ColdFusion Support

[dkhorne61]

Hi

I have inherited a Cold Fusion website and am interested in engaging an external consultant to help me manage and maintain the site. I have trawled the web but have not found any Sydney based consultants.

Does anyone have any recommendations?

cheers

David

[Dave Watts]

Does your support need to be based in Sydney? My company provides support for ColdFusion sites all over the US, and we're often not in the same timezone as our customers, and things are working out pretty well for them.

Dave Watts, Fig Leaf Software

[dkhorne61]

Hi Dave,

At this stage I am concerned only for timely response to issues and updates. At present it is supported by the person who created it but, as a one person show, he is hard to tie down and get good response times from. If you can guarantee a reasonable turn around time that would be great. Could you send me some details regarding your services, costs and references.

cheers

David

[carl type3]

Hi David,

You could try a post on google group cfaussie.

Google Groups

Have found international CF dealings good so not trying to do anyone out of business.

HTH, Carl.

[dkhorne61]

Thanks Carl - Will do.

[Dave Watts]

Hi, David!

This is going to sound kind of odd. I was offering our own company as an example of successful remote support, but I wasn't really looking for business specifically. Apparently, my brain is not that good at putting two and two together. That said ...

Our typical support rate is USD 185.00 per hour. We have three different support packages which provide different response rate time requirements, but they're primarily aimed at infrastructure support customers - we are an Amazon Web Services partner and have quite a few customers on there. Basically, you purchase a number of support hours and use those hours over the course of the year. If you use them up, you can purchase another bucket of support hours. These buckets start, I think, at one hundred hours - we're not really looking for small customers who might have one or two questions a month. I think all of our support packages include response times within one day during business hours. We have several extremely qualified CF developers.

The cfaussie thing sounds like a good idea, though! I'd heard about it a long time ago, but had forgotten about it.

Dave Watts, Fig Leaf Software

[dkhorne61]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the clarification. Most likely my mistake – I misread your comment. I do not usually go onto the discussion boards for something like this ;-).

Our website, while old, is critical to the client and carries penalties if certain KPIs are not met. Hence my desire for reliable contactable support. I have had some experience with remote support and not all of it good – unfortunately.

And, unfortunately, we have an infrastructure team and do not have plans for moving to the cloud. And while we are a big company, our needs in this area may not be great. Given that, if I cannot find someone, I’ll get back to you.

cheers

David Horne

Systems Developer

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IVE Group Ltd

Building D, 350 Parramatta Road,

Homebush NSW 2140

Direct: +61 2 8020 4462

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(ASX:IGL)

www.ivegroup.com.au<http://www.ivegroup.com.au>

[Charlie Arehart]

Hi, David. I had been watching this thread the past few days. You might want to clarify something. I had interpreted your first few notes as indicating that you needed remote *development* support, but I'm starting to wonder if perhaps you mean remote CF *administration* support. Since I don't do the former, I was waiting to see how things played out here.

But if by "meeting KPIs" you are indeed referring to your app and server's availability and performance, and if by "updates" you mean to CF, the JVM, etc and not code, then that is indeed something that I can help with.

And not only do I not have any minimum, but my discounted retainer rate is a minimum of only 10 hours (good for a year). I also have a satisfaction guarantee, so you won't pay for time you don't value. You can learn more (including my rates, remote support approach, and more) at the consulting page at carehart.org

But I will add also that whether you need app dev or troubleshooting consulting, I keep a list each of many companies offering both types, as categories at my cf411.com site. See specifically cf411.com/cfassist.

http://carehart.org/cf411/#cfassist

[dkhorne61]

Hi Charlie,

Thanks for the comment.

Part of my problem is that the site had been given to me out of the blue, with no description or documentation, so I am uncertain at this stage what support I need. I am a website developer and, given enough time and headspace, I could get across it. However I have neither so I am looking for someone to partner with in the process.

As far as the development/administration dicotomy, I suspect (now that I know a little more) that it is more administration than development of functionality but an understanding of the way the system works technically will be important as that administration includes managing the database and making changes at that level. Also the requirement for up-time and availability is such that I need someone who can technically troubleshoot issues as they arise. Hence while there may not be any development work as such, a technical understanding of the site is important.

Given that, I am still in the process of gathering information about the site and will get back to you when I am ready to start talking about it.

cheers

David