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  1. #1
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    What do you consider to be fully managed?

    Like the title says, from a customer point of view (if you are a customers looking for a fully managed server) or provider, if you happen to offer managed services.

    It would be very interesting to see how the opinions differ from the customer point of view vs the provider.

    If you can please describe estimated budget you expect to pay/cost for what you describe.

  2. #2
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    Fully managed really depends on what you are offering. You cannot say it is a fully managed VPS as people will assume that you can setup anything and everything on the VPS (Squid, zabbix etc ).

    On our website, we clearly state what all is included in Managed services and rest is on a best effort basis.
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  3. #3
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    Fully managed is basically there are support team that monitors your servers and gives you an uptime of 99.99%

  4. #4
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    For us:

    1. On each server
    - initial setup
    - initial securing
    - initial optimizing
    - data backup
    - on-going security
    - on-going optimization
    - software update
    - monitoring services every minute

    2. Infrastructure
    - having spare parts for hardware stuff, including servers, network gears
    - securing systems
    - keeping networks / ip addresses cleaned

    3. Services
    - helping customers to transfer data from old system to this new one
    - of course, 24/7 support with solutions, not only automated messages

    I would like to hear other ideas too.

    Thanks.

  5. #5
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    There's been a lot of threads on this in the past because this is such an subjective topic. The fact is that there is no text book definition of fully managed. It really depends on what you are paying, there are fully managed servers from $50 to $500 per month both with the same hardware.

    So first you have to decide what your budget is and what level of management you need, then compare based on that. All managed servers for $50 should have one set of expectations, whereas all managed servers for $500 should have a completely different set of expectations.

    Of course the basic concept of a managed server is that all the support aspects are taken care of for you, but there's a lot of different things to keep in mind. Some companies consider a managed server just backend software, others cover additional security and monitoring, others cover end user scripts, etc.

    There is no one-size fits all, every solution is different, and all have benefits/disadvantages. Everyone has to choose based on their own unique needs.
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  6. #6
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    Here is my expectations on a hoster:
    1. Initial meeting to identify customer needs/wants
    2. Initial hardware installation setup in DC.
    3. Initial OS installation
    4. Initial OS optimization
    5. Installation and optimization of 3rd party application.
    6. Setup of customer solution (eg. webpage)
    7. Load test of the solution to estimate how many visitors the webpage can handle and identify bottlenecks and where they will arise)
    8. Setup a maintenance plan and Identify what to monitor.
    9. Setup standard operating procedures for what actions to be taken for each alert generated by the monitoring system.
    10. Setup communication routines and gather information what the customer wants to be informed about (downtime, uptime etc)
    11. Weekly, Monthly meetings (depending on size)
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  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by locke815 View Post
    Fully managed is basically there are support team that monitors your servers and gives you an uptime of 99.99%
    Of what? Of the network, the server, or the end website?

    Its interesting that most point out the server, OS, hardware, etc, but you could have 100% of uptime on a server and your web apps still being down.

    Apache crashes, database error, etc. The customer only cares about the end results, not the layers that compose the service.

    Is there anyone that indeed makes an agreement with the customer to say "This is what we are going to make sure stays online" be it a Wordpress blog, a forum or a simple database connection.

    To manage a server can be a huge task, it can include security or not, monitoring or hands on server, or even programmers. I think there is no straight line defined and it all depends on price. Well not really, some more expensive providers actually give almost the same as cheaper one because some just have more experience in doing admin tasks and do them in less time while others have to pay more expensive staff.

  8. #8
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    I consider it to be a company or team handling everything in regards to the hosting solution up to designing the code. Essentially that company/team would be an extension of the client's team and handle everything server side.

    I think it's dumb when companies offer a "fully managed" solution and then they just do OS updates...
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  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Motiv View Post
    I think it's dumb when companies offer a "fully managed" solution and then they just do OS updates...
    +1. However, I have seen multiple advertises like that Customers only know when they have trouble with their data.

  10. #10
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    From a customer point of view:

    - installing the server/vps, keep it secure and up to date
    - installing custom software on the server. I don't mean weird stuff like scripts or content management systems, I mean linux modules, packages etc
    - installing the control panel and configure it to work as expected
    - being able to troubleshoot any issues with the control panel
    - troubleshoot customer's issues as long as they're not programming issues with their own scripts
    - tweaking the server to get optimal performance (mysql, apache...stuff like this)

    Unexperienced users might need help with basic stuff that can be done via the control panel (creating email addresses, databases, setting up domains etc) and that should be included in a fully managed plan

  11. #11
    Fully managed means that the company will setup all the thing.
    And if any client has some problem so company will solve.

  12. #12
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    And they make a cup of coffee for you too
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  13. #13
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    fully managed should be very close to actually hiring a systems administrator to manage the system for you, usually cutting support short of supporting the client's actual application itself, unless otherwise previously negotiated.
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  14. #14
    Personally, as a customer, I would expect the strict minimum of a fully managed service to include:

    - Providing a clear and exhaustive list of the services provided and not provided as part of the fully managed agreement (in order to avoid bad surprises and misunderstandings)
    - 24/7 email and phone support
    - All hardware related issues taken care of
    - OS patches
    - Full server backup at least on an hourly basis (and of course ensuring that transactional services, such as databases, can always be restored in a consistent state)
    - Monitoring and alerts by email or phone (depending on the severity) whenever something goes wrong
    - Quick and good communication whenever something goes wrong. Good follow up after any incident including a detailed explanation of what happened and what steps have / will be taken to prevent the problem from happening again

    That would be all the minimum service. Of course there are many more services that could be added on top of this, although the costs might quickly skyrocket:
    - Provision of anti-virus and HIDS software
    - Provision of a dedicated hardware firewall and other hardware security appliances
    - Regular security audits by a reputable security firm
    - Making sure that the hardware is fully redundant
    - Assistance in case of DOS and DDOS attacks (and any other security issues really)
    - Some consulting time with an experienced engineer to discuss scalability, performance or security issues

  15. #15

    * I think

    It should uptime of 99.99% ,it is important.

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by ishan View Post
    Fully managed really depends on what you are offering. You cannot say it is a fully managed VPS as people will assume that you can setup anything and everything on the VPS (Squid, zabbix etc ).
    .
    Hmm even on unmanaged i get the occasional question to install stuff like jira and such. Always fun :p

    But yes I believe most people don't know the diffrence between managed and unmanaged.

    :-)
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  17. #17
    As a developer I am responsible for every bit of code I write (and also libraries I compile into my program.) That's exhausting enough. I want someone else to be responsible for the whole rest of the stack from the servlet container and webserver through the db and jvm and down to the bare metal and network.

    I realize that's expensive but anything else leaves me as a semi-sys admin, which is not what I signed up for.

  18. #18
    I mostly agree with bradley. I am a software developer and a SQL programmer. I have enough to contend with dealing with just those things. I am not a sysadmin, and would want a fully managed system to encompass those things out of the scope of software development (ie. hardware, monitoring, backups, uptime, installs, upgrades, etc).

    When I buy a car, I only need to know to bring it in for scheduled service. I'm not required to actually perform said services on it.

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