Plan to minimize problems from the start. You'll still get nailed by the odd act of God but not by your own fault. Think of it this way: If you can't do it right, don't do it. Period.
- Build a reliable, redundant, standardized core network. VRRP, BGP and OSPF are your best friends (most days at least)
- Invest heavily in backup power and check it regularly. Invest in Grounding and Lightning protection as well
- Keep a very tight rein on the "minimum" numbers for signal quality before you connect a customer
- Deploy multiple redundant monitoring systems in different locations and checkout Pagerduty to control your escalation policies
- Make sure you have at least two geographically separate sources of Bandwidth with dynamic failover (one of our 3 fibre feeds has been down since 4AM and none of the customers have noticed yet - but that would be a different story if there was only one :-( )
- Install netbooters on ANY thing that hangs on you, The first time it hangs on you
- Have multiple ways to remotely access your network in multiple places, PPTP-VPN, RemoteDesktop, SSH, SSL VPN
- Implement a change freeze at least 2 weeks before you plan to go away. If it's not ready befor that time then you don't get to take a vacation because it's gonna fall apart on you when you're away isn't it?
Then plan to Work your ass off for at least 6 years, and maybe get to afford to hire a partimer around year 5. Once you get past the first 1500 customers you get to hire some real help... only took me 10 years to get there
S