Where it used to be considered an add-on luxury at times, remote hands services have become a staple of colocation facilities and data center service contracts. Adoption trends have pointed upward as the positive track record for remote hands grows. This means tenants are more comfortable with using the service. As quarantine measures surged, so did the implementation of greater remote hands work. This should not be viewed as a new trend, but as an acceleration of a pre-existing one. What’s so great about remote hands services? Glad you asked.

Remote Hands Means Better Response Time

Maybe you need some visual verification for inventory purposes or to better understand certain hardware deployments. With remote hands, you can get immediate feedback, whether it be a simple image to see which lights are blinking or a full assessment of your setup. Or maybe your needs are more urgent, in the form of a big, failure, or attack. Every minute of downtime sacrifices valuable revenue, not to mention relationships. When that dreaded 3:00 a.m. incident strikes, experienced techs address and resolve the problem immediately while you sleep.

Reduced Traffic and Travel

If your IT staff isn’t located near your network equipment, minor alterations or routine maintenance – say, performing a stress test or replacing a worn-out component – becomes a major headache. Remote hands teams are on-site and ready to go; no need for frequent trips in and out for basic tasks. Even if your internal team is nearby, high-value IT personnel are better utilized adding value to your business by refining and improving your services instead of troubleshooting everyday issues. Reducing travel also means maximizing your existing talent to work on other key initiatives.

Flexibility

Having an on-site team means your IT operations can scale and shift far easier. Deciding to upgrade or swap out hardware becomes a breeze when remote hands can stack, install and cable the equipment (and test it for bugs and combability). The same goes for visual inspection, reboots and resets of your equipment, reseating of optics and even running diagnostics. Scaling with remote hands removes a lot of variables so you can focus on the nitty-gritty of your strategy.

Delegating certain tasks to an on-site smart hands team has become an eminently viable strategy for both practical and financial reasons. As networks become more complex, remote hand services within data center infrastructures will continue to grow in importance and prevalence –  especially during times when travel is restricted and trips to the data center are not as convenient as they once were.