Business Continuity Activation
March 15, 2020 1:48PM SAST
[Monitoring] Dear Partners and Customers
I want to share an update on what Global Micro Solutions is doing today to keep our community safe and operations moving, as well as specific steps we are taking to continue to deliver the solutions your business relies on.
Remote Work
Last week, as part of our ongoing preparedness with respect to the COVID-19 spread, we activated our business continuity plans. We regularly test various team’s remote work capabilities to ensure that our staff are well prepared to ensure we maintain service levels and resolution times regardless of where our teams are physically located.
Office Disruptions
Most of our staff will be working remotely. Everyone is well equipped to perform their job functions remotely through our proactive measures to provide remote workstations, soft phone capabilities, UPS power, VPN access, internet bandwidth and access to required applications for colleagues.
Limiting Travel
We have decided to halt all our team’s local and international travel. Our teams are ready and able to conduct most meetings virtually and while we’ll miss our face time with partners, we feel this is the right choice to support the health of everyone.
The health and safety of our colleagues, their families and our communities are the highest priority and we continue to encourage everyone to follow the preventive measures recommended by the health authorities to stay healthy and slow the spread of the virus, including:
• Clean your hands frequently
• Avoid touching your face
• Stay home if you’re feeling ill
Rest assured Global Micro Solutions is well positioned and prepared to work through this pandemic. Although we feel our plan is good for our partners, our colleagues and community, we will certainly not be perfect as we move through this situation. We ask for your patience and we will continue to communicate often of any updates and other measures we’re taking as the situation progresses.
As always, stay safe and healthy.
JJ Milner
Managing Director – Global Micro Solutions
March 15, 2020 2:17PM SAST
[Monitoring] There is a lot of false information about COVID-19 going around. If you are looking for correct and up to date information from the South African National Department of Health you can click on this link and send the 'hi' message https://wa.me/27600123456?/text=hi. You can also just save the number +27600123456 and send 'hi'.
This is not a Whatsapp group and you will not be spammed. It provides you with correct factual information using an interactive menu.
March 24, 2020 7:33AM SAST
[Monitoring] Suspension of Teraco Data Centres Planned Maintenance:
Following on from the increasing number of COVID-19 cases being reported in South Africa, Teraco Data Environments has suspended all Planned Scheduled Maintenance to ensure that our facilities and staff are prepared for long-term operational sustainability under the circumstances.
Mission critical repairs will continue, to ensure that the resiliency of the Data Centres are available at all times.
A new schedule for their planned maintenance activities will be published in due course.
Teraco is closely monitoring the rapidly developing events both locally and globally and will continue to keep us informed on any further changes to their procedures.
March 24, 2020 7:02PM SAST
[Monitoring] March 24: COVID-19 Update from Global Micro Solutions' Managing Director
Dear Partners and Customers,
As many of us are feeling the personal and economic effects of measures to slow the spread of COVID-19, I want to continue to provide updates to you about Global Micro Solutions' operations and share resources we’re developing to support your businesses during this time.
Office Statuses
Our offices in Johannesburg will be Closed on Thursday 26th March 2020 due to legislative measures and for the health and safety of our colleagues there. The teams are working remotely and are fully operational.
Our remote working capabilities ensure that the teams continue to perform as normal.
Service Team Remote Work
As you may have seen, our Service Delivery teams have been running remote working tests to ensure our Network Operating Centre and Help Desk teams maintain service levels. As our teams have moved to 100% remote work, our tests have shown that all SLA parameters are in line with our normal operations and committed performance levels:
• Response Time Commitment: >98%
• Plan Time Commitment: >98%
• CSAT: >95%
Help Desk Volumes
Our Help Desk (HD) is planning for higher than normal daily volume of calls as we support our partners and customers through remote working transitions and issues. To help mitigate, we are implementing some temporary process changes. Effective now, the Help Desk will not close tickets after 48 hours of not hearing back from the user experiencing the problem. Here is the temporary process:
• A ticket is opened and we cannot close it due to various reasons.
• We will attempt to call or email to obtain feedback.
• 48 hours after the open date, another email reminder will be sent (This is when we would typically close a ticket).
