Smart Hands in Montreal

The Montreal Internet Exchange (QIX) was originally created in 1995 by RISQ, the Quebec research network, and was incorporated in 2013 as a not-for-profit exchange. Cologix MTL3 stands on Rene Levesque West in Montreal. For a business that places equipment in the city, this means hardware that sits in a building run by someone else and still needs hands that can think. Smart hands covers that gap. It is technical work that needs diagnostic judgement and configuration knowledge, as distinct from remote hands, which are physical tasks carried out on your instruction such as reboots, cable checks, component swaps and visual checks.

Reboot Monkey is a third-party datacenter services operator. It sells rack space, IP transit, leased IP addresses, network and data-centre hardware, together with the services that deliver, install and support them, inside data centres that other companies own and run. It is not a hosting company and it does not own datacenters. That position shapes how the work is done: engineers act on your equipment, and the building stays in the operator's hands.

Data centres in Montreal, ordered by the number of networks present:

A smart hands request starts with you describing the fault or the change you need. An engineer is assigned to your site, and a second, briefed Reboot Monkey engineer is named as backup for every customer site, so the job does not depend on a single person being available. On site, the engineer works through the problem on your hardware, makes the change you asked for and reports back with what was found and what was done.

The scope sits alongside the other physical services Reboot Monkey runs in the same rooms. The practical difference is where judgement is needed, for example tracing a fault across several components rather than swapping one that has already been identified.

Network is part of what Reboot Monkey sells for the rack. It orders the cross connects and carrier circuits from the facility operator and from the carriers present in the facility, and its engineers install and patch the cabling in your rack. A single supplier can therefore handle the circuit order and the physical connection, which removes a handoff between your network team and the person in the room. The building itself belongs to the operator. Prices are quoted on request and depend on the customer and the size of the job.

These terms apply in every facility in Montreal where Reboot Monkey engineers work.

The data centres we work in hold their own certifications, such as ISO/IEC 27001 and ISO 9001. Ask us for the certificate of your site.

Smart hands is often ordered next to the rack space it supports. If you are still deciding where equipment will sit, the option of colocation in Montreal covers rack space inside a facility that another company owns and runs, and the same engineers can then install, cable and support the hardware once it is racked.

Monitoring, migration, decommissioning and IT asset disposition are available as separate services. Hardware monitoring is monitoring of your servers and network equipment by the Reboot Monkey NOC, and ITAD covers data wiping, on-site shredding or degaussing, collection and transport, with resale or buyback quoted case by case. Because one team handles the full lifecycle, equipment can move from installation to retirement without changing supplier.