About Us
Who is GroundWork0?
The main catalyst for starting GroundWork0 was the growing marketplace need for better maintenance services. For years, while working for Nortel Networks, we watched customers pay good money for maintenance – which usually included onsite emergency services and phone support – only to be disappointed by the support they received when it was needed most. The primary problem: the technicians knew the hardware, but didn’t know the customer’s IT environment. The most comprehensive technical experience cannot overcome the lack of familiarity with the customer’s core network and mission critical applications.
We knew the marketplace wanted phone support personnel and onsite technicians to have an authentic familiarity with the customer’s environment – beyond just the manufacturer’s equipment. It’s that simple.
With GroundWork0 you get trained, experienced technical support with engineers that also have extensive knowledge of your specific environment. We are local to you. We document your network and related systems onsite. We likely have consulted on the design, development, and installation of your core IT infrastructure. We know the applications that you are running, how they are configured, and what your network is designed to do.
We keep your environment moving
What does working with GroundWork0 look like?
GroundWork0 wants to be the escalation resource for your IT staff. Most of the time, your IT staff gets along just fine taking care of your day-to-day server and network operations. You don’t need a VMWare Administrator or Cisco Unified Wireless Network Engineer on your staff full-time. But what if you had one that you could call only when you needed it, and who understood your specific environment as well as your IT staff?
+– Always teaching
Now imagine that these experts not only support your IT staff, but working shoulder-to-shoulder with them to impart their knowledge? Every engineer at GroundWork0 has the heart of a teacher. Our goal is to make your IT staff smarter with every interaction. Your environment becomes our classroom, and the IT challenges that you face become opportunities for your staff to learn from our experts. Many IT service companies are happy to walk in, fix your problem, and walk out. Our goal is to fix your problem and then communicate the issue and resolution in detail to your support staff. If you aren’t learning then we are not doing our job.
GroundWork0 truly shines when we can add to the capabilities of your IT staff over time. In short, we want to be the technical support that your technical support calls.
+– Getting to know you
Our first engagement with a new client receiving our GroundWork0 Support Service usually starts with a support contract for their existing network and/or server environment. Our engineers come onsite to work with your staff to get to know everyone, and then perform the initial discovery and documentation functions that are essential for us to become familiar with your environment. The very first deliverable you’ll have in your hands is updated, as-built, network and server environment documentation to help your IT staff, and help us support them.
+– Monitor key infrastructure
The next thing GroundWork0 will do is establish a list of the critical switches, servers, and applications that your organization needs to stay functioning at peak performance. We will install a SolarWinds-powered monitoring appliance in your network and configure it to monitor each critical system. Then, using an external datacenter, we will monitor your SolarWinds device to ensure optimal performance, so that even in the event of a total outage, both your IT staff and GroundWork0 will know immediately.
+– Focus on easy communication
One of the keys to GroundWork0’s ability to act fast – as if it were part of your staff – is making sure that we communicate like we’re onsite with you every day. We welcome our customers to our Slack space or help them set up their own, allowing us to quickly communicate as needed. You’ll have direct phone numbers of engineers and account managers that are most familiar with your organization. And we will gladly participate in team and/or vendor meetings if you believe our input would be valuable. Our contracts include hours for Professional Services each month so that your IT staff can call us without incurring surprise charges. Your account manager will review outages and engagements regularly to make sure you’re getting the attention and expertise needed from GroundWork0.
Working with GroundWork0 is like having a team of advanced IT professionals on standby 24/7. Let your IT staff escalate their most difficult challenges to us for servers & virtualization, network & firewalls, voice, or WiFi… we’ll show them how to conquer it.
Let’s Talk
