PrairieStack
PrairieStack Technology Services — Bismarck, North Dakota

Managed IT for small businesses in Bismarck.

PrairieStack looks after the computers and the data of small businesses in and around Bismarck, North Dakota.

We keep a small business's computers, backups, and security working — most of it done remotely and on a schedule, so problems get caught before they become a bad morning.

See what we look afterGet in touch

What we look after

Six things we look after, each one with what it covers and where it stops, so there is nothing to find out later.

01 / 6

Backups, with restores we actually test

Your files and machines are backed up on a schedule, and the backups are restored on a schedule too — a backup nobody has restored is a hope, not a backup.

Pilot scope
  • Scheduled backups for servers, desktops, and virtual machines.
  • Every backup set is test-restored on a schedule, and you are told the result.
  • You get a written record of what was backed up and when it was last proven restorable.
  • A recovery plan for getting you working again, rehearsed before you ever need it.
Where this stopsWe back up what you tell us to, and we say plainly when a system is not covered.

Pilot scope: this works on the owner's own estate and has not yet been run on a client environment of your shape. If the tooling cannot do it, it is done by hand instead, and this is re-graded at your first review.

02 / 6

Monitoring and alerting

We watch the things that fail quietly — disks filling, services stopping, certificates expiring — and tell you when something needs a decision.

Pilot scope
  • Uptime, disk, memory, and service checks on your machines and your network equipment.
  • Certificate expiry watched ahead of the deadline, not on the day.
  • Alerts that reach a person, not a dashboard nobody opens.
  • A monthly note of what was found and what was done about it.
Where this stopsMonitoring tells us something is wrong; it does not fix anything on its own, and it cannot see a fault in equipment it cannot reach.

Pilot scope: this works on the owner's own estate and has not yet been run on a client environment of your shape. If the tooling cannot do it, it is done by hand instead, and this is re-graded at your first review.

03 / 6

Updates and maintenance

Operating systems and applications are kept current on a schedule, with a record of what changed.

Pilot scope
  • Scheduled operating-system and application updates.
  • A change record for each maintenance window, so a problem after an update has somewhere to start from.
  • Restart and downtime arranged in advance, not in the middle of your working day.
Where this stopsUpdates are staged and can be rolled back, but we will not force an update onto a system you depend on without agreeing the window first.

Pilot scope: this works on the owner's own estate and has not yet been run on a client environment of your shape. If the tooling cannot do it, it is done by hand instead, and this is re-graded at your first review.

04 / 6

Baseline and access review

We look for the problems that are findable without a scanner — configuration that has drifted from an agreed baseline, and accounts that can still reach more than they should — and give you the list with the fixes ranked.

Pilot scope
  • Configuration checks against a baseline you agreed, not one we picked for you.
  • Access review: who can reach what, and who should not still be able to.
  • Missing patches and stale accounts, collected from the inventory we keep of your systems.
  • Findings written up in plain language, worst first.
Where this stopsThis is a review, not a penetration test and not a certification, and we do not run a vulnerability scanner. It is sold only as the pilot scope below says.

Pilot scope: this works on the owner's own estate and has not yet been run on a client environment of your shape. If the tooling cannot do it, it is done by hand instead, and this is re-graded at your first review.

05 / 6

Remote break/fix

When something has already stopped working, we get onto it remotely and fix it, or tell you what needs to be replaced.

May need a site visit
  • Remote diagnosis and repair, including outside your working hours.
  • A named person you are dealing with, not a rotating queue.
  • An honest verdict when a machine is beyond economical repair.
Where this stopsA fault that needs someone standing in front of the machine is booked into an evening or a weekend morning — see when we work.
06 / 6

Documentation and reporting

Your setup is written down — what you have, how it is configured, and what to do when something breaks — so you are never dependent on someone's memory, including ours.

  • A written inventory of the systems we look after.
  • Runbooks for the failures that actually happen.
  • A monthly report of what was monitored, changed, backed up, and verified.
Where this stopsThe documentation belongs to you and leaves with you; we do not hold your setup description hostage.
Working hours

When the desk is staffed.

