heymarkreeves/gist:1fd9ba158694b6cc81d3

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    As a follow up to my tweet that started a discussion today (https://twitter.com/circa1977/status/520207883783663616), here's what I'm looking for:


A skilled DevOps team that's available to book for on-call slots. DevOps in my mind are different than SysAdmins. They don't balk at getting into PHP (or other) code as necessary. They know how the platforms we're using work.


High-availability: These folks are going to be getting alerts at 2:00am or on weekends. That's part of the job. A part of the job that I'm not up for. That's expensive, and making this affordable is a big part of the challenge.


High-reliability: The first time this team has to escalate an issue back to me while I'm somewhere with my family or sleeping, it's no longer worry-free and I'm not getting what I paid for. They have to be able to handle this stuff.


Non-competitive: I don't want to hire another dev shop that's also booking the same sorts of projects I do. They need to be focused on knowing the apps, understanding real world code scenarios, but not creeping in on project work.


It's a specialized team behind the team. It's not another design or dev shop expanding their services. It needs to be focused on this stuff as a means of instilling confidence and being responsive.


I think baseline fees for standing check-in calls, ramp-up and familiarity are fair, and then I'd like to book on-call time. I.e., I'm going away for 5 days, you watch the servers and cover for me. I have a team that can handle, and escalate, client requests if necessary. The DevOps team might get emails from my team or might respond to alerts from monitoring software.
The biggest challenge to this in my mind is making it affordable while offering a high-degree of quality. This is high-touch service because you have to know your customers' apps and how they do things. I do not want to design this business or entertain being involved in this business at all. It's a huge challenge waiting to be solved, though.
Where am I coming from? I consider Clearbold to be a consultancy. I provide strategy, design and development services and like to have ongoing client relationships with hosting or site support. I work busy days and shut down on nights and weekends. I do not carry my iPhone around with me in the evening or keep it by my bedside. I do not want pings at night if a server is down. I do not want to have my iPhone on if I'm camping with my family. I do not want to trade services with similar firms to cover each other, because I do not assume nights & weekends work at all.
Update (2014-10-09)

I guess I couldn't help thinking about how this would work a bit more:
I think an experienced team of 3 could get this up and running and generate sustainable revenue through a mix of retainers and hourly billing.
The team would be comprised of 1 client liaison/project manager-type, who would work M-F, 9-5, and 2 techs.
The other two team members would rotate through 48-hour on/off shifts. During a 48-hour shift, they'd have to be near a computer+internet connection. After their 48-hour shift, they'd have 48 hours off. This ends up being a 4-day rotating work week, assuming 10-hour days + keeping the "pager" on them.


Week
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat


1
X
X
O
O
X
X
O


2
O
X
X
O
O
X
X


3
O
O
X
X
O
O
X


4
X
O
O
X
X
O
O


5
X
X
O
O
X
X
O


The team and clients should be in the same time zone.