If Your Tech Moves To Malta, Will You Be Clueless In Columbia?

By Susan Ellsworth



You paid for them. The business name in the URL of the browser that takes customers to your web site. Your web site code. Your

e-mail accounts. Access to your network server, workstations, equipment and systems. Think you have administrative control over them? Think again.

You may have innocently given away control of your technology to technical services providers. Suppose the relationship between you and that provider ends suddenly. Your tech goes out of business and moves to Malta. You, the business owner, could be Helpless in Hyattstown and Clueless in Columbia. And you would have done it to yourself.

You probably paid a systems integrator to install a server, create user accounts on it, and connect workstations, printers and whatnot to it. You paid that tech to install a major piece of software on which your company depends. You paid to provide the security of a backup system, anti-virus and firewall. You paid for it all.

But you're a "big picture" person. It's not your responsibility to know or manage the details of your technology, right? Wrong.

What will you do when your original systems integrator gets out of the business and leaves town without giving you a list of passwords and settings on your network? What will you do when you have to get service and support for your network? Add a new server to your growing network? You will call another systems integrator, of course. The new technician will ask you for the master account name and password, or other technical details. Do you have a list of these details? If you don't, getting service from that second technician will be a lot more expensive and time-consuming than you had ever thought.

It's not because the second tech is out to rip you off. It's because the technician legitimately needs the information to do the job. And you do not have it.

Minimally, the systems integrator you paid to set up your network should give you a rather extensive list of network passwords and settings. You personally may never use them, but you need to have them. You should also have documentation of all the software and hardware on your network. Here is a minimum list of information you as a business owner should have available at all times.

- The user name and master account password for creating and deleting users on your network

- All user name/passwords needed for access to hardware devices such as routers

- The user name/master password to access and run your backup system

- The user name/master password to configure major software applications, especially if your company's financial success depends on that application being up and running

- Full contact information for every computer hardware vendor and every software vendor

- The serial number for every piece of hardware and software installed by you or your systems integrator on your network

- The version number of every piece of hardware and software on your network. This includes the operating systems as well as applications

- The installation Product Key for software requiring one. This is not the same as a serial number.

- For Microsoft Open License products, the Open License Order Confirmation, which contains the authorization number, license agreement number and end of maintenance coverage

- Warrantee information

- A list of all your TCP/IP settings, whether you know what they mean or don't. Examples include your public IP addresses, your LAN IP addresses and the IP address of your gateway. Don't be concerned if you do not know what these numbers are about. Your next tech will probably need to know them.

You found out that you had to buy a domain name in order to advertise your business on the Internet. So you looked up a web site developer who, coincidentally, knows how to register your domain name. Whether your web site name is Microsoft.com, Dell.com or Baylights.com, you have a decided interest in maintaining control of your domain name.

The trouble is that some resellers of domain name registrations also have an interest in maintaining control over you and your business. Sometimes the bad guy is your trusted web site developer. His total package is registration of your domain name, developing your web site and getting e-mail accounts for you - but not necessarily giving you control over your domain name, which may allow him to sell it or assign management of the name to a different domain name server. And not necessarily telling you the passwords you need in order for someone else to create new e-mail accounts or delete old ones in case the relationship between the two of you goes awry.

On the other hand, there are the good guys. They are the registrars and resellers who consistently hand administrative control of the domain name they register to the business owner. Before making any changes to information regarding this domain name, the technical contact will get permission from the administrative contact - the owner of the domain name.

There are other ways in which your technology services provider can keep control of your access to what rightfully belongs to you. It's frequently done in the guise of not overburdening you, a big picture person, with "unnecessary detail." In the end, it's the way unscrupulous technical services providers control what rightfully belongs to you and with you. It's the way they take away your freedom to choose a different provider if you decide to change the relationship. Choose a technical services provider that keeps you in the driver's seat by handing you the keys. Then drive your business.



Susan Marsh Ellsworth is a business software consultant for Pequod Systems. She can be reached at susan.ellsworth@ pequodsystems.com or at 301-445-6206.