The windows above are the hours the desk is staffed; monitoring is continuous, and scheduled work is planned into them and agreed with you in advance.

  • Monday to Friday5pm to 10pm
  • Saturday and Sunday10am to 10pm

Monitoring runs around the clock, every day of the year. Scheduled maintenance is a different thing: it runs inside the windows above.

Weekday daytime is not a working window: between 8am and 5pm, Monday to Friday, the desk is not staffed, because this is after-hours work.

What it costs

Two ways to buy: by the hour when something needs doing, or a flat monthly plan when you would rather it was simply handled. Both are agreed and written down before work starts.

Break/fix — hourly

For one-off work: a fault to fix, a machine to set up, a change you want made. Charged by the hour.

  • You are told the rate before any work starts.
  • Charged in the time actually spent, rounded to the half hour.
  • No call-out charge and no minimum block for remote work.
Quoted before work startsTell us what you have and we will quote it on the first call.

Care plan — monthly

For clients who want the monitoring, backups, patching, and reporting handled continuously. A flat monthly rate instead of a meter.

  • Scoped to how many machines and how much of the routine work is automated.
  • Reviewed at an agreed interval, with the price adjusted only by agreement.
  • Break/fix outside the plan is billed at the hourly rate above, so there is never a surprise about which one applies.
Quoted before work startsTell us what you have and we will quote it on the first call.

Both bands are agreed and written down before work starts. There is no meter running in the background and no charge you did not agree to.

How the work gets done

We use automation. We will tell you exactly what it does.

We use automation and AI-assisted tooling to do the routine work — monitoring, patching, backups, restore testing and reporting — which is why our rates are competitive and our response is fast. This is a Bismarck-based IT practice run by one person, with automation behind him: the work that has to happen after hours is done by scheduled tooling that he supervises and reviews. The judgment, the conversations and the responsibility stay his. You will always know which parts of your service are automated, and you can switch that off at any time — ask, and it stops.

What the tooling handles

The routine work that would otherwise be billed by the hour.

  • Monitoring, alert triage, and first-pass diagnosis.
  • Backups, and the restore tests that prove they are worth having.
  • Patching and scheduled maintenance, on a timetable rather than on someone remembering.
  • Baseline and access review, and the evidence it produces.
  • Documentation, runbooks, and the monthly report.
  • Building the automation that removes a task permanently.

What stays with a person

These do not transfer to tooling, and we will not pretend they do.

  • Responsibility. The agreement is with a person, and that person carries the consequences if something goes wrong. Tooling does not absorb liability.
  • Judgment. Deciding what your business actually needs, and saying no to work that would not help you, stays human.
  • Physical work. Anything needing hands on hardware, or a person on site, is done by a person.
  • Irreversible changes. Nothing destructive, and nothing that cannot be undone, happens without a named human approving it first.

We tell you this up front, in writing, and we will show you what runs against your systems. A client should never find out about automated access by discovering it, and you can switch it off at any time — it stops the same day.

Before any automated access, we agree in writing

  • Written scope for exactly what automated tooling may touch on its own, and what waits for your approval.
  • Separate credentials for your systems — no shared administrator accounts, no keys on personal machines.
  • An agreed answer on whether your own policies or industry rules permit automated processing of your data, checked before any access is granted.
  • A switch on your side that revokes automated access, with the knowledge that it takes effect.
Get in touch

Tell us what you have, and what is worrying you.

One address reaches a person, not a ticket queue. Say what you are running and what is going wrong, and the first reply will be useful rather than a round trip. We will tell you honestly if we are not the right fit, or if what you need is outside the hours above.

Email hello@prairiestack.com
  • Where we workBismarck, North Dakota — on site for local clients, and remotely for everything else.
  • ResponseA person replies within two business days.
  • New clientsWe take on a small number of clients at a time, so we agree a start date with you rather than promising next week.