the problem is at the source, i.e. Microsoft.
Do you think anyone remotely competent will still want this position?
Isn't it wonderful how MS's quality problems get blamed on the consultant? Whoever posted this ask slashdot should get a big fat bribe from them. If they haven't already got it.
I apologize for the lack of a signature.
Seriously get someone in-house... if you are too small to get one of your own, get together with another small business and get someone and share the expense.
Consultant doing 1st level will never get thing the way you want.
They are paid by incident.... they dont have the motivation to fix thing
They have a motivation to get things not too bad because if they fix it right they wont have a job anymore...
Also they probably hate having to fix your things... it's not fun work. I did it in the past.
Get a young green fresh from college or high school person, they will be highly motivated and will have a strong sence of "ownership" they will love doing it and will be very loyal.
Once he gets burned out of doing 1st level, let him get something in a bigger place where he will be level 2 or 3 and find someone new.
Thats my idea on your problem.
First of all, as a major supporter of Windows 10 (because it's the best version to date hands down), no company should be using 10 widespread. Maybe a couple machines but otherwise, Windows 7 Enterprise. No reason to be using 10.
Second, you can't have "one" IT consultant for a company. Period. Any company unless it's 5 people.
To that point, a third party external IT consultant is a waste of time and money. Hire staff whose job it is to be familiar with and maintain these systems so these issues don't occur.
I worked for a small IT provider for 6yrs and quit once I found a better job opportunity but I quit because I had to continuously rail against the lack of ethics and substandard work of most of my coworkers. Not all but most. Some of my coworkers had experience with solutions other than Windows and Microsoft Office and those coworkers happened to also be the ones who wrote quality documentation and didn't jerk customers around. So my first question to an IT professional is "When do you recommend Linux?" If they don't know what Linux is, have never used it, or simply won't recommend it (even for web hosting) then they are not qualified for the job.
10 years? You might get 3 or 4 years out of an Apple computer before they compel you to upgrade.
I'm still running my late 2014 Mac Mini at the office...in fact, most of the 300+ team is on that era of Mac Mini (and all on Mac Minis).
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
I completely agree. Unfortunately most “consultants” now are in the managed services racket, and their primary value-add is desktop support. We pay something like $50/workstation plus $100/server per month to a consultant. In theory, this includes 10 hours a month towards “projects,” but they have made effectively zero progress.
Why don’t I just fire them and get someone else? I have been interviewing alternatives for the better part of a year, but nobody that is actually convincingly better has come up. I don’t have the time or patience to manage Windows servers that the last consultant dumped on us, so I pay the “protection money” and try to ensure people get the results they need.
Love asterisk too. Our amortized cost per line, including enough trunks to host conference calls is $10/user/month. Similar hosted service for some reason is $20/month, despite huge benefits of scale.
It was a learning curve to be sure, especially since we use manual config files, but when we upgrade it will just go to the freepbx GUI and database. Makes it child’s play...
IT "consultants" are the used car salesman of the tech world. Hire college students and someone knowledgeable to manage them.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
And don't give me that crap about "You get what you pay for." That is absolutely untrue in IT.
THAT is absolutely untrue. You might not be skilled or experienced enough to command a premium, and may not be able to discern others that are, but many of us have built a lifetime of quality work and commitment to education that makes us far more valuable than your average Google-searching server-rebooting monkey IT consultant. Yes, as with almost everything, you do get what you pay for.
Invest in yourself and never apologize for being worth.
seriously, fuck back off to 2001. you are trolling at this point.
I've no version 3.0++, I'd never post on hosts offtopic + gweihir KNEW u IMPERSONATE me https://it.slashdot.org/commen... c6gunner proves it https://linux.slashdot.org/com... & forgot to SUBMIT AC & used his registered 'lusrname' (he tried to mock me both BEFORE & after I FAIRLY challenged him to show he's done better work - he had ZERO).
I'd never "cry victim" to ne'er-do-wells (TROLLS, not all /.ers) either.
