Most IBM i shops run on the knowledge of one or two administrators who have carried the system for decades, and the pipeline of experienced talent behind them is thin. Clear Technologies provides remote monitoring and managed administration for IBM i environments, delivered by senior specialists with more than 20 years on the platform as an IBM Platinum Business Partner. Whether you are supplementing your current staff or replacing a departing expert, your system stays covered, current, and secure.
IBM i has earned its reputation for reliability. The staffing model around it is another matter. If your administrator retired next quarter, or gave two weeks’ notice tomorrow, could your team keep backups verified, PTFs current, and message queues reviewed while searching a shrinking market for a replacement? Our remote services close that gap with daily monitoring, scheduled preventative maintenance, and lifecycle planning handled by specialists who do this work every day.
Clients typically spend about 40% less than the fully loaded cost of internal staffing, with coverage that never takes vacation and never gives notice.
Daily and weekly proactive monitoring of system health, storage, jobs, backups, and security, delivered under a monthly retainer. When something needs fixing, remediation is performed on a time-and-materials basis once you authorize it. The right fit for teams that want expert eyes on the system and responsive support behind them.
Everything in Option 1, plus monthly PTF application, security and backup audits, quarterly performance and disaster recovery reviews, annual DR testing, and lifecycle planning, all at a fixed monthly price. It functions as a fractional senior IBM i administrator for your team, with a Monthly Status Checkpoint Call to keep stakeholders informed.
Every business day we review system health and status, disk and storage utilization, critical jobs and subsystems, message queues, backup completion, key business applications, and security events. Problems get caught while they are still small.
Each week we analyze system logs and error trends, clean up spool files, monitor temporary storage growth, review user profiles and activity, and verify communications and network services. Routine upkeep that keeps small inefficiencies from compounding into outages.
Under Managed Remote Administration, each month brings PTF application and patch posture confirmation, security and compliance review, backup and recovery readiness audits, storage growth planning, journal and database maintenance, and a status checkpoint call with your stakeholders.
Quarterly, we review disaster recovery and high availability configurations, performance and capacity trends, and user access. Annually, we run a full DR test and deliver an OS upgrade and hardware roadmap along with a licensing and compliance review. Your environment gets a plan, not just a pulse. (Managed Remote Administration tier.)
The succession risk on this page has a longer argument behind it. Our whitepaper walks through why hiring another administrator usually rebuilds the same single point of failure, what coverage actually has to guarantee, and how a phased engagement model keeps support from ever starting on an unknown environment. Six pages, written for IBM i operations and IT leadership.
No form to fill out. Read it, forward it to whoever owns the risk, and call us when it lands.
Monitoring & Operational Support covers daily and weekly proactive monitoring, with remediation billed on a time-and-materials basis when you authorize it. Managed Remote Administration includes everything in Option 1 and adds monthly patching and audits, quarterly performance and DR reviews, annual DR testing, and lifecycle planning as an all-inclusive, fixed-price service. Think of Option 1 as expert eyes on your system, and Option 2 as a fractional senior administrator who owns it.
For most organizations, yes. A senior IBM i administrator runs $120K to $150K or more fully loaded, before accounting for training, turnover risk, vacation coverage, and the fact that one person cannot provide continuous coverage or expertise across every IBM i specialty. Our services deliver a full team of specialists for a fraction of that cost.
That is exactly the risk this service is built for. We can engage before a departure to document your environment and capture the system knowledge that usually lives in one person's head, or step in afterward to stabilize and take over administration. Either way, your coverage stops depending on a single resignation letter.
No. Our services plug into however you are already staffed. Many clients keep internal staff focused on applications and business projects while we handle system administration, monitoring, and maintenance. Others use us as full administrative coverage. The engagement scales to the level of coverage you actually need.
Nearly all monitoring, maintenance, and administration is performed over secure remote connections, which is what keeps the service cost-effective. We are based in Dallas, so when a project genuinely requires hands on hardware anywhere in Texas, we can be there.
With a 15-minute conversation about how you currently cover IBM i administration and where the gaps are. From there we typically recommend a discovery review of your environment, followed by a proposal matched to the coverage level you need. No obligation, and no pressure.
