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Joliette

IT services in Joliette: switching providers with no interruption

Plenty of SMBs stay with a provider that no longer serves them because they dread the day everything falls between two teams. That fear is settled by doing things in order. OKTO Solutions takes over your environment from Trois-Rivières, about 88 km from Joliette, starting with what nobody ever wrote down: who holds which access.

Talk about your transition The full guide
Transition diagram between two IT providers explained to a client

A Joliette SMB can switch IT providers in 90 days without a service gap: inventory and recovery of access in the first month, monitoring and a test restore in the second, support handover in the third. OKTO Solutions runs the takeover remotely from Trois-Rivières, about 88 km away, with scheduled visits.

How does a Joliette SMB switch IT providers without an outage?

A small or mid-sized business in Joliette can leave its IT provider without stopping work, as long as the steps happen in a set order. OKTO Solutions follows the same one on every takeover, over 90 days. The company first signs with the new provider and keeps the old one in place. During the first month, the fleet is inventoried, the documentation is gathered and the administrator accounts are brought back under the owner’s control, with no configuration changed. The second month is used to install monitoring, catch up on patches and prove the backups with a test restore. In the third, the support line changes hands and the old access is closed one item at a time, with a written record. Most of the work is done remotely from Trois-Rivières, about 88 km away, and visits are scheduled. OKTO has no office in Joliette and publishes no travel time.

Before you move

When is it time to look elsewhere?

One slow ticket is not a reason to switch. These three situations are, because they mean you no longer control your own IT.

Nobody can show you the diagram

You ask for the network map or the licence list and hear that it is all in someone’s head. That documentation is yours. Without it you are locked in.

You do not know who holds the keys

Microsoft 365, firewall, servers, backup. If no administrator account is under your control, the business depends on a third party’s goodwill.

No restore has ever been done in front of you

You are told the copies work, and nobody has ever demonstrated it. Of the three, this is the most serious.

If your current provider handles all three well, it is probably doing its job, and we will say so. To compare on solid ground, read how to choose a managed IT provider.

The calendar

What happens during the 90 days?

The principle fits on one line: nothing is removed until its replacement has proven itself. The whole calendar follows from that.

From day 1 to day 30, we observe. Every workstation, server and account is recorded, and the administrator passwords come under your control. From day 31 to day 60, we add what is missing: monitoring, overdue patches, and a real restore to find out whether the inherited backups are worth anything. Your former provider still answers the phone in the meantime. From day 61 to day 90, support moves to us, the old access is withdrawn against a dated list, and you receive a roadmap for the next three years.

One thing has to be said: during the overlap you pay two providers. How long that lasts depends on the notice period in your contract.

The first 90 days, ticked off one action at a time in the client portal.

Switching IT providers Managed IT services

What belongs to you

What does the outgoing provider owe you?

Six things, none of them a favour. Ask for them in writing, in this order, before you send your notice.

  1. Administrator accounts for all your systems, with at least one break-glass account that only you hold.
  2. The domain name and DNS zone, registered to your company. It is the most painful oversight to fix afterwards.
  3. The documentation: network diagram, inventory, procedures. Even incomplete, it saves starting from scratch.
  4. The licences, with the name of the subscription they sit under and how they transfer.
  5. The backups and their history, not just the copy from last night.
  6. Hardware warranties: serial numbers, end dates, support contracts for network equipment.
A simple test for this week. Email your provider and ask for the list of your administrator accounts. If the answer takes three weeks, you already know what its cooperation will be worth on the way out.

The first month

Why start by counting devices?

Because you cannot protect what you do not know about. In an environment that changes hands, there is nearly always a gap between what the owner thinks is there and what is really plugged in: an old PC still running in the warehouse, a printer that was never updated, a laptop issued to someone who left.

The inventory gives every device a line, an age and a condition. Accounts get the same treatment: who can reach what, and who should have lost access a while ago. That record becomes the base of the documentation, which is handed to you and stays yours if you ever leave us. It also makes for an honest proposal, since a plan is priced on a real count of workstations and servers.

The inventory sheet fills in row by row, with the age and condition of each device category.

The ground

Joliette, about 88 km from our office

Joliette had 21,384 residents in the 2021 census, according to Statistics Canada. It sits on the L’Assomption River and is the seat of the Joliette regional county municipality, in Lanaudière.

A county seat gathers professional offices, shops and organizations that serve a whole region, often with a small team and nobody in-house for IT. It is the kind of organization where the provider in place holds everything, sometimes for years, and where a change feels risky for that very reason.

We do not claim to be based in Joliette. Daily follow-up, support and monitoring run from Trois-Rivières. Travel is kept for what really needs it: surveying a network cabinet, installing equipment, meeting management at the start and at the end of the transition. Regular support is given in English and in French, and the service levels are described on our Base, Standard and Complet plans.

Around Joliette

Where else do we work nearby?

A takeover often covers more than one address. These are the closest territories where the same service applies.

Lavaltrie

Also in Lanaudière, with a highly mobile workforce and access to secure outside the office.

Mauricie

Our home region, for businesses with operations on both sides.

Montreal

For a head office, a main customer or employees who work on the island.

All territories appear on the service areas page. Day-to-day life after the transition is covered on IT support, and you can write to us through the contact page.

Nearby areas

IT services in Lanaudière IT services in Repentigny IT services in Terrebonne

Questions and answers

Your questions about switching providers in Joliette

How long does it take to switch IT providers in Joliette?
Plan on 90 days for a typical SMB. The first month goes to understanding what exists: inventory, documentation, administrator accounts. The second goes to installing monitoring and putting the backups through a real restore. The third is for moving support over and closing the old access. A takeover promised in a week has to skip steps.
Should we tell our current provider before meeting you?
No. Read your contract first: notice period, automatic renewal, exit fees. Then sign with the new provider, and only after that give notice. Until the documentation and the administrator accounts are back in your hands, giving notice early takes away the only leverage you have.
Our domain name is registered to the old provider. Is that serious?
It is common and it can be fixed, but before the departure. Transferring the domain and attaching the licences to your own subscription both require the outgoing provider to cooperate, so ask while the relationship is still good.
Will you need to come to Joliette during the transition?
Probably once or twice, by appointment. Workstations and accounts can be inventoried remotely, but what is plugged into a network cabinet or tucked under a desk is easier to see in person. Our office is in Trois-Rivières, about 88 km away. We have no premises in Joliette.
What if the old provider refuses to cooperate?
We move forward with what you already control. A break-glass account you hold, access to the domain registrar, licence invoices: each piece lets us recover part of the environment. It takes longer, which is exactly why the work always starts by checking who owns what.
Can we move only part of the services?
Yes. Some SMBs hand over security and backup first, keep the rest for a few months, then transfer support. It is slower, but fewer things move at once.

Let us look at your situation in Joliette

Send us your contract end date and your number of workstations. We go over the calendar with you and tell you whether a change is worth it.

Contact us

Reviewed by , president of OKTO Solutions · updated