Remote Work with Trollbytes

With Trollbytes switching over to managed services entirely, John talks about what managed services looked like twenty years ago, versus what it looks like now.

Episode Transcript

(00:07):
The experts, joined this morning byour computer expert John Rives. John,
of course comes to us from trollbytes online, troll bytes dot com.
That's troll bytes dot com. Delphinumber six to eight four three seven fifty
five ninety. That's four three sevenfive five nine zero And John, we're
going to talk manage services this week, and uh, just a quick overview
for people to say managed services,What exactly is managed services? John?

(00:31):
Well, has nothing to do withgetting Taylor Swift tickets. Everything els doing
getting tailor or Swift tickets. Well, yes, I was just listening to
the last secondment going wow, yeah, UM, manage services it is basically
the UM. You hire us tobe your IT provider UM without having to

(00:52):
actually you know, physically hire astaff member in pay, benefits and we're
about vacations and sick time and allthat stuff. UM, you basically outsource
that to us. We manage allof that within our department, and you
basically pick up the phone and callanytime you have a problem, just like
you would UM with one of yourown staff members, and we handle everything

(01:12):
from A to Z and work withyou just like we were part of your
team. And for people who don'tknow. And for good reason, it's
become This has become huge. Imean people have been signing up with you
at troll Bytes four managed services.This has become a major part of what
you do. Definitely, the businesshas definitely grown in this direction. And

(01:34):
like I said, it doesn't reallymatter. I've said this many times before,
it doesn't matter to us if it'sjust you know, you have a
one person team or a ten personteam or a twenty person team. We
treat everybody the same, and wejust want to make sure that the services
and support that we offer flows throughto what you need to have done with
your business. And you know,when you're when you're in your business for

(01:57):
yourself, it's all about getting stuffdone and making sure you have the tools
and you're not hindered by your computerequipment. And that's where we step in
and just do our best to makesure everything is taken care of so you
can do what you do best.It's a pretty amazing model in a really
really good system when it comes tomanage services. You're looking for support,
security, consultation, back up,all of that stuff with troll Bytes.

(02:19):
Today as a day to pick upphone, give John a call six to
eight four three seven fifty five ninety. That's four three seventy five five nine
zero. Patrol Bytes learn More Onlinetroll bytes dot com. That's troll bytes
dot com. And John, we'retalking about thirty minutes. We'll get a
little bit deeper into managed services andall the really cool things you can do
for businesses out there and for folksthat are looking for some computer help.

(02:40):
Sounds good. We'll talk then thatcoming up at eight thirty the met time.
Our good friend Lisa breaks from theBritish company. She comes away next
year in thirteen ten Wyba thirteen tendouble uyba Madison in the morning and ask

(03:01):
the expert hanging out with experts,hang out with our computer expert from troll
Bytes, John Rivers. I'll getthat right one of these days. John,
You're good, It's all good.I am, of course. John
of course comes to us from trollBytes online. Troll bytes dot com.
That's troll bytes dot com. Thirttwelve number six eight four three seven fifty

(03:21):
five ninety. That's four three sevenfive five nine zero. And we started
our conversation earlier this morning talking aboutmanaged services, and I think it bears
repeating for people who say managed services, what are we talking about? I
think it's important to talk about whatis all included in managed services? And
of course who who often calls youfor those services? Managed services is you

(03:44):
know, in a nutshell, it'sbasically um troll bytes would become your IT
um it staff of your business,and whether it's a small or medium sized
business, and we consider small andmedium size of businesses, you know,
one to ten to twenty employees,somewhere in that in that wheelhouse, that's
kind of our niche. And whetheryou're you know, if you fall anywhere

(04:08):
in that in that range, andeven if you're above that, I mean,
it doesn't matter to us. ButI don't want to exclude smaller businesses
because they might think, oh,these guys would never be interested in working
with us, But you know,we certainly are. I have a number
of clients that are five computers andunder and I am happy to treat them

(04:28):
the same as some of the largerclients that we have, and we basically
take care of all the IT needsof your business from if you choose,
we can acquire the equipment that youuse on a daily basis and we can
set it up and make sure everythingis up to date and patched and protected
and secure, and then also takecare of your networking equipment, which would

(04:50):
be your router or firewall depending onwhat you have, switches, access points
which allows you to have all theWi Fi connected in your business as well
too, so we can we cantake it from A to Z or stop
at the letter C if you likethis too as well. You know,

