If you are using an outsourced support company to handle your server administration I recommend periodically having a system admin from another company or for that matter an independent one take a look at your servers.

I had outsourced taking care of my servers and recently found out that they were badly misconfigured after a real system admin took a look.

Just thought I'd mention it would be a good idea so people don't someday find out major problems down the road.

In my experience, it all depends on who you outsource with (and your own level of knowledge). Understandably, a total novice to the administration process is probably more suited to getting a second opinion when it comes to the standards of their systems, because business-people are sometimes all too happy to take un-educated clients for a ride.

I would recommend getting other peoples opinions beforehand and asking the support company for information about which other client's systems they administer. There should always be someone you can get a second opinion from...but try and get it before you let the company get their dirty paws on your beloved PC's...

~Equinox

If you can afford it - an external auditor of your systems can be a good thing in general. But no matter which way you go - proper research of a business and good screening process to determine their knowledge and expertise is well worth the time and the money.

Christoph

Unless this is assigned to a well proven company, I would never trust my servers to another company. You need to take extra care in this case as it is about YOUR business.

Don't just bump into an offer that just looks amazing. The other thing that's worth mentioning is that in this scenario, the admin company can also find a way to contact and interact with your customers. How can you be certain that they don't also run a web hosting company and try to get business from it?

Ok they might not be obviously trying to get your customers, but given they know what problems there are with your service, they could send a spam message which could hit them where it hurts... (if you know what I mean).

If you need help, there are soem good 3rd party admins out there. There are also alot of part time admins who are self tought and really can't do much more than any other noob when it comes to a major issue.

I wouldn't recomend utilizing an outsourced company unless the business was outsourced and signed an NDA and a contract -stating the business you are dealing with will not make any major changes to the server without prior notification.

I am simply partnered with a friend who lives across the country. When a customer orders, they are not promised 24/7 support and it is stated clearly.

I see it all the time, someone hires me as an admin or to do a one time job on their server and the place has nothing done as far as security goes. When you tell them everything that was wrong or just wasn't done they always shocked. "You mean I was paying that other guy to do nothing all this time!"

Weired never had any of this problem with our clients

May be they are doing their level best, when some other system admin look, they see some problem. This can happen in reverse too. Not every system admin is 100% perfect. But you take a newbie sys admin, it will be different story.