Your systems are looked after, not just repaired when they fail
Monitoring, updates and backups run to a schedule. A restore test shows whether your data can actually be brought back.
Book an intro callTuesday, ten to seven in the morning. The early shift calls in: the machine at goods-in cannot reach the server, and delivery notes will not print. The bookkeeper who normally sorts out this kind of thing is on holiday. The last Windows patch dates from February. The backup of the ERP server has been failing for eight weeks and nobody has looked at the alert. On paper, nobody owns any of it.
Ruknova takes on that ongoing responsibility under contract. We monitor servers, the firewall and the central services, apply updates in agreed windows and check every backup run. At set intervals we pull data back out of the backup and open the restored file. What counts is not the green log entry but the file that opens. In a serious incident you can reach us around the clock. That applies to clients with a managed service contract.
What is included.
Server monitoring
Servers, the firewall, switches and the backup jobs are all under monitoring. If a RAID array reports a failed drive or a partition fills up, the alert reaches us first, rather than arriving as a phone call from the accounts office.
Updates on a schedule
Patches for Windows, the Office applications and the firewall go in during agreed windows, usually in the evening. We tell you beforehand which service will be briefly unavailable. We treat drivers and firmware more cautiously than security updates.
Restore testing
We restore individual files and whole machines from the backup into a separate environment, then open what comes back. Anything that stands out is written down with a date. As far as we are concerned, the backup log only tells you the job ran, not that the data survived.
Emergency cover for contract clients
If the ERP system stops or a server has been encrypted, you can reach us at night and at weekends as well. That number goes only to clients with a current managed service contract. It is not there for anything that can wait until the next morning.
Documentation and passwords
The network diagram, licences, contract terms and access credentials sit in one place and are kept up to date whenever something changes. The records belong to you. If you terminate the contract, you receive all of it in full, with no questions asked.
One point of contact
You call the same person who built your environment and who remembers why that ageing terminal server has never been switched off. No ticket system to get past first. Nobody new to take through the history again.
How we work.
Taking stock
We count what is actually there: servers, workstations, switches, licences, contracts, backup targets. We also talk to the people who are first at their desks in the morning. The result is a list of what is missing or running unchecked.
Defining the scope
You decide, with us, what the service covers and what it leaves out. With some legacy systems we advise retiring them rather than monitoring them. Whatever you settle on goes into the contract, notice period included.
Handover
Monitoring, update windows and backup jobs are set up, access is put in order and the documentation is created. Open points from the stocktake are worked through in order of urgency. For us the handover is not finished until the first restore test has run.
Day-to-day operation
After that the service simply carries on: monitoring, updates, backups, restore tests. You get a plain summary of what has happened and what is coming up, such as a licence about to expire or a server that ought to be replaced.
Common questions.
Up to now we just call when something breaks. What does an ongoing contract give us?
Predictable costs, and the work nobody ever gets round to ordering. When you call after a fault, you pay for the repair: not for checking the backup, not for applying patches, not for asking how old the drives in the server are. Those are exactly the jobs that get left, because they hurt nobody until the server stops. If your IT amounts to five PCs and a cloud service, help on demand may well suit you better. We will say so.
What happens to our IT if we cannot get hold of you at some point?
Then somebody else picks up where we left off, using our documentation. The network diagram, access credentials, licences and contracts are held on your premises, and they are written so that an outside provider can start work without ringing us first. Knowledge locked in one person's head would be a risk to you. Taking that risk out of the arrangement is very much the point.
Our backup runs through every night. Is that not enough?
Not while nobody has checked that anything can be brought back out of it. A backup job can report success every night and still copy a database while it is open, so that it fails to start when it is restored. You find that out on the day you need it. That is why we restore data as a test and open it, instead of trusting the log.
We are not based in Schwerin. Will you still look after us?
Yes, we work throughout Germany. Monitoring, updates, backups and most fault handling run over remote access anyway, so the distance makes no difference there. For hands-on work, a server replacement or new cabling for instance, we come to site and agree the date with you. If your premises are a long way off, we talk beforehand about how often such visits are realistically likely.
Who have you done this for already?
KF Properties, a property management firm, and LM Cleaning, a commercial cleaning company. Both run their daily business on a handful of central applications where any standstill is noticed immediately. Khodor Kassem, owner and managing director of Ruknova, has held exactly the in-house role that tends to sit vacant at our clients.
Let us talk about the state of your backup
Three questions decide whether a service contract makes any sense for you at all: which application has to be working in the morning, when was anything last restored from the backup, and who takes care of that today. We will go through them with you.
Book an intro call