What is Hands and Feet support?
Hands and feet support refers to onsite or in-person technical assistance for a company’s IT infrastructure, covering assets that cannot be managed remotely.
The phrase emphasises the need for physical presence—the “hands” to work on the equipment and the “feet” to be present at the location.
It is often provided by third-party technicians who are dispatched to a specific location—such as a data centre, office, or remote site—to carry out pre-defined tasks under the remote guidance of an in-house IT or network operations team.
Why hands and feet support is necessary?
Despite the dominance of cloud computing and remote management tools, a physical presence remains essential for several key reasons, spanning the entire IT asset lifecycle.
- Asset lifecycle management: From a device’s initial deployment to its end-of-life process, a physical presence is required. This includes the initial setup of new hardware, like racking and stacking a server or laying complex cable configurations. It also covers hands-on tasks like replacing a failed power supply, CPU, or hard drive that cannot be resolved remotely.
- Remote office support: Hands and Feet support provides a local presence for companies with multiple offices, assisting with hardware rollouts, break/fix incidents, and on-premises device management without sending internal IT staff to each location.
- Data centre management: For companies using colocation facilities, this service eliminates the need for their own staff to be onsite for every minor hardware or connectivity issue.
- Network issues: While some network problems can be fixed virtually, troubleshooting faulty cables or physical network devices require a technician to be present to test and replace components.
- Specialised or legacy systems: Some systems, such as legacy servers or proprietary equipment, may not have robust remote management capabilities and require a physical presence for maintenance.
- Optimise Internal Resources and Ensure Business Continuity: By delegating basic onsite tasks to a third-party vendor, internal IT staff can focus on strategic, high-value projects. This ensures an internal team’s expertise is used where it matters most and minimises disruption during hardware failures. Hands and Feet support provides a rapid-response capability for emergencies like power failures or floods, ensuring business continuity.
Benefits of Hands and Feet Support
The adoption of hands and feet support offers numerous strategic advantages for businesses.
- Increased Agility: Respond quickly to onsite issues regardless of where IT assets are located. This agility is a key competitive advantage in a fast-paced market.
- Improved Efficiency: An in-house IT team is free from repetitive, non-strategic tasks, allowing them to focus on innovation and improving IT infrastructure.
- Cost Reduction: Eliminate the high costs associated with employee travel, including airfare, accommodation, and per diem expenses. This also avoids paying a senior engineer’s rate for a task that can be performed by a technician.
- Reliability: Gain a reliable onsite presence, ensuring that critical IT assets are always supported. This gives peace of mind, knowing a qualified technician is always within reach.
- Access to expertise: Companies gain on-demand access to a wider range of technical expertise without the cost of hiring and training specialised staff for every location.
- Scalability: As a business expands its data centre footprint or opens new branch offices, hands and feet services can scale to meet the increased demand for onsite support.
Key Considerations for Hands and Feet Support
Several other critical aspects are important for a business to understand when planning for or utilising these services. These factors affect everything from the service’s quality and cost to the overall security posture and strategic value for the organisation. A trusted partner, like Total IT Global, can help a business navigate these complexities by providing expertise in establishing clear SLAs, maintaining strict security protocols, and ensuring consistent communication.
Service level agreements (SLAs) and metrics
A vendor’s marketing often focuses on their capabilities, but what truly matters is what is guaranteed in the contract.
- Response vs. resolution time: An SLA for hands and feet support defines the guaranteed time for a technician to arrive onsite, known as the response time. Agreements also specify a resolution time—the period within which a problem is fixed. For mission-critical systems, it is essential to have a detailed SLA that defines and enforces fast resolution, not just arrival.
- Penalty clauses: Reputable providers will include penalty clauses in their SLAs that define the financial compensation a customer receives if the provider fails to meet the agreed-upon service levels. These clauses ensure accountability and protect the client from poor service delivery.
- Clear definition of service tiers: A thorough SLA will clearly define the tasks covered by each service tier and the associated costs, preventing surprise charges for tasks assumed to be basic but are billed as advanced.
Security and compliance
Handing over physical access to critical infrastructure requires trust and strict protocols.
- Technician vetting and security protocols: When choosing a provider, inquire about their vetting process for technicians. Ensure that their onsite personnel follow strict security procedures, such as ID checks, badge access, and escort policies while in sensitive areas.
- Chain of custody: For tasks involving sensitive data or hardware, such as hard drive replacement, it’s vital to have a clear and auditable chain of custody. This ensures that a technician’s handling of equipment follows strict protocols to maintain data security and regulatory compliance.
- Data sanitisation: In cases where old storage media is removed, ensure the provider has clear procedures for data sanitisation or secure disposal. This is critical for meeting compliance requirements and preventing data leaks.
Documentation and communication
For hands and feet support to be effective, clear communication and thorough documentation are essential.
- Runbooks and detailed instructions: Effective hands and feet support relies on the provider receiving clear, comprehensive instructions. Providing a “runbook” for common tasks—like a server reboot sequence or hardware replacement procedure—can eliminate guesswork and reduce errors.
- Communication channels: The contract should specify the communication channels and protocols for support requests. This can include a ticketing system or dedicated chat platform, ensuring a clear record of all interactions and instructions.
- Remote oversight and verification: For complex tasks, a client’s remote engineer often guides the onsite technician. The process can be facilitated by tools like cameras, smart-glasses, live-streaming, or screen-sharing to verify that tasks are being performed correctly.
Future considerations
The landscape of hands and feet support is evolving with technological advancements.
- Integration with managed services: Companies like Total IT Global offer hands and feet support as part of a broader managed services portfolio. This can provide a more integrated and seamless experience, with a single provider handling everything from remote monitoring to onsite interventions.
Conclusion
A physical presence is a necessity, not a choice. Hands and Feet support provides a pragmatic, cost-effective solution for managing physical hardware, freeing up internal teams, and ensuring business continuity. It is a fundamental service that bridges the gap between digital IT management tools and physical assets.
At Total IT Global, our skilled technicians act as trusted hands and feet on the ground, ready to deploy at a moment’s notice to ensure IT operations run smoothly, no matter where infrastructure resides.
