The "brain drain" has a had a considerable impact on South African companies` ability to adequately maintain and support mission critical installations. Says Dimension Data Networking technical services manager, Brent Flint: "Although businesses are becoming more effective in their operations through the adoption of new-generation information technology, many do not have the necessary skills and resources in-house to adequately maintain modern switching architectures and complex virtual LAN environments." Flint says this scenario is driving organisations towards looking to outside resources for network maintenance. "Other influencing factors are the spiraling cost of skilled staff, the high cost of specialised `international` training and the difficulty of retaining key personnel." On-site maintenance services by networking integrators obviate the risk factor associated with the reliance on in-house resources, he points out. "The responsibility for the smooth running of the network becomes that of the networking integrator," says Flint. "The service offers peace of mind security for a fixed monthly operating expense." Key benefits include faster detection of failures and the early identification of situations that might lead to failures, and more accurate troubleshooting through a better understanding of networking infrastructures . "Through the Didata Networking on-site maintenance service, we aim to maintain uptime by ensuring that the network operation is constantly within defined specifications," stresses Flint. "The concept of on-site maintenance can also encompass network management implementations with spin-off benefits such as in-depth trends analyses and short and long term impact reports relating to new technology options. "If requested, we are able to take control of the day-to-day running of a customer`s corporate-wide network down to file server level. We are also able to assume responsibility for the administration of the service level agreements which exist between our customers and their maintenance providers," he says. "Today, many companies are demanding service level agreements which incorporate mean time to repair benchmarks as fast as 15 minutes. These response times can be achieved only by highly trained on-site personnel. "At Didata, we have a policy of holding a stock of mission critical components on site in order to respond immediately to common failures, such as those that might result from lightening strikes, power outages and line failures." The service is growing in popularity with many large IT users. Didata Networking currently has more than 200 field engineers in on-site maintenance roles countrywide. There are 80 engineers operational in Gauteng alone. Flint adds that the move to outsourcing maintenance operations can be staged and introduced by a "co-sourcing" phase, which should be linked to a short or medium term change control continuity programme.
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