Computers just work, right?

You've probably heard the axiom about closing the barn door after the horse has already left.  We have a similar one for the services we provide, and it uses a smoke detector as the model.  You see, we're often called in to put out fires.  Computer management is one of those things whose value is difficult to quantify - if you don't maintain your systems, they might continue to work properly for many years.  Think of the savings by not having any IT staff!  Then one day something horrible happens, and your systems are offline.  Putting them back together after a period of neglect is an order of magnitude more difficult than putting them back together after they've been properly maintained, but what would be even easier than that?

Not having them break in the first place.

If there's one thing our years of experience has taught us, it's that over 98% of system problems can be avoided through proactive care of the systems.  Do the updates.  Install newer versions of the software.  Keep the kernel up to date.  Without these things, it's only a matter of time before your systems will break and you won't be able to fix them.  A package will require an upgrade, which will make another package invalid, or which will require that you rewrite a portion of your application, and all these minutes become hours and become days with your site offline.

You might not need to have a smoke detector in your office or home.  It may never catch fire, and hopefully if it does, you can detect it early enough and call the fire department.  They'll come out and put the fire out, and they might ask you to install a smoke detector.  Maybe today's fire was small, but an incident of any significance will demonstrate that the cost of prevention is far less than the price of neglect.

Our monitoring, configuration management, and system administration skills are your smoke detector.  Don't wait until your house burns down.