While Charlie's available for on-site support when needed, it's generally more economical to have him assist you remotely. Rather than incur travel costs and a commitment to a substantial allocation of his time, such remote assistance can usually be done very quickly, and often on demand.

You may be suspicious or even reluctant about remote consulting. If he's to help you look at your problem over the web, does that mean you need to open firewall holes/ports on your server or create an account, such as to use a remote desktop or VNC-type session? No! You don't need to open any ports or create any login for him. Instead, we'll use any of several desktop sharing solutions (whether one you prefer or a Zoom session I can offer), which work over any browser and use a standard, secure HTTPS port.

"Do we have to install any software?" Only a very small plugin, if any. If you feel, "we can't install anything on our servers", that's ok: you can remote into your servers from your desktop/laptop and have the shared desktop session from your desktop while Charlie watches you remote into the server.

"But he's remoting/logging into our servers, right?" No, he does not need to "remote into" nor obtain any authentication information for your servers in order to look over your shoulder while use work on those servers. You will login into your machines (remoting in if needed), and he will just watch over the web as you do that. This is about working together, all with the goal of helping you help yourself and become more self-sufficient. (Of course, if there's some situation where you just want to give Charlie some responsibility to take care of something for you, which may involve remoting into your machine, that's an option as well.)

"Well, still, can Charlie see something on the server we don't want him to during a shared desktop session?" He sees only what you choose to let him see during a shared desktop session. If you do show him something confidential, or give him access to your servers, of course he will keep that information completely confidential. And again, he's happy to complete an NDA agreement as well if you'd like.

"OK, but what about security of the channel of communications?" Assuming we use my zoom session, the communications are encrypted: only Charlie can see what's being shown on your screen. (Since 2023, my Zoom sessions are also recorded by default, and Zoom will clearly tell you on joining the room that the meeting is being recorded.. The long random URL for the recording would be shared only with you. But we can stop the recording if you prefer the session not be recorded.)

"How will we talk?" While we'll do the screen-sharing via Zoom (link shared when we setup the meeting),or we can use anything else you like. We can also speak by phone (Charlie is happy to call you, or can provide a number for you to call him if you prefer) or via VOIP, including Skype, etc. And it's no problem to have multiple folks on your end join in from different offices or locations for both the sreen sharing and phone call(and you're free to record the phone or screensharing session if you'd like.)

While there's no fixed approach (since every customer's needs and situation will differ), there is at least a fairly consistent pattern to the approach Charlie takes when working with customers to help identify and resolve problems, while also seeking to educate them (see above) to be better able to solve such problems in the future, all in as little time as possible to keep the cost low. The following could be done in less than an hour, even for a problem that might have evaded resolution for days:

1. Review the most significant problems that have been identified by the customer, such as outages, poor performance, etc.
2. Identify (together) the available diagnostics that may help provide explanation/evidence of their cause (as found in app server diagnostics as well as those in the web server, and database server if needed), or in additional monitoring tools if available (FusionReactor, VisualVM, New Relic, Ste24x7, etc.) and their alerts.
3. Review (together) the diagnostics, connecting the dots between the observed problems and their root cause.
4. If needed, enable (together) additional diagnostics that may provide further evidence. Some may require restart (and so can be delayed), others (like alerts) may require time for new evidence to be gathered.
5. If needed and agreed to, implement free tools to help speed the review of diagnostic data.
6. Identify possible underlying explanations for the root cause problem (whether configuration, traffic, or--generally less likely--coding issues).
7. Discuss possible changes, and implement those we agree on (preferably not more than one at a time), then or perhaps overnight if a restart is required.
8. Observe whether the original problem/s continue to exist, whether evidenced by user observation or diagnostics.
9. Note that getting to this point can happen quite quickly (as little as an hour) for many problems, even ones that have plagued a server for weeks. Certainly some situations may be more complicated, but they're rare in the hundreds of engagements that Charlie has per year.
10. Repeat the process as needed to see if perhaps new problems may arise (that could have been hidden by the other ones now solved).
11. As desired by customer, review in more detail:
    • how to understand and use the available (or newly enabled) diagnostics, so that customer is more self-sufficient in using them (including enabling CF monitoring if desirable)
    • how to understand the available configuration settings that can impact performance, or aid/detract from diagnosis
    • other opportunities for improvement (performance and tuning of requests, queries, jvm; updates of CF, the JVM, the CF web server connector; improvements to security; assisting with planned upgrades to new versions or new CFML engines, containerization/orchestration, etc.)

Does that seem more than possibly can be done in a single brief engagement? Again, Charlie has often gone through all the steps in as little as an hour. Other times, a challenging snag might preclude getting through all the steps in even a couple of hours. Many factors influence how much time it takes, including the nature of problems, the complexity of the environment, the level of experience of the customer, how many questions are asked, how many problems there are, etc. But again, the goal is to work as quickly as possible, and most engagements are of a very short nature, perhaps a couple of hours, and many are an hour or less.

