Home / Units / U1
Unit U1 · Always on

Sustain

Somebody has to answer when email stops arriving at 8am on a Monday. Somebody has to know whether last night’s backup actually ran. That is this unit: the one that lets the rest of your organization ignore infrastructure entirely.

Technician at a two-monitor workstation reviewing a monitoring dashboard
Night shift · monitoring dashboard and incident queue

When you need it

Three signs you already need this.

“Who do we call?”

When something breaks, the answer depends on who happens to be in the office. There is no number, there is a favor.

“Backups are running, I think.”

There is an external drive plugged in somewhere and nobody has ever restored a file from it. That is not a backup, it is a hope.

“She still has her mailbox.”

Someone left months ago and their account is still active, still in the shared drive, still on the license bill.

What it covers

Four fronts, one monthly agreement.

Endpoints

Help desk

The contact point for your people. Remote first, on site when hands are required.

  • Remote support with assisted access
  • Scheduled on-site visits
  • Onboarding and offboarding by checklist
  • Managed antivirus and disk encryption
  • Live inventory of devices and warranties

Identity and email

Microsoft 365 · Entra ID

Who gets in, from where, with what permissions. Where nearly every real security incident begins.

  • Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace administration
  • Entra ID and Active Directory group policy
  • Mandatory multi-factor and conditional access
  • Mailbox migration without downtime
  • Mail filtering and impersonation defense

Cloud

Azure · spend

Running the cloud includes not leaving things on that nobody uses. The invoice is part of the service.

  • Azure subscription administration
  • Virtual servers and their backups
  • Monthly spend review and right-sizing
  • Licensing audited, no duplicates

Backup and continuity

Veeam · tested

A backup nobody has restored is not a backup. We test the restore and send you the evidence.

  • Daily copy, local and offsite
  • Automatic verification with alerting on failure
  • Quarterly documented restore test
  • Written recovery plan with target times

In writing

What each tier means, in hours.

These times go in the agreement. If we miss them, it comes off the following month invoice.

First response time by severity
SeverityExampleEssentialManagedCritical
CriticalNetwork or email down organization-wide4 bus. hrs30 min15 min
HighOne department down, file server unreachable8 bus. hrs2 hrs30 min
MediumA single workstation, network printer1 bus. day4 bus. hrs2 bus. hrs
LowNew user setup, scheduled install3 bus. days1 bus. day4 bus. hrs
CoverageWhen the clock is runningMon–Fri 9–624/724/7

Case

Accounting firm, 40 seats.

Before

  • Two to three working days lost per quarter
  • Backup on an unverified USB drive
  • Eleven active accounts belonging to former staff
  • Break-fix support, billed hourly, no record

Eleven months in

  • Zero service outages
  • Restore tested quarterly, with a signed record
  • Multi-factor on every account
  • Fixed monthly fee and an open dashboard

Questions

Do you replace our internal IT person?+

Almost never. Usually we free them from firefighting so they can work on what they know about your business. We take standby, monitoring and documentation; they stay the internal face.

What if the problem is our internet provider?+

We manage it anyway. We open the ticket, chase it and keep you informed. The cause being a third party does not give you the hours back. Part of what you are buying is somebody pursuing that for you.

How do we know what you did all month?+

You have permanent dashboard access to every ticket, who took it and how long it ran. We also send a one-page monthly summary: what happened, what got fixed, what deserves attention.

Do you carry cyber liability insurance?+

Yes, and we send the certificate before you sign anything. We would also encourage you to ask that of every provider you evaluate. A surprising number change the subject.

Back

All five units

See the full stack

Next unit · U2

Connect →

Networks, racks, cabling and cameras

Message us