Computer Repair in Kalamazoo

You’ve heard of remote monitoring but don’t know if it would be a good fit for your business? This article will show you the benefits and explain exactly what remote monitoring entails with Geek Easy Computers.

What It Is

Remote Monitoring and Management is an umbrella term used to describe a number of tools that allow an IT provider to provide the same or better service that an internal IT department would. It allows us to remotely monitor or “watch” computer systems 24/7/365. From daily backup completion, to antivirus and software updates, logs and error reports, to outage and inventory reports, the monitoring software collects data to determine the health of the computers and has other add-in products to better manage the use of your computer systems.

How It Works

Monitoring and Management Agent

This is the tool that manages all components of the remote monitoring software and runs checks on each system to make sure services are running, backups are completing, antivirus is updating and properly protecting you. It also watches the performance of the computer, checks for low hard drive space or disk errors and reports any problems back to us immediately.

Patch Management

Our software scans each computer for vulnerabilities and installs security and other updates for Windows and other common third-party software.

Managed Antivirus Agent

Centrally managed like other business antivirus products, but tied in with our dashboard instead of taking up space on your server, tucked away and forgotten. Manages scans, exceptions and updates seamlessly without need for user intervention.

No anti-virus software is perfect, but having a trained technician monitoring the health and responding to potential threats in real-time increases the efficiency exponentially!

Computer Asset Management

Keeps track of hardware and software on company IT assets. Let’s us track which computers have outdated hardware that might need to be replaced or is nearing the end of it’s life cycle, or which computers are running unlicensed/prohibited software easily.

Remote Support Agent

For companies we manage, this software lets us assist with computer issues from our office as if we were in front of the computer. We can log in and see the error on the screen and assist with the problem then instead of waiting to schedule an on-site visit.

Managed Online Backup

This component ties in with other management software and can be used to backup critical data on any company PC. This flexible file backup is a great addition to comprehensive server backup or other disaster recovery appliances because it can be customized per user or per PC to backup data that might not make it to the company servers but could result in hours of work lost if those documents need to be recreated.

Web Protection

Blocks websites that aren’t safe for work or are against the company’s acceptable use policy. Reports blocked sites which can be allowed or blocked depending on legitimacy.

Email Security

Can block spam coming in or leaving an in-house or hosted email server. Reports back on blocked messages that can be blacklisted\whitelisted accordingly. In the event of an outage, provides backup email functionality, ensuring that messages sent to your staff don’t bounce back into the void, and automatically delivering those messages when the outage is corrected.

Why Remote Monitoring is Important

Example 1

Company XYZ relies on the head engineer for most IT tasks. The engineer is overworked and is having trouble keeping Java, Flash and Adobe Reader updated on all computers. His coworkers keep clicking on malicious messages in their email and he spends most of his time removing viruses and reimaging computers, instead of the task he was hired for, building billable products to help with the company’s bottom line.

Solution: In this example, updates for these vulnerable plugins would be handled by Patch Management so they always have the latest security features. Malicious messages could be stopped before they ever reached his coworkers by Email Filtering. Managed Antivirus would block and alert us of any malicious threats before the infection has taken over and serious remediation is necessary.

Example 2

Company ABC is only has three employees and the owner. They don’t have anyone on staff that is computer savvy but seldom have broken computers. The owner hears of an encryption virus attacking businesses and doesn’t know how secure her data is or if it is being backed up regularly.

Solution: In this example, the Monitoring and Management suite will easily provide all information on the company’s PCs when there are problems. Managed Antivirus software coupled with Email Filtering and Web Protection can stop access to malicious websites, spam containing viruses and block any infected files themselves. Our Monitoring and Management agent will check an existing backup product in place to make sure it is completing successfully or Managed Online Backup can make sure critical data is backed up safely online in the event there is ever a disaster.

How to Get Started

We have several different levels of service between fully managed and just barebones monitoring and patch management. These options allow us to service companies without an IT department or supplement companies with limited IT staff that want access to these management tools to save time and effort on low-level tasks and receive system reports to help better focus their internal resources. For clients that we fully manage, we’ll fix issues that arise before they snowball or become bigger issues, and often before they are ever noticed by your staff.

Interested?

Give Geek Easy Computers a call today and we will schedule a FREE on-site evaluation.  We will assess your current setup, discuss your immediate and future goals, and present you with a comprehensive management plan for your company!