Smart Hands & Remote Hands · Case study
24/7 Remote Hands Across Dublin, London and Frankfurt Colocation Cages.
How 24/7 remote hands for three colocation cages in Dublin, London and Frankfurt would be scoped, staffed and documented.
Representative scenario. Last reviewed October 2026.
Engagement profile
- Customer
- Software company running its own colocation cages with a remote network team
- Scale
- 3 colocation cages, about 40 racks in total, 24/7 coverage
- Service
- Smart Hands & Remote Hands
- Where
- IrelandUnited KingdomGermany
Representative scenario. This case study shows how Deploris scopes and delivers this kind of work. It does not describe a real client, and no results are claimed. Want a plan like this for your own sites? Request a quote.
Quick answer
What does this engagement look like?
Round-the-clock remote hands for three colocation cages in Dublin, London and Frankfurt means local engineers performing physical tasks such as power cycles, cable swaps, drive replacements and cross-connect checks while the customer's network team directs them live. Deploris runs it through a written scope, pre-registered facility access, one engagement manager, and photo evidence. The customer receives work notes in its ticketing tool and a closeout report.
THE CHALLENGE
The challenge.
The customer's network and platform engineers sit in a different region from all three cages. Monitoring and out-of-band tools such as BMC consoles and serial console servers cover most faults, but some failures only a person can fix: a seized fan, a drive that needs a swap, a patch lead that was moved during a neighboring tenant's work, a switch that will not come back after a power event. Each cage is in a different facility with its own operator, its own ticketing portal and its own rules about who may walk onto the floor.
The operator's own remote hands desk can handle simple reboots, but the customer wants engineers who know its rack layouts and labeling, will follow its runbooks, and will stay on a call while its team works the problem. The hard part is not the single task. It is making the same careful behavior repeatable at 03:00 on a public holiday in three countries, across two time zones, with equipment that cannot be shipped freely between the UK and the EU.
Constraints the plan had to respect
- Each facility requires named, pre-registered visitors with photo ID, and some operators require advance notice or a ticket in their own portal before a person may enter the cage.
- Dublin and London share a time zone while Frankfurt is one hour ahead, and each country has its own public holidays and working-time norms that shape how night and weekend rotas can be staffed.
- Spares cannot move freely between the UK and the EU after Brexit, so customs paperwork and lead time make cross-border shipping of replacement parts a poor emergency option.
- Engineers will see equipment labels, console screens and failed drives, so they act only on written customer instructions and handle media under the customer's data handling policy and applicable data protection law.
- The customer's team must stay in control of every change: engineers do not troubleshoot beyond the runbook unless the customer authorizes it on the call.
HOW THE WORK RUNS
How the work is run.
- 1
Inventory and scope per cage
The engagement manager starts with a walk through of each cage by video: rack elevations, A and B power feeds, patch panel layout, labeling scheme, and which devices are safe to power cycle. The customer supplies its asset list and port maps. The written scope then lists the tasks covered (power cycle, patch, hot-swap drive or PSU, LED and console checks, cross-connect verification), tasks that always need a change window, and a do-not-touch list for devices such as core switches and storage controllers.
- 2
Access and authorization
Engineers are nominated per site and registered with each operator: Dublin, London and Frankfurt each have their own visitor list, ID checks and escort or badge rules. The customer's authorized-requester list is agreed in writing so only named people can raise or approve a task. Out-of-hours entry is tested before it is needed, including how to raise the operator's own ticket, who answers the security desk, and how to handle cross-connect work that needs a letter of authorization.
- 3
Runbooks, tooling and spares
Deploris maps the customer's ticket queue to the engagement, for example by assigning a dedicated category in its ITSM tool so work notes land in the right record. Runbooks are written as short steps an engineer can follow on a phone bridge: confirm the label against the asset record, check the BMC or console state, act, then confirm with the customer before closing. Spare parts such as drives, PSUs, optics and patch leads are pre-staged in each country, in the cage or in operator-approved storage, to avoid cross-border shipping.
- 4
Rehearsal and rota
Before the 24/7 clock starts, each site runs a rehearsal ticket at a normal hour and another outside business hours. A typical drill is a power cycle of a non-critical host followed by a patch swap, with photos of labels before and after. The rehearsal checks that the engineer found the cage, that the operator's portal ticket and the customer ticket agree, and that the photos are readable. The engagement manager then sets the on-call rota with local engineers, allowing for rest periods and local working-time rules.
- 5
Live operation and review
Requests arrive by phone, ticket or email and are acknowledged under the written tiers. The engineer joins the customer's bridge, works from the runbook, and takes photos of the rack front and rear, labels and indicators. Work notes and photos are attached to the customer's ticket, and failed media is tagged and held or returned per the customer's instruction. The engagement manager reviews tickets with the customer on a regular cadence, adjusts the runbooks, and updates the access lists when staff change.
WHAT WAS PRODUCED
What the engagement delivers.
Each item links to a full guide with its scope, process and FAQs.
WHAT THE CUSTOMER ENDS UP WITH
What the customer ends up with.
- 01A written scope for each cage listing covered tasks, change-window tasks and a do-not-touch device list.
- 02Pre-registered local engineers and agreed access procedures at the Dublin, London and Frankfurt facilities, tested before the first real request.
- 03Runbooks for common physical tasks that an engineer can follow on a live bridge with the customer's team.
- 04A photo and work note record attached to every request in the customer's own ticketing tool.
- 05One engagement manager who holds the access lists, rota and review notes for all three sites.
WHAT APPLIES TO YOUR PROJECT
Decisions that apply to similar projects.
Test out-of-hours access before the first incident. Entry rules at a colocation facility are most likely to fail at night, so a rehearsal outside business hours exposes missing ID, portal tickets and security desk steps while nothing is at stake.
Pre-stage spares in each country instead of planning to ship them. Cross-border customs steps between the UK and the EU make emergency shipping slow and uncertain, so a small local stock of drives, PSUs, optics and patch leads is easier to manage.
Keep decisions with the customer's team and write down what engineers may not touch. A short do-not-touch list and a rule that engineers confirm each label before acting protects against the wrong-port, wrong-host mistakes that remote hands work is prone to.
WHERE IT APPLIES
Metros in this scenario.
Local engineers in each metro, coordinated by one engagement manager. Open a metro to see local details.
QUESTIONS
Frequently asked questions.
Can a remote hands provider work in a colocation facility that has its own on-site desk?
How are time zones and public holidays handled for 24/7 remote hands in Dublin, London and Frankfurt?
What does a remote hands engineer record after finishing a task?
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