(05:10):
and one of the things you know, doing this, doing this show and
talking with a lot of a lotof people that own businesses is you know
you think about you know, likeaccounting things like most of them saying,
you know, I have an accountand handle our taxes, our payroll,
or you know, things like insurance, Well, I've got a broker to
kind of handle UM finding the bestdeal and finding the proper coverage for our
business. UM. Computers are suchan integral part of any business and network

(05:33):
and being connected and whether it's whetherit's I think a lot of times people
think, well, well it's anoffice setting. Well not not necessarily.
I know we've had You've had someguests on the show who run a repair
shop for example, these type ofthings UM for the same reason why you
often want a professional to be doingyour you know, your business books and
those kind of things. You wantto have a professional managing your it because

(05:56):
it's just that vital and it's sucha specialized area, that's true. And
I've had that conversation with John andSusie down at Hanson's Auto just you know,
just as you mentioned, Um,you know, I can change my
own oil if I want to,but I choose not to because it's not
my expertise. It takes me waytoo long and I'd probably forget something and
do it wrong. So and Iyou know, we can kind of look

(06:19):
at it, you know, ina roundabout way. That way as well
too. A lot of people arevery comfortable using a computer, so maybe
they think everything is all set andready to go. And that's one of
the things that we like to lookat is when we when we engage with
a new client, is just startasking questions and doing an assessment of Okay,
what do you have for antivirus?How is your router set up?

(06:42):
Um? Do you have a passwordon your you know, some some basic
questions. Do you have a passwordon your Wi Fi or is it just
wide open? Or do you havea WiFi provided in your office, but
it's not a guest Wi Fi network, So whoever hops on your Wi Fi
with their phone is on, you'reyou know, the full blown network stuff
like that. So we just startasking questions and then um try to eliminate

(07:09):
or patch as many potential security loopholesas possible, you know. And John,
one of those areas too is whenyou mentioned, like the oil change,
for example, is a lot oftimes you don't know. Let's you
say, a lot of times allthe time you don't know. What you
don't know? Is there there's thingsthat that as a as a you know,
just a person living our lives,we overlook and you think about,

(07:29):
you know, when you get yourcar in vehicle in for service and they
do that inspection, what they're lookingfor things that as a as an owner
of a car, you may notalways know to check or even realize need
to be checked. That's the samething with with it and infrastructure, is
you know, if we all knowor since they all most of us have
a pretty good idea of how toyou know, turn on our computer and
do some basic things. What wedon't know is is the stuff that that's

(07:53):
keeping that computer safe and secure orwe don't know how to properly set up
in a safe and secure manner sharingof data or storage and backup. UM
having that, having that inspection,having that, having that once over,
having somebody a trusted person that's ableto set that stuff up for you,
it's huge, sure, and andyou know, just to reiterate, those
are a lot of the things thatsometimes when we talk about these things,

(08:18):
people will go, oh, youknow, and their their eyes kind of
widen a little bit and it's like, oh, I had no idea,
and and and it's you know whenwhen we do this, I am a
big believer of just talking in plainEnglish terms. I don't like to use
a lot of the computer jargon andmumble jumble because that just makes people's eyes
glass over and at that point it'slike, well, I'm not I'm not

(08:41):
providing a service to anybody at thispoint. So I like to speak and
just plain simple terms and just describe, Okay, this is what this means,
this is the potential for um aproblem, and here's what it would
take to patch it. You know, are you interested in moving forward or
you know? Or not? Andwe can we can shake hands and move

(09:03):
on to the next client, orwe can um stop right there and say
okay, let's let's take care ofthis problem and just make sure that everything
that as a business owner that you'redoing is going to be protected and backed
up and secure. If you area business owner and interested in chatting with
John, he'd love to talk withyou, love to get to know you.
I got to just give him acall six O eight four three seven
fifty five ninety. That's four threeseven five five nine zero for troll bytes

(09:28):
the website troll bytes dot com.That's troll bytees dot com. And I
got a telephone number six O eightfour three seven fifty five ninety that's four
three seven five five nine zero.And people also I think sometimes wonder how
does this work? And it's it'sreally it's it's a subscription. Yep.
Certainly it's depending on what your setupis. It's it's a monthly subscription,
isn't it. That's correct? Yep. So, and it's I think it's

(09:52):
pretty reasonably priced. Um, youknow, if you have one or two
or three computers, you're you're lookingat roughly a for three computers, you're
looking at roughly one hundred dollars amonth, pretty easy expenditure, I think
for it services, which includes backupand anti virus. And then you also
get the ability to just pick upa phone and call anytime that you need