• During the lock-down, we will keep the ticket open for a further 5 business days after which we will close the ticket and send out the final email.
I want to personally wish you all health and safety during this time. I know the future is uncertain, but know that we at Global Micro Solutions are here to support you in any way we can. Our teams are working around the clock to make sure we’re ready and available to help you and your clients. We’re all in it together, and together, we’ve got this.
In good health,
JJ Milner
March 30, 2020 3:08PM SAST
[Monitoring] Dear Partners and Customers,
Being several weeks into the COVID-19 pandemic, I feel it’s important to continuously communicate with you during this time. I know you’re inundated with communications from all your vendors about COVID-19, but I’ll continue to send these email updates. While you’ll be seeing less about our business continuity effects as all our teams are up and running remotely, we’ll be delivering resources and updates covering topics that we think matter to you.
SOUTH AFRICAN RAND SLUMP TO RECORD LOW AFTER MOODY'S CUT TO JUNK
South Africa’s rand weakened to a record low, while bonds and banking stocks dropped, after the country lost its last investment-grade credit rating. Investors anticipate it may slide even deeper into junk as the spread of the corona virus hammers the economy.
The Rand/Dollar exchange rate has a direct impact on all our services. We are sensitive to the impact any additional cost will have on your businesses.
To support you, we have placed a freeze on pricing changes for the duration of the 21-day lock-down.
There is one exception to this. Microsoft CSP and SPLA licensing agreements which have their pricing linked to the US Dollar will be adjusted each month (as we always do). So, for those of you have Office 365 licensing, there will, unfortunately, be an impact on your monthly bill. We have been in communication with Microsoft and they are currently in discussions with their Global teams on how they can assist CSP direct partners with Dollar linked services. As soon as we receive any feedback and (hopefully) price reductions, we will pass them on to you immediately.
VESSEL DEPARTS TO FIX WACS UNDERSEA CABLE AS ISPS RE-ROUTE TRAFFIC
For the latest break, ISPs have started putting in place contingency measures to mitigate the slow speeds.
Most of our hosted services are delivered from within South Africa and we do not anticipate any impact on their performance. Unfortunately, our customers who make use of internationally hosted Office 365 and Microsoft teams may experience slower speeds if their ISPs networks make use of WACS.
ALL .ZA WEBSITES ORDERED TO LINK TO GOVERNMENT COVID-19 PORTAL.
The Government regulations, published on Thursday 26th March, require all websites that end in “.za” to link to the department of health’s Covid-19 portal.
Here is a link to the regulation:
https://techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/43164_26-3_Telecommunications.pdf.
Clause 5.1.4 of the regulations, which have been issued in terms of the Disaster Management Act, state: “All Internet sites operating within the .za DNA top-level domain must have a landing page with a visible link to www.sacoronavirus.co.za.”
We have already updated our home page.
If any of you require assistance in updating your websites, please contact our support desk and we will assist you. This assistance is open to all our customers, even if we do not host or manage your website. There will be no charge for the assistance. We will of course require access credentials in order to assist.
WE NEED YOUR FEEDBACK
We’re doing our best to anticipate your needs through this time, but to provide more useful content, offers, and resources, we’re asking all of our customer and partners to share their thoughts on the impact this pandemic is having on your business and the sectors in which you operate. Please let us know so we can better serve you.
Finally, I want to thank you all for the patience, positive messages and support many of you have shown us through this time. We are all experiencing the stress and fear that this pandemic has caused. With drastically changed personal, family and social routines, economic upsets and full-time remote working situations, it’s a tough time for everyone. I am proud of how our team and community continues to come together to support each other and I know we’ll get through this, despite the uncertain times ahead.
As always, our commitment to you, our customers and partners, is to provide the solutions and services you need now and going forward to succeed. I welcome your feedback, questions and concerns and rest assured, we are in this together.
Talk soon,
JJ Milner
March 30, 2020 5:12PM SAST
[Monitoring] GLOBAL MICRO SOLUTIONS HAS RECEIVED A CIPC CERTIFICATE TO OPERATE AS AN ESSENTIAL SERVICE BUSINESS DURING THE LOCK DOWN PERIOD.
