For organization, remote office and branch office(ROBO)deployments add a certain level of complexity to IT operations。 ROBO deployments change the type of solution a company may need to implement, as well as the planning around supporting and maintaining the remote office (and all the equipment they may have)

How do we do IT?

There are numerous considerations that have to be made when designing and selling a solution meant for a company with remote operation, below are a few examples:

- Is the ROBO site eaily geographically available for visti?

-Can we host equipment/hardware at the site?

-What's involved with sending an engineer on-site?

-How can we economically provide backup and disaster recovery to the site?

-Can we schedule quarterly or annual visits to the site for mainteance ?

-what requirements does the customer have for the specific site?

-How will we support user at the ROBO site?

As you can see,with only naming just a few of the considerations it can become quite complex. From this, we have to design a solution,sell the solution and implement the solution, and finally support the solution for customer, This often requires an on-stie implementation phase at the ROBO site ,as well as scheduled maintenance visits.

The solution

When designing the solution,we need to make sure that everthing the customer expects from theirs IT system is available to them in an efficient and safe manner. Customers expect data to be available on fly, at lightning speeds, and we can often deliver that .

Whether it's the hardware or software,we implement many technologies that ease in the maintenance ,support ,and upkeep of the customer site ,We can remotely connect to  the servers,computers,switches,and the networking equipment to collect data, troubleshoot issues, and resolve problems, because of redundancies and certain technologies,we can log in even when critical system have failed.

When designing solution for our customers we take into account what actions and operations will be required from day to day running ,as well as emergencies and disaster

Redundancies

For customers with ROBO deployments,we often make sure to have a minimun set of redundancies in theirs IT environment

this allows us to troubleshoot their environment in the event something goes wrong and also allow them to continue working (as if nothing happened) to reduce downtime and lost revenue, We can then troubleshot and correct the problem remotely, or if hardware failure occurred, everthing will continue to work and function until a scheduled visit to replace the faulty equipment occurs.

Backup and disaster recovery

There is no best way to provide backup and disaster recovery for ROBO sites, as the solution used always depends on the unique requirement of the customer. 

some examples of scenarios:

-Backup and DR handled locally at the site(and taken off-site by designated person)

-Backup and DR handled lcoally, then replicated over the WAN VPN to corporate HQ data center

-Backup and DR direct over the WAN VPN to corporate HQ

-Backup and DR over the WAN to serivce provider data center

In some simpler deployments, when using technologies like VDI ore remote desktop service ,we don't actually need any backup or DR at the ROBO sites due to the fact that no data resides there, in these situations,all resouces are hosted at the corporate HQ

we take all of the customer's requirement into consideration and factor them in when desgining and selling a ROBO solution

Security

When it comes to ROBO deployments there are numerous security concerns that must be addressed. Thies goes for both physical security at the site, as well as virtual security (cybersecurity).

From the physical site point of view,there are some of the concerns:

-Physical security of server and networking equipment

-Physical security of storage (whether internal to server ,or SAN/NAS)

-Physical security of the backup and DR system

-Physical security of the domain controller (if present)

We don't want anyone stealing equipment or stealing data, This especially holds true for domain controllers because if one is stolen, it could be used to learn the network layout,security vulnerabilites, and even be used to modify the active directory contents at HQ ,if the offender were to power it backup and connect it after exploiting .

Another aspect is virtual security, cybersecurity, Cybersecurity involves firewall, antivirus, endpoint protection,intrusion prevention, and more. when it comes to cybersecurity, there are some of the concerns:

-Site-to-Site VPN security(lock down connection between HQ and ROBO)

-Mitigate and monitor threats,including those orginating both from the WAN and ROBO sites

-Decide whether to perform web content filtering (AV) at each individual office firewall,or handle it all from HQ firewall

-Remote access policies(users VPN access: connect to HQ or their assigned ROBO)

-What technologies do we use and incorporate to mitigate threat sepcific to our network design and layout

-How can we adapt new technologies to automate and further protect the environment(such as VDI,cloud,or others)

Both physical and vitural security affects considerations in what and how many servies we actually will host at the specific site or the corporate hearquarters, this is always a fine balancing and between performance ,security and capabilities.

Supporting users

On the of most important aspects of ROBO deployment is remotely supporting and keeping users happy, if a user can not work or access the data and system they need,what's the point of all this ?

We make sure to implement solutions that use AI and automation to keep the remote systems online and running, We also use remote support technologies (via managed services monitoring and management system)to be able to remotely connect and remotely spport uesrs

in most cases our customer are up and running with no issues because of our pro-active managed services offering ,however in the rare evet support is needed we can often resolve the users problem in minutes even without having to interrupt the user

Scheduled maintenance visits

While we try to design solutions that automate as much as possible to reduce on-site visits to remote locations ,regular scheduled maintenance visits are still required.

-Pro-actively replace equipment according to our life cycle policy

-Clean equipment (servers, SANs,NAS,network equipment)

-Perform a visual inspection to look for damage ,issues,potential problems, dust ,etc,

-Perform hardware upgrades and migrations

-Perform software upgrade and migrations

-Meet with remote office management to discuss concerns,plans for growth business continuity

-Test the backup and disaster recovery solution

These visits may be performed monthly ,quartly,semi-annually, or annually depending on the solution and technologies in place .performing these visits allow us to keep the customer up and running efficiently with little or no downtime at all