(10:15):
to have a question answered or you'restuck with something. We can remote right
into your computer. You can showus what's going on and we can remediate
that that problem usually in a coupleof minutes, and we don't have to
roll a vehicle out to your location. And then you're kind of sitting around
drumming your fingers on your desk wonderingone time, is this guy you're going

(10:35):
to get there? Hey? IThe other thing too, about that you
mentioned John being able to remotely connect, you're also remotely monitoring as well.
So I think for a lot ofa lot of people, they don't realize
this, and it's for a goodreason that you're working on this, and
as the business owner, they don'trealize that there may be something going on,

(10:56):
and you're able to through through monitoringthe monitoring system. You're able to
see things like maybe a piece ofhardware is starting to starting to fail,
or there might be some type ofyou know, some kind of attack underway.
You're an attempted attack. You're ableto monitor that remotely, and oftentimes
the business owner has no idea evenany of that stuff is going on until
you call them and say, hey, just so you know, we had

(11:18):
had an attempted attack, a fishingattack or something like that, right,
right, And I do get allof those reports, and that's that's usually
my first cup of coffee in themorning is Okay, let's make sure all
the servers are online and active workstationskind of are, you know, depending
on if the machine is on oroff. Some people turn them on,
some people leave them on, somepeople turn them off. So those are

(11:39):
half of those are always offline anyway, when you're looking at my reports,
but servers are online, I lookat the backup reports, make sure those
all completed successfully overnight, and thenI just make sure that the patch reports
look good. Sometimes all the patchesdon't get put on just because the machine
might be turned off. But wejust look for trouble areas in that regards

(12:01):
and just make sure that the servicesthat we're providing are happening, and if
not, we need to take apeek at what happened and maybe do a
manual intervention and just get things fixedup that way too. So but there
definitely is a lot of eyes onour customers equipment and just make sure that

(12:22):
everything is working as it should be. Talking this morning with John Rivista troll
Bytes. The website troll bytes dotcom. That's troll bytes dot com.
Great website. To learn more abouttroll Bytes. You can also send an
email right from the website or pickupphone. Give m a call six O
eight four three seven fifty five ninetythat's four three seven five five nine zero
for troll bytes. Looked into ourconversation with John. We'll talk about hardware

(12:45):
and sometimes it's time for an upgrade. We've talked on the consumer side,
what about the business side when itcomes time to upgrade systems. Talk a
little bit about how John and theteam at troll bytes, with their managed
services can also help you when itcomes to choosing that proper machine, those
proper computers. Details from John onthat next as ask the Experts with troll
Bytes continues right here on thirteen tenWIBA our computer experts from troll Bytes,

(13:16):
mister John Rivist. Of course,you can learn more about troll Bytes on
their website troll bytes dot com.That's troll bytes dot Com. Their telephone
number six O eight four three sevenfifty five ninety. That's six O eight
four three seven five five nine zeroand John. I think a lot of
us over the past couple of yearshave gotten used to or at least become
more aware of how remote things canhappen. I think I've told you my

(13:41):
dad was in it for years andyears, and I remember as a kid
going going down to the company heworked for on the weekends and we'd have
to swap out. I was noinvolved. I would observe this swap out,
backup tape and check the systems actuallyfrom going in and by the time
I was in my twenties, literallyhe never went into the office unless it
was absolutely necessary. Everything was wasdone remotely, and I think for a

(14:03):
lot of people that they're like havingmaybe not fully feeling like how is that
done. I think we got apretty big taste of it recently with more
people working from home, and it'samazing what is able to do in these
systems are are now designed for remotemonitoring and remote service oftentimes when when it's

(14:24):
able to be done. That's howthese these systems are now designed isn't it.
Yeah, a lot of them,um, and I think a lot
of them were kind of designed thatway, but nobody really took advantage of
it, because you know, thewhole workforce was expected to be in the
office the majority of the time,and then obviously over the last couple of
years there were some major events thatcause that to shift. But but yeah,

(14:48):
as far as being functional from aremote location into your business office is
almost a must nowadays. So thereto be you know, that type of
access built into each network and it'snot really difficult to do from an IT
side. Um, you just haveto make sure that you're using the right

(15:09):
tools, and those tools are patchedand and uh security measures are put into
place. So a lot of thatmay you know when sometimes when the users
have to deal with those security measures, um, they get a little frustrated.
But it's it's really to keep thebad guys out and to keep the
good guys um to allow them tohave the access into the network and to

(15:31):
be functional as they should be.I gotta ask to John about about hardware
and and buying. It's you know, as as I look, for example,
like my son always wants he alwayswants some new computer, and it's
and it's always like okay, dude, well we'll see if it's if you
know, like what's out there,what's available, and and those kind of
things, and and it's it's it'sit's it's a hard decision to make.