Global Micro Solutions offers hosting services to variety of clients, which falls within the telecommunication infrastructure and services sector. As such, the services provided by Global Micro Solutions fall within the category of essential services (1) newspaper, broadcasting and telecommunication infrastructure and services; and (2) production, manufacturing, supply, logistics, transport, delivery, critical maintenance and repair in relation to the rendering of essential services including components and equipment.
We are pleased to be able to confirm that we have received a CIPC certificate to operate as an Essential Service business during the lock down period as announced by the President of the Republic on 23 March 2020.
HOW DOES THIS AFFECT OUR CUSTOMERS?
All of our infrastructure is redundant. As part of our planning we maintain significant spare capacity. Our personnel will mainly be working remotely, but should the need arise, (1) to collect spares, or (2) to perform maintenance in our Data Centres, our designation as an Essential Service allows us to do so.
To request a copy of our certificate, please email: support@globalmicro.co.za
April 21, 2020 7:14AM SAST
[Monitoring] Following on from the reports of the continued spread of COVID-19 cases in South Africa, and the State President’s announcement to extend the lockdown on April 9 2020, we have taken further steps to ensure that our facilities and staff maintain operational sustainability.
Our approach to ensuring that our data centre facilities remain fully operational during this time includes:
• Putting a priority on the health, safety and welfare of our clients, suppliers and employees;
• Maintaining seamless operations; and
• Following international best practice and Department of Health guidelines on measures to implement to reduce the risk of infection.
On April 9 2020, the South African Government further extended the state of lockdown to midnight, Thursday, April 30 with only essential services being allowed to operate. Given this government announcement and in addition to the measures we previously announced, we have implemented further precautionary measures to ensure that our data centre facilities and staff maintain operational sustainability:
• Client visits to the facilities are restricted to allow for the most critical work only during the lockdown
• Everyone is required to wear a face mask at all times for the duration of visits to our facilities. This requirement will continue until further notice.
Please note that during this restricted period, we will continue to offer remote hands services.
We are closely monitoring the rapidly developing events both locally and globally and will continue to keep clients informed on any significant changes to our procedures.
May 7, 2020 4:09PM SAST
[Monitoring] Dear Partners and Customers,
It’s been another week of pushing through this pandemic response. While winter approaches and many of you look at your reopening strategies, Global Micro remains committed to the health of our partners, our colleagues, and our company. As promised, I will continue to reach out with updates. I hope you find these communications valuable in what I know is a flood of information and content.
Despite talk of reopening the economy, many of you are still facing significant challenges and hardships.
My leadership team and I are working hard to make sure we’re doing all we can to help.
We have been receiving alarming reports of ruthless cyber criminals planning to profit at the expense of those made vulnerable by the pandemic. Interpol has since issued a global warning about the threat of ransomware.
Businesses resources are stretched. In a rush to prepare teams to work from home, the emphasis for most of you was on remote access and communication tools. Unfortunately, this has meant that:
• There is no data backup in place for thousands of remote workforce machines;
• Email fraud and impersonation incidents are on the rise;
• Business processes like contracting, order processing and collections have ground to a halt.
We have prepared several relief packages for you – completely free of charge – to help you through the lock-down period and beyond.
These relief packages have been carefully designed to decrease your cyber-security risk levels and plan for the changes in your business and the economic climate:
• WORKSTATION DATA PROTECTION RELIEF:
Acronis Workstation Backup – 50 GB for 12 months
https://www.globalmicro.co.za/news/backup-your-workstations/
• EMAIL & E-SECURITY RELIEF:
RMail and RSign Business License for the lock-down period
https://www.globalmicro.co.za/news/work-from-home-readiness-with-rmail-rsign/
• RAND DOLLAR EXCHANGE RATE RELIEF:
Price freeze until June 30th on all services except for CSP and Microsoft Licensing
• BUSINESS RESTRUCTURING AND CONSULTING SERVICES RELIEF:
Expert labour and business restructuring advice from BizArmour
https://www.globalmicro.co.za/news/impact-of-the-covid19-pandemic-on-the-labour-market-in-south-africa/
We welcome any feedback you might have for us to help further you to keep your business sustainable and growing well into the future.
As always, stay safe and healthy.
JJ Milner
