IT support & managed IT · Hamburg Managed IT with one person you always deal with.
I provide ongoing IT support for companies in Hamburg: helpdesk, monitoring, patch management, backup checks, documentation and reporting. For companies without their own IT as full support, for in-house IT teams as a complement.
When IT is looked after on the side
Without an IT department of your own, support often ends up with one person who actually does something else. Updates get postponed, backups go unchecked, faults only surface when nobody can work any more. And when the contact keeps changing, a lot of context is lost. With environments that have grown over time it helps if the person at the other end does not have to start from scratch with every ticket.
What ongoing support means
IT that is genuinely operated: monitored, maintained, secured and documented, with contractually agreed response times and one person who explains decisions and keeps an eye on what comes next.
What IT support covers.
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Helpdesk and support
Reachable for faults and questions, remotely and on site in and around Hamburg when needed.
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Monitoring and alerting
Monitoring of servers, network, devices and backups. Many problems are spotted before staff notice them in their daily work.
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Patch and update management
Keeping operating systems, applications and firmware current, under control and documented.
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Backup and recovery
Monitored backups for on-premises systems and Microsoft 365, optionally with a copy on my servers in German data centres and with restore tests.
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Endpoint and security operations
Ongoing support for Windows and macOS workstations: endpoint protection, firewall, device management, software deployment and security policies.
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Onboarding and offboarding
Accounts, devices, permissions and telephony for joiners and leavers, following a fixed process.
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Asset, licence and contract management
An overview of devices, software licences and mobile, landline and internet contracts, as a partner of Telekom, Vodafone and Telefónica. I regularly compare Microsoft 365 licences with actual usage so that no licences are paid for unused.
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Documentation and reporting
Up-to-date IT documentation you can access, with regular reports on incidents, updates and open items. Optionally also a monthly security report on your Microsoft 365 tenant, available in the customer portal.
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IT roadmap and support for in-house IT
A regular review of what comes next. For companies with their own IT: a second opinion, project support, cover during absences or specialist topics.
How support works
I usually bill support by the hour or as a monthly flat fee. My monitoring and maintenance system runs on every supported device, requests come in through a ticket system, and with some clients I am on site on fixed days. I keep devices and licences in asset management.
Documentation lives in BookStack or in a knowledge base running at the client’s own site, and you have access to it at any time. In regular planning meetings we discuss what comes next. There is cover for holidays and illness. My support relationships usually run for years; one agency, for example, I have supported since 2018. I currently look after 16 companies on an ongoing basis.
What I do not take on
Emergency-only support. If you only call when something is on fire, I cannot give you dependable IT, because that requires knowing and maintaining the environment.
I recommend quarterly restore tests for backups. They are a separate order that I point out explicitly, because a backup is only worth something once a restore has been tested. Clients who switch to me from another provider usually do so because of response times or expertise.
Tools for day-to-day operations.
Tools for operations, monitoring and documentation.
- Tactical RMM
- An open-source platform for remote support, monitoring, patch management and automation, self-hosted.
- Snipe-IT
- Open-source asset management for devices, licences and contracts.
- Sophos Central
- Central management of endpoint protection and firewalls, with alerting.
- Intune & Entra ID
- Device and identity management for Windows and macOS as part of day-to-day operation.
- BookStack
- Central, versioned documentation of your environment that you can access at any time.
- Zammad & Jira
- Ticket systems through which requests come in and are handled traceably.
How I take over an existing environment.
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01
Onboarding
Inventory, documentation, handover of credentials and open items.
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02
Stabilise
Bringing monitoring, updates, backups and security to a defined state.
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03
Operation
An ongoing service with agreed response times, fixed processes and reporting.
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04
Further development
A regular review: what should be modernised, what is coming up?
Questions about IT support.
Your question isn't here? Write to me directly.
Yes. Scope, response and resolution times are agreed contractually and set down in writing. I do not promise anything on a website that is not in the contract.
Support from the person who planned or took over and documented your environment. Decisions are explained, not just executed, and developing the environment further is part of the service.
Yes. I complement in-house IT on topics where there is no time or specialist knowledge to spare day to day, and I hand knowledge over rather than building dependency.
Usually by the hour or as a monthly flat fee, depending on what we agree. A block of hours is the exception. The record of work done is always there to check.
Documentation and credentials belong to you. When taking over from another provider, onboarding is structured and leaves no gap in operations. How such a change of provider runs as a project is described under projects.
Looking for one person to talk to instead of a call centre?
Send me a couple of lines about it, or just call. You reach me directly, no call centre.