(15:52):
It's really hard if you're buying,especially multiple but even if it's just one
or two, um, new piecesof hardware. For for the off is,
you want to make sure that thatthat that you're weighing all of the
benefits and all the needs of thatvers versus cost. And one of the
great things too, with managed services, you're able to help people find that
those right computers, those right machinesat a good price that's going to fit

(16:15):
what they're doing, and offer expertisein that way as well. Yeah,
and we do that quite a bit. Um. I can think of one
client that I have. They dosome land management, and some of their
computers need to have a little beefiergraphics processing ability because they use a product
called RGIS, which is just aland mapping program, but it has some

(16:38):
three D capabilities as well too,so it needs a little beefier computer.
And then of course there's a littlebit of a cost with that too.
But the people that just work ontypical office type documents and stuff don't need
that extra horsepower on their computers.So we just help manage those costs and
just kind of go over the needsof the user and how that computer's life

(17:00):
expectancy is planned out. And youknow, are these is this office,
Are they interested in moving to Windowseleven right away or do they want to
stick with Windows ten for a couplemore years yet too, So we kind
of go over all of those optionsand just make sure that the device that
the user gets their hands on isgoing to be the device that they actually

(17:22):
need and can do their job.Today's today, to pick a phone,
give John a call at troll bytescalled the team six O eight four three
seven fifty five ninety that's four threeseven five five nine zero. Website troll
bytes dot com. That's troll bytesdot com. And speaking of hardware,
I know early on obviously, ifit's if it's a new business or somebody
that's just kind of getting into managedservices, I applaud them first off for

(17:45):
taking the right step and calling youright up front. But for those that
have that have had businesses running fora while and We all know how this
happens. It starts out, yourbusiness starts out nice and small, and
you're slowly building and you know,maybe at the initial time you're able to
kind of run things yourself, andthen you add more computers, more network
stuff, more employees, and you'regoing, oh, my goodness is out

(18:06):
of hand. One of the thingsearly on too, that you're able to
do with businesses is kind of helpthem streamline. I think of those server
rooms and those kind of things,really clean that space up and really do
an assessment of what they have andwhat's redundant and can go away, what
can be upgraded in those type ofareas as well. That we have done
the cleanup of the server rooms,I mean I've seen I've seen horrible pictures

(18:26):
online of them, but I haven'treally in person come across anything too terrible
really. So yeah, so that'sbeen kind of nice where you don't walk
in a room and go oh wow. But streamlining and consolidating, we've done
quite a bit of that, especiallywhen it comes to servers, and you
know, they're again the business modelas we do charge for each server,

(18:48):
so when I can consolidate and moveservices from one server to another or applications
or whatever is running on the server. That just down the cost that the
user has to pay for the servicesthat we're taking care of. So I
don't mind doing it because I knowit's going to be a good stuff for
the customer, and I want tomake sure that we're we're providing a good

(19:14):
value and not you know, sittingthere going, well, this guy's got
ten servers. He doesn't he doesn'tknow that, and you know that that's
just I just wouldn't feel right inmy heart. So I just want to
make sure that we're providing a goodvalue for the services that the customers paying
for. And if that lowers thecost, I'm okay with that because I
think that's just good business. It'salso great to have a local contact,

(19:37):
a local person that's doing this stufffor you. I know that there are
some national all we can do it. You know, it's like, well,
you know, who's your who's yourperson when you've got a question,
who's the person there for you,who's the team there for you. That's
a great thing with troll Bytes.John and the whole team at troll Bytes
are here for you. You've gota business, you've got a growing business.
Maybe you're saying, you know what, I want to actually focus on
that business and allow the folks attroll bytes running the managed services, whether

(20:00):
it's support, security, consultation,back up. Today is the day to
pick up the phone, give thema call. Telephone number at troll bytes
six eight four three seven fifty fiveninety. That's four three seven five five
nine zero. The website troll bytesdot com. That's troll bytes dot com.
John, it's been a ton offun. You enjoy this day and
don't be a stranger my friend.All right, sounds good, John,

(20:22):
thank you for everything. Oh yeah, and the website troll bytes dot com.
That's troll bytes dot com. Andagain the telephone number. Write it
down six zo eight fourty three sevenfifty five ninety. Even better, just
dialot in on your phone right nowsix eight four three seven five five nine
zero. Dan O'Donnell, he comesyour way next right here on thirteen ten Wiba