Enioy this update from Ken "The Virus Doctor" Dwight who is working with fellow SMB Naiton member Tim Loney to do good - Editor
In response to Hurricane Harvey and the flooding it caused in the Houston area, many Houstonians wanted to do anything they could to help those individuals and businesses whose homes and/or offices were damaged or destroyed by the flood waters. One of those concerned citizens was Tim Loney, CEO of Solutions IS, and a Managed Service Provider with headquarters in Houston, Texas. Loney
launched The MSP Navy, with a mission of providing essential IT Support services to those in need.
Figure 1: Tim Loney (L) and Ken Dwight (R) have formed a fast partner-to-partner friendship because of the MSP Navy in Houston
It didn’t take long for Tim to identify one such business. It was an existing client whose office was only a few miles from Solutions IS. That building was badly flooded, and their building was not accessible. Even with their offices on the 4th floor and all the equipment was in prefect shape, they were unable to occupy the building due to health reasons. Fortunately, they were an MSP client of Solutions IS, so Tim and his team had prepared the client for various disaster scenarios – including flooding.
Within 3 days of the loss, Solutions IS had converted the Entertainment Room in their office to a temporary office for the client and their staff. They had set up 25 workstations, connected them to the data center in the same building, and relocated their server to provide the connectivity.
The client was able to run their business from their temporary quarters at Solutions IS for two weeks, while they were awaiting approval to reoccupy their office space. All things considered, this was a very happy ending to a catastrophic situation that could have easily put them out of business.
On a smaller scale, Tim enlisted Ken Dwight, President of The Virus Doctor, a break/fix shop and creator of the Virus Remediation Training workshops for IT Support techs, to join the cause. Working mostly with small businesses and even some home computer users, Dwight also saw his share of clients whose computing resources were lost or damaged.
Ken helped several clients relocate and set up their computers and Internet connections in their new quarters. One of these clients had stored important data files and photos on an external hard drive that was washed away in the floodwaters. The client retrieved the drive, but Ken strongly advised against trying to use it before it had been tested by a professional data-recovery firm.
Ken sent the drive to DriveSavers, who disassembled it in a clean-room environment, replaced the read/write heads, cleaned the platters, and restored the data to a thumb drive. It was not an inexpensive process, but the client was grateful for the expertise that made it possible for him to recover those files. That experience also led to a discussion of proper backup procedures to follow in the future!
So, that’s a taste of what The MSP Navy has been doing in the Houston area. Thanks to Admiral Tim Loney for christening this loosely-knit but dedicated organization!
Figure 2: Ken and I recently enjoyed quality time together at the Spiceworks' SpiceWorld conference in Austin, TX! Ken gave a couple speeches and was a darling with the media.