Courting Disaster? A MainBrain Technical Assessment May Be Your Best Defense

By Brad McCoy, MainBrain | Phone: 703-472-4781

MainBrain is all about Technical Assessments, IT Project Management, Managed Services, Network Design, IT Consulting, Network Monitoring, Server Virtualization, Mac and PC Network Support and Disaster Recovery Planning. But in this case, add “Disaster- Waiting-To-Happen Prevention” to the list.

This client is a boutique litigation firm led by two highly experienced trial attorneys supported by a dedicated group of creative and energetic attorneys and assistants. Based in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, the firm represents clients in litigation matters in the mid-Atlantic region in Virginia, the District of Columbia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. They are very good at helping clients when they’re in trouble. But when I learned that it was taking their office computers twenty minutes to boot up, something told me they had troubles of their own.

I went to meet their office manager and she told me she called their IT guy one day about their email being down and he said, “I’m not going to be able to get over there until tomorrow morning” How does any company function without email these days? I asked her. It turned out that their IT guy worked full time for the Army. They agreed to hire us to perform a technical assessment and give them a complete report on their current system.

We do assessments for our clients almost everyday. But when Craig Kabis, one of our top technicians, and I ventured into the basement of the company’s office to check out their servers, we were amazed. There was a sprinkler system over the servers which is a disaster waiting to happen. And it got worse. As we continued our assessment, we found lots of other issues, not the least of which was that their back up system was not functioning at all and the senior partner at the firm did not have any type of anti-virus protection on his computer.

Based on the report we prepared for them, the firm agreed to a Managed Services Agreement and we went to work to address the nightmare we’d found. With MainBrain, they now have responsive support, best practices guidelines in place and have the benefit of monthly reviews that allow them to plan effectively going forward.

Now I’m happy to report that their network is working at optimum speed, their email is reliable, they finally have a data back-up system, they have virus protection, and they’ve upgraded their software and hardware. But best of all, the firm can now rest easier knowing that their network is safe, reliable and always monitored.