Deep Thoughts from the DoNS

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We have all said something like this before.  "That is so cool!  Can I 'see' it?  Then we immediately reach out our hands to 'see' it.  By our nature, people seem to want to see things by touching them.  The same is true of technicians and engineers.  We often feel most comfortable when we can physically see and touch the things we are working on.  This is certainly a feeling I have had to overcome.  Through out the 1980s and 1990s I worked in data centers and telecom switch rooms where I could see the instruments, physically handle and replace hardware, physically observe the environmental conditions of the center and tap directly in to T1s and digital circuits to trouble shoot issues.  That has all changed.  The Technical Assistance Center or TAC for inContact now sits hundreds of miles away from our data centers in Dallas and Los Angeles, and yet we are able to 'see' what is happening, monitor the performance and manage the equipment and network, just the same as if we were in the room.  And when there is a need to actually replace or touch the hardware we can still call for remote hands or put a man in the site to perform that work.  Getting to the point where I was comfortable in such an environment required a shift in my thinking and it required changes to the design of the data centers and the network.  Below are the things that are involved in making the inContact data centers remotely manageable.

• Planning
• Design
• Redundant systems, servers, switches, routers, firewalls
• Redundant power and cooling
• Redundant fiber optic services
• Monitoring systems that monitor hardware, memory, CPU, disk space, environmentals, data flows and applications
• Intrusion detection systems that safeguard internet data
• Remote power management, remote terminal services, remote terminal servers
• 7 x 24 site security One Wilshire /Level 3
• 7 x 24 hardware and software maintenance services
• 7 x 24 Technical Assistance Center or TAC that is fully staffed and that has access to a full array of engineer support
• Of course, 7 x 24 remote hands and on site personel just in case

Designing a data center than can be managed remotely requires that the design for the wiring, power, services and hardware all be done in a fashion that allows your staff to have visibility and control of those systems.  Finally, you need to have a fully staffed operations center that is equiped and trained to monitor and manage that network.  The Operations team at inContact includes the TAC, which is staffed 7 x 24, the Systems Engineering team which designs and manages the computer network and the Network Engineering team which designs and manages the data networks are all staffed with people who are both trained and experienced.    Having this environment makes me as comfortable working with equipment a 1000 miles away as I am working with a machine on my desk.

If you are an inContact customer or are considering a hosted contact center solution,  I want to assure you, that the inContact services have eyes, ears and hands watching those services at all times.  And even though they are remote, they can still be seen and touched.