You only need one instance of a less skilled partner and it costs you much more than you saved. Pay it cheap, pay it twice! We engage KTI, because, they have the bandwidth, skill and especially personal commitment to make sure what they are responsible for is always working correctly. Each team member takes it personally if something is not right. It’s not something that the “rest of the business” will sort out. They deal with it themselves and follow through until it’s resolved.
We task KTI to manage that part of our business and they do that VERY well. They are a hell of a lot smarter than a lot of the many partners we work with which provides extra comfort as well.
The key to making this all work well is to allow KTI to be your advisor in looking after your network. They have to be engaged as part of your business. By looking after all the Linux servers, routers, and switches, KTI runs the whole food chain including servers, software and scripts, security, backups and documentation. Having a computer guy look after only a part of the chain would make it very hard to deliver quality end to end and hold them accountable. Now we have no weak links, and there is never any finger pointing.
At the end of the day, KTI manages and controls things so we don’t have to, so we can focus on what we do best. We sleep a lot better at night as well!