It's in points 2-7 above where Charlie's vast experience helping so many customers really comes to the rescue. Even experienced folks are often stunned to learn what diagnostics do exist, already. Or they saw them, but could make little sense of them. Or they had used what they saw to google for answers, and found many conflicting suggestions. Or they weren't sure of the likely effect of a configuration change, or how most safely to do it, or undo it.

Charlie's patient, calm, experienced guidance has often helped resolve even desparate situations, where income, jobs, or just a decent night's sleep were on the line. Customers report that he nearly always leaves them feeling far more confident about the problem, the solution, and how to better use diagnostics in the future.

If you've just found this site and are not familiar with Charlie, his 30+ years of server troubleshooting experience and accomplishments are listed elsewhere here. You can also search the web for his name, or ask about him from folks in the communities he serves. Finally, he offers quoted endorsements from past and current customers, and can provide contact information for you to speak with them or still other customers.

Charlie offers the following options:

Type	Rate	Comments
All rates include problem-solving AND training, combined. Satisfaction guaranteed: you won't pay for time you don't feel is valuable1
Short-term/hourly:	US$295/hr	Base hourly rate. 15-minute minimum time increments. Invoiced weekly, after engagement. For work outside of 8am-8pm US Central Time (or on weekends/major US holidays), a surcharge may be discussed (of 40%, just less than "time and a half"), but it's not typically assessed.
10-hour retainer, good for 3 years:	US$245/hr	Discounted hourly rate: 10 hours initial minimum, $2450. 15-minute minimum time increments. Invoiced in advance (but not requiring payment before first session. Indeed, see Engagement/ Payment below before buying the retainer in advance of a first session). Hours expire 3 years after invoice date.

In considering these rates, note that Charlie's generally helping you solve a problem in an immediate (and generally very short) term. Also, where many troubleshooting consultants require a minimum number of hours (if not days), Charlie's happy to help in as little time as is needed. And he tends to be available within 4 hours of your request to start, if not sooner. Finally, you may be more used to lower rates for development consultants, but consider that you tend to hire them for weeks or months, not hours as with Charlie.

Most important, his goal is to help make you self-sufficient, so he's doing as much sharing of knowledge and educating as solving your problem, so you get more than just a solution, but an education as well. Indeed, because of this approach, Charlie tends to work himself out of the situations where he's brought in, as folks become more self-sufficient. Of course, he hopes you'll ask him back for more help on new problems when needed.

Combine the above with the fact that his expertise in solving problems helps him generally solve problems in far less time than folks who don't spend their days doing so (generally in less than an hour for most problems), and the rate actually becomes very good value. More important, keep in mind that since the approach used is to work with you, you're always in control of the time spent. No surprises.

If after considering the approach and rates discussed above, you're ready to begin an engagement with Charlie, or just want to have an initial conversation to help decide, contact him either by phone or email. Since most of his engagements are very short term, it's nearly always possible that work could begin today if you're interested, or it can be scheduled in coming days.

If you're ready to pay for an engagement, note first that Charlie does not require prepayment (except technically for the "pre-paid 10-hour retainer" engagement type.)

If you're considering the 10-hour prepaid retainer, please note that Charlie would prefer you not purchase it in advance of our first engagement but wait until after our initial consultation session, to make sure that his services and approach are suited to your requirements. If, during or after that call, you decide to go with the retainer, the hours spent on that and any subsequent engagements will be deducted against the retainer once purchased. (In other words, you don't pay a penalty of the full rate for not "pre-paying" before deciding to go with the 10-hour retainer.)

For "short-term" or "multi-day" engagements, contact Charlie instead and after arranging the engagement, an invoice will be provided for services at the end of the engagement week. (See the previous section for more details on engagement types, rates, etc.)

Payment may be made either of the following ways (all the same charge, no surchage for any):

• by credit card (via link provided in invoice sent via email, as just discussed)
• by check (using contact details in invoice and above)
• by electronic funds transfer (favored often by those overseas. SWIFT code, acct #, and other details available on request)

Your being in another country should not be a hindrance to Charlie helping (in fact, if your exchange rate is favorable you will find that paying Charlie in US dollars may be a bargain for you.)

Also, as for talking with each other, besides traditional phone calls, we can use either the Voice over IP solutions in the shared desktop solutions discussed above, or we can use something like Skype or Google Talk, if you'd like.

While Charlie is in the US Eastern time zone (GMT -5 most of the year), he's flexible in making arrangements (in advance) to work with you during what would be an odd hour for him.

¹About Satisfaction Guarantee:

Charlie understands that it's possible on rare occasions your problem may not be solved in the time spent together, or that some of the time may not fully meet your satisfaction, so he offers a complete satisfaction guarantee. If you feel that some of the time with him was not worthwhile, just indicate so either during the call (again, you can control how much time is spent on any topic) or even after the fact, and the billing will be adjusted to your satisfaction. Fortunately this is something that rarely happens, but it has happened and the offer is sincere.