Maintaining a Dedicated Server can be a chore.

You need to apply security patches, verify backups, upgrade apps, and more – just to keep the server running without fail.

Even despite all this, things can still break.

Server owners often face blacklisted IPs, database crashes, application errors, and more – while expert help would be either non-existent or slow at best.

That is where an Outsourced Server Support company can make a difference.

A good support company will monitor your servers 24/7, restore failed services, keep it optimized, and come to your help within minutes if you need support.

That raises the question – How do you find the best Support Engineers company?

1. Breadth of services

24/7 monitoring, Proactive maintenance, On-demand support

If you are paying a company to take care of your servers, it makes sense that you should be free of any tech headaches.

But some support companies use clever sentences to highlight what they provide, and do not mention what they don’t.

For example, there are 24/7 monitoring companies that do not restore a failed service. They just send you an alert when a service goes down. What use is an alert if you’re away from your computer or otherwise unable to attend the issue?

When considering a company:

• Look at what they offer under 24/7 monitoring, server security, server performance and disaster recovery.
• Specifically ask about what’s not included.
• Read their FAQ, and customer reviews about each service.

2. Experience in your technology

Web servers, App hosting, VPN hosting, or others

When you are pressed for time (eg. when the server has crashed), you need your sysadmin to be decisive – to act fast and fix the issue, the right way the first time.

You don’t have time for guesswork or trial and error.

That is why it is important to hire a company that is experienced in your industry, and your technology.

Experienced admins would have seen an issue before, and can zero in on the root cause within minutes.

During emergencies, this can save you several hours of business downtime.

When considering a support company:

• Check their blogs for content relevant to your industry and technology.
• Read reviews from customers in your industry.
• Ask them for a consultation on how they can take care of your infrastructure – an experienced company will give you specific measures in simple language.

[ You don’t have to be a server expert to keep your apps fast and stable. Let us help you. Our experts will keep your servers fast, secure and rock solid. ]

3. Depth of expertise

Operating systems, Networking, Coding, Server design, and more

Many server management companies showcase expertise in a particular administration software, like say cPanel or DirectAdmin.

The trouble with that is, they’ll be limited by what the software can or cannot do. If an undocumented error comes up, they’d have no option but to escalate it to the vendor and wait for a solution.

It can lead to many hours, if not days of service deterioration or downtime for your customers.

That is why it is important to look for support companies that have more than a superficial knowledge in server technologies.

A graduation certificate in technology is an efficient filter to weed out techs with superficial knowledge.

For example, here at Bobcares, we employ only Computer Science engineers with 4 years of rigorous training in operating systems, networking and coding. This helps us resolve server issues at the operating system level, and not be bound by admin software limits.

When considering a company, ask them:

• Are your sysadmins engineering graduates?

4. Company’s age and reputation

Long established companies have reliable systems to provide support

New companies crop up all the time advertising cheap support and world class facilities.

But more often than not (at least in server admin business), these companies close down within a year or so because of unmanageable costs, staff churn or management challenges.

Unstable companies have overworked or underqualified sysadmins who either won’t notice server issues in time, or takes days to actually resolve even an urgent problem.

On the other hand, companies with years or decades of good service track record will have redundancies built-in to deal with work emergencies, staff shortages, and more.

For eg. here at Bobcares, we have staff rosters (shift rotation), escalation matrix, and several layers of quality check to make sure that service is of highest quality and is uninterrupted.

When considering a company:

• Find out when this company was established. (A whois search of their domain should do)
• Read the feedbacks about the company in your industry niche forums.

[ Don’t lose your customers to a slow server. Let us help you. Our experts will monitor & maintain your servers 24/7 so that it remains lightning fast.]

5. Is it a registered company or an individual?

Companies have a reputation to defend, individuals (eg. freelancers) don’t

These days it is easy to get on a forum and hire someone who seems knowledgeable.

You’ll provide your server’s administrative login and hope that they’ll take good care of it (they seemed nice in chat, right?).

Well, if you continue browsing those same forums, you’ll know individuals cannot always be relied on. They might just disappear one fine day, or worse, they’ll mess up your server with no accountability whatsoever.

That is why it is important to hire only companies with a registered office, and with a long track record.

Companies have a reputation to defend and a business to build. So, they’ll go the extra mile to make sure you always remain happy.

For example, here at Bobcares, we run part of our support operations from USA under the registered company Poornam Inc. All legal contracts are signed under this company name, that guarantees our customers a 100% trustworthy association.

So, when considering a support provider:

• Check if it is a company with a registered office.
• See if it is a token presence or a fully operational center.

Conclusion

Dedicated servers can be hard to maintain. Server owners are required to manage updates, backups, server optimization and more – just to keep the server online. That is where an outsourced server support company can make a difference. Today we’ve seen the top 5 qualities you need to look for to choose the best support provider.