The Globetech team of operations will ensure 24/7 service and support for all clients throughout the summer. We had a brief chat with Bernt Nilsen about their day-to-day operation.
In total, the team of operations and 24/7 support at Globetech counts 8 highly skilled consultants. The three officers on call during July is Bernt Nilsen, Thomas Myra and Daniel Krogstad (pictured above), and they keep operations and support going in the best possible manner for all clients.
What type of work do the team of Operations do?
- Generally, our work is split in two, between work conducted onboard the vessels, and remote support work from our office here in Kristiansand. Our operations onboard the vessels are mainly concentrated towards physical instalments of hardware, and support-services from our office is mainly directed towards software and maintenance tasks. So, as part of the Globetech operations team, you either travel to different parts of the world or provide 24/7 service and support from onshore. This is a nice balance and creates a dynamic working environment.
- We try to minimise travels as much as possible though, as vessels are often not accessible due to operations far from shore. Therefore, it is in everyone’s interest that the need for support can be conducted remotely.
- In addition, we are highly focused on preventive work. We need to make sure that our clients have the latest updates possible for their systems, to make sure we keep ahead of any potential issues, especially with regards to cyberbreaches. In any case, we try to assist our clients with all their problems, even if the issue doesn’t stem from our services, such as a failed VSAT-connection.
Is the summer more hectic than other periods of the year?
- Well, we’ve had more hectic summers previously. What's important is to always maintain a solid staff to make sure that we can handle all events and problems for our clients. We know that things suddenly happen - as an example, we need to travel to both Scotland and Italy next week to provide maintenance work for clients, which was an urgent matter.
How does the 24/7 service and support-work function? Are you placed at the office 24/7, seven days a week?
- No, we are not physically at the office day and night, even though we provide 24/7 service and support. Normally we operate under normal office hours, but constantly available per email and phone. If something occurs, we get up and conduct work from home – even if our clients are in different time zones.
Has there been any major incidents lately? What is the worst-case scenario that can happen after office hours?
- There have been events where clients have experienced a total and complete black-out with no access to their servers and loss of data. In such cases we always have back-up of their systems, so for us, even these kinds of dramatic incidents are normally fixed within a couple of hours.
- But in cases where physical hardware needs to be upgraded for whatever reason, then our support-work will naturally take a little bit more time. And if the vessel is in Vietnam as compared to Norway, well, the task gets a little bit bigger. But we always solve the problems for our clients in the best possible manner.
