Managed IT services and support for Vancouver Island businesses.
Valley Edge is based in Port Alberni. Endpoints monitored and patched, Microsoft 365 managed, backups tested, and a support line that reaches the person who set it up — not an account manager, and not a script.
Port Alberni · Nanaimo · Duncan · Courtenay and Comox · Campbell River · Victoria
- Fixed scope, in writing
- Accounts and domains in your name
- Support the same business day
- No handovers
Somebody has to own it. On a managed agreement, that is us.
Most businesses on the Island do not have an IT department. They have a laptop that will not print, a Microsoft 365 tenant somebody set up years ago and left, a router configured by whoever was around at the time, and a quiet worry about what happens if the files disappear. A managed agreement is the arrangement where all of that stops being nobody's job.
Managed endpoints, monitoring and patching
Every workstation, laptop and server on the agreement is inventoried, monitored and kept patched — operating system and the third-party software that actually gets exploited, not just Windows Update. Alerts on failing disks, failing backups and machines that have stopped checking in come to us rather than surfacing as an outage on your side. The point of the monitoring is not a dashboard nobody reads: it is that the first person to notice something is going wrong is the person who can already fix it.
Microsoft 365 management
Users, licences, shared mailboxes, Teams and SharePoint, mail flow and the two questions every business eventually asks — why is our mail landing in junk, and who still has access to it. Joiners provisioned, leavers offboarded properly: account disabled, mailbox handled, files reassigned, on the day it happens rather than at the next audit.
Cybersecurity and endpoint protection
Managed endpoint protection, multi-factor authentication on email and anything that moves money, a password manager instead of a shared spreadsheet, administrator rights that belong to administrators, and access that ends when employment does. Sized to a small business, because most incidents here start with a mailbox rather than a firewall.
Backup and disaster recovery
A backup nobody has ever restored from is a belief, not a backup. Managed backup means knowing what is copied, where it goes, how far back it reaches, and how long a restore actually takes — checked on a schedule, and written into a recovery plan that says which systems come back first.
Networks and wifi
Wired and wireless, firewall and switching, the guest network kept off the till and the office machines, and the honest answer about whether the problem is your equipment or your connection — which on this side of the Island is a real question with a real answer rather than a shrug.
Remote and on-site support
The ordinary stuff, handled: a machine that will not boot, a shared drive nobody can reach, the printer that works for two people and not the third, a new hire who needs an account and a laptop before Monday. Remote first because it is faster, on site when it is physical.
At this size, strategy is three questions. Not a forty-page roadmap.
A managed agreement keeps the lights on. The reason to have one at all is that it buys the room to answer the questions nobody gets to while the printer is broken — and for a business of six or twenty staff, there are three of them.
What you own, and where it is
Which accounts exist, who holds administrator rights, where the domain is registered and to whom, what renews automatically and on whose card. Almost every business we look at is surprised by at least one answer, and the ones that hurt are the accounts still in a former employee's name.
Written down, in your possession.
What happens when it breaks
Not a disaster recovery binder — a page. Which systems stop the business if they stop, what the backup of each one is, who gets called, and what the first hour looks like. Deciding that on a normal Tuesday costs an afternoon. Deciding it during the outage costs the outage.
One page, not a binder.
What you are paying for
Licence counts against actual headcount, subscriptions that duplicate something Microsoft 365 already includes, the tool bought for one project three years ago and still billing. A licence audit is the least interesting work on this page and it is frequently the only line item that pays for itself in the first month.
Usually fewer seats than you think.
One island, one highway. No second office, and no pretending there is.
Valley Edge is in Port Alberni and works up and down the Island from here. Remote for everything that can be done remotely, which is most of a managed agreement, and booked on site for the parts that are physical.
- Port Alberni and the Alberni Valley
- Nanaimo and the mid-Island
- Duncan and the Cowichan Valley
- Parksville and Qualicum Beach
- Courtenay, Comox and the Comox Valley
- Campbell River
- Victoria and the south Island
Listed because the work is genuinely done there, not because the name is worth an impression. There is no page here for a town nobody has called from.
Per seat, per month, in writing. Pick the line the business is actually on.
Every tier is the same agreement with a different amount of it delegated. What is covered, what is quoted separately and what the response commitment is are all written into the agreement before anything starts — there is no open meter and no surprise line item.
- Managed endpoints, monitoring and patching
- Managed endpoint protection
- Microsoft 365 user and licence administration
- Remote support during business hours
- Support the same business day
The floor. Everything on the agreement is looked after; projects and on-site visits are quoted as they come up.
- Everything in Essentials
- Managed backup with a tested restore
- Full Microsoft 365 management, joiners and leavers
- Network, wifi and firewall management
- On-site support included, not billed per visit
The whole stack on one agreement, which is the point at which nobody in your business has to remember whose job something is.
Ask about managed IT- Everything in Managed
- The three strategy questions, answered and kept current
- A written recovery plan, reviewed rather than filed
- Licence and spend review
- Roadmap and budget input before you buy, not after
For a business where IT decisions have started costing real money and there is nobody in the room whose job it is to have an opinion.
What does managed IT actually include?
Monitored and patched endpoints, managed Microsoft 365, endpoint security, backup with a tested restore, network and wifi, and a support line for the day-to-day. The agreement lists exactly what is covered and what is quoted separately, so there is no argument later about which side of the line something falls on.
Do you work remotely or on site?
Both. Accounts, Microsoft 365, mail, patching, licensing, backups, permissions and most software problems are handled remotely, which is faster than waiting for a van. Hardware is hardware — a machine that will not power on, a cable run, a switch that needs replacing — and that is booked on site.
We already have someone who set everything up. Can you take it over?
Yes, and the first job is an inventory: which accounts exist, who holds global administrator, where the domain is registered and to whom, what renews automatically and on whose card, and what nobody has logged into since it was set up. Ownership stays with the business at every step of the handover.
Do you work with businesses outside Port Alberni?
Yes. Nanaimo, Duncan and the Cowichan Valley, Parksville and Qualicum, Courtenay and the Comox Valley, Campbell River and Victoria. Port Alberni sits in the middle of the Island, which is the one real geographic advantage claimed on this site.
What does cybersecurity mean for a business our size?
Five unglamorous things, in this order: multi-factor authentication on email and anything that moves money, a password manager instead of a shared spreadsheet, updates that actually install, a backup somebody has restored from at least once, and accounts closed the day a person leaves. Most small-business incidents on the Island start with a mailbox, not with a firewall.
Who answers when we call?
The person who quoted the work and set it up. There is no account manager in front of them and no first-tier script reading a checklist back at you — which means the first reply comes from somebody who already knows what your setup looks like, and the second message is usually a fix rather than a ticket number.
When it breaks, someone reads the code. Not a support script.
A larger provider answers faster on paper and slower in practice, because the first person you reach is not the person who set it up and cannot change anything. Here, whoever quotes the work builds it — so the first reply comes from somebody who already knows what your setup looks like, and the second message is a fix rather than a ticket number.
Tell us what keeps going wrong.
The printer, the mail, the backups nobody has tested, or a straight opinion on what you are paying for. We will tell you what fixing it takes.
info@valleyedgeconsulting.io · 778-488-8618