U EVEN HELPED ME https://science.slashdot.org/c... (& then realizing it you quit trying to make me look bad via what you thought were lies on hosts as "ME" IN YOUR IMPERSONATIONS of me e.g. https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... on speculative execution attack: Hosts PREVENT 'EM, joke's on you)
APK
P.S.=> 2nd to last link's KILLING U THAT U HELPED ME & got me to see if hosts stop portsmash/meltdown/spectre & yes - hosts WORK on 'em - U LOSE + FAIL a PORTFILTER TEST https://yro.slashdot.org/comme...
An IT consultant is just going to plug holes in the dam.
Stories like Access databases doing the job that should be on a SQL server or shared drive mapped on a PC that should be on a NAS.
Or even processes like change control or speccing PCs for easier admin.
Typical small business answers: I can't afford it. Its good enough (when it isn't).
Show me small business with a well funded and managed IT shop and I will show you a well run IT shop.
Says someone who has clearly never achieved any significant certification.
Try memorizing your way through a CCIE. I'd love to see someone try the 8-hour CCIE lab based on memorization.
Let's say you got a CISSP by a) memorizing and b) deeply understanding roles. You still have 40 hours of CE to do every year to keep the cert.
1. make a list of all the people you know as "good" people.
2. ask each of them if they are an IT consultant.
Honestly, someone thought they'd get ask slashdot and get a recipe how to hire a good employee? Ha! yeah right.
OP here. Lots of comments have blamed Microsoft or the business owner, which never solves problems. Some good comments:
Use the dissatisfaction to renegotiate the contract and make it clear what services are included.
Document everything, and use that as leverage for negotiation.
Ask similar businesses who they use, as the best consultants are found by word of mouth. -- best answer.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
There a lot of knee-jerk responses here about what the problem is, but not a lot about how to find a good consultant
Having worked for myself providing IT services for small businesses in my area, I found that the best way to connect with new customers is word of mouth. I found the majority of my best customers that way.
You come in contact with local businesses that need IT support all the time. Just ask a manager of every not-franchise that you're in who they use for IT support, and if they like them. Get a name and number.
Consider attending local networking events for small businesses. You'll probably quickly meet a new IT provider face-to-face who is hungry for business. Also, other small business owners in your area who hire their own IT consultants. And hey, if you happen to live in the Boise, Idaho area, hit me up here. :-D
Regarding the fix: Updates can be scheduled easily using group policy. Spool up a WSUS server. Manage your updates with policy. This may or may not be more expensive than your wife's company wants (depending particularly if they have a domain and server in place), but it's less intrusive than asking the customer to change OS, and will definitely give her the results she wants.
Regarding warranties - Warranty for work already completed should be honored, if it's a true warranty. Examine the terms. But that doesn't keep you from changing consultants. At the very least, get a second opinion.
Good luck.
While what you say is true, it doesn't hold well at the lower end of the scale. In a SMB environment, both good and bad IT are costly. It doesn't matter how you do it if you don't have a budget for it in the first place.
I dont really blame MS for it, they cant do anything at that scale anyway.
Think of it like this, a 1% failure at your company may go unnoticed with 4000 PC's but if you have 8 a 1% failure will obviously be at the top of the list. SMB IT is non-existent.
they don't resolve issues to her satisfaction
As soon as I saw that, my warning klaxxon went off. The last time I had to deal with someone like they, it turned out that they were hopelessly unskilled with computers, and they blamed literally everything on the tech person rather than their own ineptitude.
Someone who really knows what they're doing with Windows is going to be expensive. And even if they are that good, they can't work miracles, especially when it comes to Microsoft's shit-tastic abomination Windows 10. You can do everything right, and STILL get screwed because Microsoft botched yet another update.
From the few details gleaned from the summary, I don't think there is an "IT Consultant" on the planet that would be satisfactory. Also... small tip? If the costs for the existing consultant are noticeably going up as times goes on, that's a strong indicator that said consultant is fed up with you and wants more money just for putting up with you. They don't want to outright deny your business cause that looks bad on them, but raising their rates sharply means they are hoping you'll move on to someone else.
Stop demanding that fry cooks prove that they're demonstrably blah-blah and just hire a few and see who can dip the fries into the oil for the correct amount of time, and who wanders off to look at their phone.
