[BUGS] IT Support Business with FreeBSD servers

[Brad Rushworth]

Jerahmy Pocott wrote on 22/05/2008 12:21 AM:
> On 21/05/2008, at 10:23 PM, Brad Rushworth wrote:
> 
>> I am thinking that one technician can maintain 15-20 servers. Doing  
>> the
>> sums, it seems a good price would total about $1000/month for the
>> average spend. That's $12,000/year for one server, which I think is
>> reasonable for a quality hands-off hassle-free installation that just
>> works (as far as the customer is concerned). Employing someone from  
>> TAFE
>> etc to do the same job would be far more expensive and be worse  
>> quality.
> 
> That's quite a reasonable price, I charge a similar rate and do NOT  
> provide hardware in that cost.. Though I maintain all network  
> infrastructure and also design it from the ground up if needed, all  
> using FreeBSD servers.
> 

Well, second-hand hardware is much cheaper so it is affordable to 
include it in the price. I have worked on about 15 Compaq servers bought 
at auction such as the ML530 
http://www.b2net.co.uk/compaq/compaq_proliant_ml530_server.htm

I trust these machines to be reliable because I've been running them 
without incident for years.

> 
> Here in is where you face your biggest challenge, most of your clients  
> will have never heard of FreeBSD and not really understand what it is  
> and can do. They know 'Microsoft' and have some level of trust in the  
> product. What is very important is to firstly outline the massive  
> difference in cost to the company for a microsoft server compared to a  
> FreeBSD one AND that the FreeBSD solution is providing greater  
> performance and reliability. Convincing people that a free operating  
> system will do a better job than the one that costs big dollars and  
> has a name they know can be tricky.

Yes, that's why good sales people get the big dollars. There's no reason 
why I can't supply MS products also to prove I am across the industry, 
then try to persuade them into FreeBSD based on it's merits. Can't 
really go wrong this way, except that you need to support more 
variations of software. I am really keen to keep things pretty 
standardised though, because this results in less man/hours per server, 
down-time from misconfiguration, etc.

> 
> You could offer 'small business servers' and not actually say what  
> they run, just say what services they can provide.. Then have a  
> technical summary that says you're using FreeBSD, so the people who DO  
> know will prefer you.

Yeah, most business owners don't care what you use, as long as it does 
what they want it to do and is reliable.

> 
> I'm actually a software developer/engineer, which is the sort of work  
> I prefer doing, but I'v gotten into doing this part of the time  
> because I keep getting offered work in networks and servers.. But then  
> they expect you to solve their technical problems and I really hate  
> tech support >_<

Yeah, 1st level IT support is no fun, but I'm happy to employ someone to 
do it, if they can do it well. Then I offer the complete package.

> 
> 
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> [BUGS] IT Support Business with FreeBSD servers
> harrywwc harry at woodward-clarke.com
> Thu May 22 07:33:52 EST 2008
> 
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> 
> Hey Brad,
>> 
> <snip>
>> 
>> I have a degree in Software Engineering and currently work as an 
>> engineer for a large company. I have a mate (or two) that has a similar 
>> background to go into partnership with.
> 
> sounds useful already - with a strictly 'one-man band' there are times 
> when you are just "unavailable" (e.g. sick) and this makes customers 
> "unhappy".
> 

Absolutely, I'm not keen to go it alone.
> 
> you should be able to find some graduates from TAFE. Check with the Head 
> Teachers (not today) at Glendale TAFE - they do (or were about to do) 
> the RedHat Certified Technician - and I think (don't quote me) they are 
> also a CISCO Academy. If you could get a Diploma in IT graduate, they 
> should have the knowledge of -both- those embedded in their skillset - 
> and Windows Server and Desktop and Networking too boot!
> 

That sounds really good. I was wondering how you go about employing TAFE 
graduates. The university has a careers email service, but I don't think 
TAFE has anything like that. I guess seek.com.au or something like that? 
I didn't realise the teachers at TAFE would ordinarily participate in 
getting their students employed.

> 
> As soon as possible I would go "new", with a maintenance contract from 
> HP - they (in the DEC-days) had a service centre in Newcastle, so 
> support should be pretty prompt. You don't want your kit failing because 
> it's 'second hand'. You are offering a service to *paying* customers - 
> if you have hardware issues, your reputation will be less than mud very 
> quickly.

I guess I could offer both strategies, based on the budget of the 
customer. A new server will add at least $3000 to the set-up. I'm not 
after high-spec speed etc but redundancy/reliability is important. I 
don't want to be constantly fixing broken harddrives / power supplies / 
etc with angry customers.

> 
>> I am thinking that one technician can maintain 15-20 servers. Doing the 
>> sums, it seems a good price would total about $1000/month for the 
>> average spend. That's $12,000/year for one server, which I think is 
>> reasonable for a quality hands-off hassle-free installation that just 
>> works (as far as the customer is concerned). Employing someone from TAFE 
>> etc to do the same job would be far more expensive and be worse quality.
>> 
> 
> this is becoming a popular business model. A colleague (from DEC days) 
> who put me onto FreeBSD (back in the 2.x.x days) is doing much the same 
> thing. However, his partner is in Melbourne (my colleague is in Sydney). 
> And most of the support work is done remotely. He showed me a demo of 
> his setup one time, and it is brilliant in it's simplicity :')
> 
> I'm assuming the 'dig' here at TAFE students is from ignorance (yours). 
> Many students with a DipIT(Networking) are highly skilled and motivated. 
> (decalring my own interests - I'm a Teacher in IT at Hornsby TAFE) :')
> 

Remote access if definitely important.

I wasn't having a dig at the TAFE students. What I meant was for my 
customer to employ a TAFE graduate full-time to look after one or two 
servers would cost upward of $30-40k per year, and they don't have the 
knowledge we would have from maintaining many tens of servers.

Sometimes looking after 2 servers can be almost as time consuming as 
looking after 15 of the things.

> 
> Yeah, M$ is out there, lots. Can I suggest you form a casual 
> relationship with a company that does M$-SBS, so you can recommend them 
> as a 'partner' - perhaps with a small percentage coming back to you for 
> the referral? :') and of course the 'reverse' from them to you.
> 
> One thing, think about playing with Linux as well - there will be some 
> who will have Linux (probably RHEL/CentOS or SuSE or even Ubuntu) 
> installed. The difference (once you come to grips with the SysV startup 
> scripts) is not that great. Sure, some things are in the "wrong" place, 
> but you get used to that - especially if you've used several 
> 'commercial' *IXen.

Yeah, I have used Linux, but not nearly as frequently as I use FreeBSD. 
Again, I would aim to offer it too, but I would prefer to keep a single 
standardised install to keep costs down. It could always be an extra fee 
though I suppose...

> 
> hth,
> 
> .h
> 
> -- 

Thanks for the replies guys. It sounds like I might be heading for the 
right business model. I guess no-one has really commented too much on 
the pricing though.

Should I go for 6-12 month contracts? Perhaps a discount per month for 
customers that sign a contract?

Should I provide something basic and charge extra for add-ons, or 
provide something substantial in the standard package? As in, should the 
default install come with MySQL, Apache, Samba, etc or are they add-ons?

Brad