I provide information technology and computer services relating to your computer systems and IT infrastructure. In practice that means I run them: the Windows and Linux environments your applications sit on, the hypervisors beneath those, the overlay and physical networks beneath that, and the storage all of it depends on. What you are buying is the span. Every layer stays with one engineer, so nothing falls into the seam between two of them.
01 / The main engagement model
A monthly agreement under which I take responsibility for the running of a defined part of your infrastructure. What that covers, in the same words that appear in my contracts and invoices:
How it is arranged. You tell me your current needs and priorities by email or messenger as work arises. I plan and perform the work at my own discretion, taking those priorities into account. Each month closes with a report of the work actually done and the hours it took, and that report is what the invoice is based on. If you prefer a ceiling, we agree a monthly budget in hours before the month starts; anything substantial is estimated against that budget and agreed with you before I begin, so you never find the limit after the fact.
02 / Where most engagements start
A defined piece of work with a written scope, a price and an end date.
What you are actually running, how it is configured, where the capacity is going, what is unmanaged, and what will break first. The result is an inventory and a written work plan used to operate and change that infrastructure. It is the starting point for the work itself rather than a report that sits on a shelf.
Compute, storage and network sizing for a planned platform, a migration or a growth forecast, with the numbers and the assumptions behind them written down.
Moving workloads between platforms, sites or clouds, with a change plan, a rollback path and the run-book that operations will use afterwards.
A new platform stood up and put into service: virtualisation, network virtualisation, infrastructure as code, remote access, backup and recovery. Built with whatever fits your environment and your licences rather than whatever I happen to like, and handed over with the pipelines and the documentation.
03 / Scope
Being clear about this saves everybody time.
One thing that is not a limitation: every engagement runs under a non-disclosure agreement, signed before we discuss anything specific about your systems. Nothing I learn inside a client's infrastructure leaves it, and no client is named or identified anywhere without their written consent.
This is an operating engineering practice, not a consultancy. I do not sell strategy decks, architecture reviews or advisory work as a separate deliverable. Explaining the reasoning behind what I build is part of the job and is not charged for separately, but the deliverable is always working infrastructure, working code or a written technical result, never advice on its own.
The column I take responsibility for has a top and a bottom. Following a fault up to the screen a user is complaining about is part of the job; supporting the machine it is displayed on is not. So: no application or web development, no design, no first-line help desk and no end-user support of any kind, which means no workstation support, no repair of computers, laptops or phones, and no setting up handsets or printers. That is a different job, done well by people who do it full time.
04 / Money
Ongoing work: from USD 70 per hour. Fixed-scope projects: from USD 90 per hour, or a total quoted before the work begins. The gap between the two covers the estimating risk: on a retainer we carry it together and the hours are visible as they are spent; on a fixed price I carry it alone. Within either, the rate depends on scope, the depth of access required and how much of my week the work reserves. It does not change mid-month and it is fixed in writing before anything starts.
Ongoing work is invoiced monthly in US dollars against a report of hours actually worked. A fixed-scope price may be revised during the work, but only by agreement of both parties and in writing before the extra work starts. Payment by bank transfer. Services are rendered remotely from Georgia.
05 / Tools
In the order the layers sit: from the environment your applications run on, down to the cabling. The last two run across all of it.