In a lot of businesses, whatever VBScript they have is their most important tools. The code probably sucks, but it doesn't matter because it isn't customer-facing.
You get what you pay for has been untrue for most things forever. Your usually going to get crap when you pay crap, especially if your in an area outside your comfort zone.
However, paying top dollar rarely ensures you get the best. Your just as likely to get the worst resold to you and pad out the pockets of a middle-man.
Best advice is find someone you trust and pay them enough to stick around.
Cheap storage VM.
For an 8 person company? They need to move towards a platform agnostic approach. Buy a spare system and keep the data separate from the OS so people have a system to use when theirs is down.
Every system should have an image that can be rolled back, Veam has an excellent free windows client that will image to a cifs share while the PC is running.
The only good advice for a small shop is to put the time and money into standardizing your installation so you can rebuild a problem machine quickly. Backup, rebuild, restore.
Cheap storage VM.
Here's the weirdest and worst thing I've ever seen Win10 do: If you upload a file to a website from a network drive location in Edge - edge then prevents itself and windows explorer (the file manager in a separate window of its own) from seeing any changes to the network drive files until all instances of Edge are closed (might have taken a reboot to clear this too).
It really does not get any worse than that. The damn thing was showing files that were no longer there. That's pretty broken for an operating system. Without a working filesystem you have nothing. (I never reported it to MS, I stopped being a free software QA for them back in 95 as soon as I figured that out.)
Given this, my trust of Win10 currently is practically zero. Unfortunately clients have windows only applications and they need a supported and maintained operating system and tend to buy new hardware that Win7 and Win8 drivers are just not available for. I always advise everyone to seek out non-windows software, but no one ever does, or can.
True dat. The original question is: "How do you find a good (Windows) IT consultant", which is a subset of "good Windows IT", which is, of course, the null set.
Which, while a popular opinion on Slashdot, is incorrect. There are plenty of senior Windows professionals. The problem is that not many companies are will to pay for expert advice. They want cheap service and they get what they pay for.
To find the best, find a company that has senior Windows professionals who are Windows NT experts. Why? Because the underlying Windows system hasn't changed much since Windows NT days. Windows has the same strengths and weaknesses that it had back then and they are well understood by the NT guys. The newer Windows guys are brought up with the philosophy that it's easier to re-image, but the worker loses a ton of downtime re-configuring all of their apps. The Windows NT guys were brought up with the philosophy of fixing the OS in place.
Windows "NT guy" here. Windows Update. System Restore. Apps. An infinite array of security policy options. The bloody UI that still gets even seasoned professionals lost. I can think of another dozen things that are vastly different with Windows 10 vs. Windows NT. About the only damn thing that remained was NTFS.
NTFS, drivers, DLLs, registry, networking, policies, Active Directory, GPOs, etc. It's all the same only upgraded over time.
And yes, Windows NT had Computer and Security policies, there just weren't as many as there are now and they screwed around with the UI to hide things, but the control panels are all still there, just buried.
The point is that all of the underlying stuff that causes user issues are pretty much the same such as bad disks, drivers, RAM, incorrect or corrupted DLLs, network settings, registry settings, etc. How to troubleshoot a debug screen hasn't changed in decades now.... but most have no idea how to do it...
A fry cook is $15/hour and you can see how effective they are in a day. Unfortunately, an IT consultant is about an order of magnitude more than that, and it takes two months for them to ramp up on day to day operations. You also get the bait-and-switch factor where someone solves a problem, and does a great job... but then disappears after a couple months.
My favorite consultant was the one who saddled us with two grossly underpowered servers with slow drives with no functioning backup system in place. We made them install backup... and it crashes the server. Sure, we fired them, but the impacts lasted three years as the next yutz tries to figure out what is wrong.
I pity the poor fools who have a fire to put out when they hire someone...
For one thing, people who want that kind of IT support actually hire them as employees. Due to the drastic need for technical skillsets, it's an employee market currently. This woman also does not seem to understand the issue well enough to be hiring for it. Sounds like she undervalues the work, so I will let her continue her life lesson.
States the person who does not even know the difference between "your" and "you're"...
This. Good advice.
