ICE Consulting: Performance-Driven IT Infrastructure Services

Uzair Sattar, CEO

The advent of IT has made conspicuous and remarkable changes in every aspect of life, and its significance cannot be ignored. Biotech and life sciences are not an exception to this paradigm shift where IT is helping businesses to run their operations smoothly and facilitate faster scientific discoveries. But it has its own specific IT requirements from large-scale data management to high performance computing (HPC) to cloud network and systems security. Enter ICE Consulting, an organization that has unmatched experience in providing managed IT services to small- and medium-sized companies including biotech and life sciences firms. They design, implement, and manage secured network and system infrastructure to offer performance-driven results for its clients. Here are the facets of ICE Consulting’s technological finesse, according to the company’s CEO, Uzair Sattar.

Origin and Trends

ICE Consulting was founded in 1996 as a managed services provider (MSP) in IT. We have evolved and grown our expertise by educating our team on the latest technologies and then deploying solutions live within our own ‘in-house’ environments to best determine the pros and cons of an approach. Our engineers get familiar with the in-depth functionalities of the software and solutions, and this helps us to serve our clients better. Cloud computing has played an enormous role in the whole IT spectrum, but earlier, companies relied on their individual servers and hesitated to get into virtualization. And now, with companies trying to seek more cloud presence, there are newer opportunities as they don’t have the knowledge on how to use the technology efficiently and securely. With the lack of internal cloud experts at most companies today, they often don’t understand the necessity of security and keeping their servers and systems protected. We evaluate their infrastructure and help them implement and maintain a cloud strategy.

Onboarding Process

First, we conduct an assessment of the infrastructure of our clients and based on that, we give them a proposal.

We have evolved and stayed on top by educating our team on the latest technologies and then deploy it in live environments

We provide our solutions in two formats—In one of the managed services, we give a fixed price for managing the IT Infrastucture based on the number of IT equipment in their environment. In the second approach, we give a variable expense, and the advantage is the customer pays on the basis of the hours of service utilized. Once the proposal is accepted, the onboarding process follows depending on the IT services they have been using. If they have another MSP that they are not happy with or already have an internal expert, we try our best to combine all the knowledge. In the absence of such cases, we identify and map the network topology of the entire system on our own. From there, we analyze and assess the important issues and challenges with the infrastructure in relation to security, performance, redundancy, and backup. And finally, we present to the client, a complete report of the problems with the corresponding solutions and recommendations. Once the client prioritizes the areas that require the most work, we plan and execute the IT changes while modifying the current infrastructure as required. Our client service department rolls out the plan and works with the client to make sure they are well aware of the processes that are taking place. Communication is key.

Case Study

A company cannot drive innovation if it does not have the infrastructure specific to biotech and life sciences. They need HPC with the right clusters configured to meet their speed and performance. We have many clients in the biotech and life sciences arena that started with 10 to 15 employees and after using our services, grew to 300 employees and merged with larger pharmaceuticals companies. And all along the process, we have been managing and maintaining their IT infrastructure and have been a part of their success. These companies have gone through mergers from $100 million to over $6 billion.

Unique Value Proposition

We understand how the client’s business and processes work. Assistance with the Linux and AWS administration also gives us an edge over others as they either lack the Linux and AWS expertise or are unable to match our level of skills-sets. We are perhaps one of the very few MSPs that provide live 24/7 support and monitor for any issues in devices or services we are managing. We now have a NOC (Network Operation Center) in Asia that assists to provide live 24/7 support. Our engineers are always available to deal with any escalations if and when they arise. Proactive preventive maintenance is another key differentiator where we create a checklist. We physically fill out a report on how the firewall, network security, routers, servers, storage, backup etc., are doing and send this performance evaluation to the client.

Roadmap for the Future

One of our goals is to ramp up our presence in San Diego—the region has become an important biotech life sciences hub and most of our clients have their offices there today. In addition, we are looking to expand our operations in Asia. We also plan to offer our comprehensive services to larger companies, rather than just work with them on a project basis.