You get what you pay for. Are you working with a vendor large enough to have folks staying up to speed on Windows, Linux, Asterisk running on Linux, probably Postfix, MailScanner, etc. if you're going that route, maybe even Apache and related packages to bring it all in-house? If so, expect to pay for that large vendor service. If you're working with a small local 1-3 person outfit then you're expecting a pretty broad experience base for them and you'd best expect those folks to be paid reasonably.
As for Asterisk, I'd absolutely go with FreePBX. Elastix was nice back when it was around, but that's now the past. Are you doing SIP trunking out to a commercial service? Getting SIP service from your ISP? Analog ports over to phone service provided by Comcast?
One reason consultants you've seen stay away from in-house homebuilt VOIP systems may be that there's plenty of potential headache and relatively little revenue upside to them, and VOIP phones "age" a lot more like PCs than like traditional dumb phones tied to an office phone system.
fencepost
just a little off
Never outsource IT, hire an employee to handle your IT systems. Don't look for college degrees or 25 years of Java experience. Look for someone that builds their own PC's, has no loyalty to any platform, and understands how to use a command line. The more personal experience they have with computers, the more capable they will be at resolving any issue that arrives. The only previous employment experience to care about is Customer Service. You are going to want someone that cares about how issues affect you, and can talk to you in plain English. Wrangling control of Windows Updates is going to mean Enterprise licenses and at least one server.
The reason to have someone working for you exclusively is so they learn the nuances of the people using the systems and how they are breaking them. The computers are innocent dumb boxes, it's the idiots abusing them causing the problems.
Also, Google "patch Tuesday" it's a thing and still drives release dates for Windows updates.
...hate their job and their customers; which is why most of them are terrible.
Finding a good IT consultant is like finding a good software dev: look for the people that do it in their spare time, for fun, and who can't stop themselves from doing it - then offer them an over-market salary: Voila! Good IT consultant
"Windows 10 is completely broken and useless"
Why do you think every fortune 1000 company uses this "completely broken and useless" OS? Are they not as smart as you?
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
But if the original poster is still following it?
I used to work in this capacity, as have several of my good friends. I've also been on the other side of it -- in charge of calling in outside consultants when it was deemed necessary, and managing their time and our budget for paying them for the work they did.
The first thing you have to understand with Windows 10 is, it's a "moving target". Maybe in another year or two, it will be less so? But as it stands currently, it's Microsoft's grand experiment in offering people a modern operating system that pretty much requires a constant high-speed Internet connection and is subject to minor or major changes at any time. There are still some things in Windows 10 that are so inconsistent and confusing, I'd be surprised if they don't receive a major change in a future update -- like the "vintage" Control Panel co-existing with the new "Settings" menu, accessed by clicking the gear icon.
Even if you're the type Microsoft hopes you are, who will just "go with the flow" as they re-think parts of the OS? The challenge of all of this is that their updates are large and often slow to install. So it feels like you can barely keep up with all of it sometimes, and your PC seems like it's forever downloading and applying one thing or another.
Someone with knowledge of how everything works can take some steps to force your Windows systems on your network NOT to do the upgrades as they're released. But frankly, that just delays the inevitable. At some point, something you need will either just plain not be there in your version of Win 10, or will refuse to work properly with it anymore. And then you may have multiple, huge updates to go through to get it current.
Where I work in I.T. today, we practically force all of the users to do all the updates as they're released. (Systems are set to automatically download them in the background and to apply them at 1AM each day one is pending.) If your computers are part of a Windows Domain, you can control this centrally from your server with group policies.
If your consultants can't or won't get something like this set up for you? You need to find new people. The idea of a "warranty" on their work is just marketing B.S. In computers and I.T., the only constant is change. So I guess they think you'll like the idea that for 3 years, they'll redo something specific they did if updates and changes break it? But .... in practice, it rarely works like that. When things break, it's usually because YOU decided to switch something around voluntarily. Perhaps your old scanner broke and you bought a new one that was on sale at the office supply store? Well, maybe it turns out the driver for the new one no longer plays nicely with your financial software that was originally set up to let you scan in checks or invoices? Nobody will fix the NEW scanner back up for you at no charge, as "warranty" work, since you changed the hardware around.