Our proactive support model is the number one thing that sets us apart from our competitors. Our thorough approach to proactive systems and software management goes far above and beyond what most companies can offer.
The key word here is "proactive". Our systems proactively watch yours to determine if they're operating under optimal conditions. Our people use these systems to proactively identify and fix potential problems often before you even know about them. Here's how it works.
System and Network Monitoring (INmon)
INmon is our sophisticated monitoring system that actively watches customers’ computers, firewalls, printers, and other network devices to track their status. When a parameter we track goes out of compliance, a technician gets notified, usually within ten minutes, and can respond to the problem.
These monitors are designed to make sure that physical hardware is functioning correctly.
- Physical and logical disk status
- RAID status
- Power supply status
- Power consumption
- System component temperature
- Ambient room temperature
- Fan status and rotational speed
These monitors track the amount of system resources that are being used. When resources are nearing exhaustion, a technician is alerted. These monitors include:
- CPU utilization
- Memory utilization
- Disk queue length
- Disk space utilization
- Network bandwidth utilization
These monitors track the status of various software components of the system. In most cases, these monitors have an on or off value. That is to say that either the software component is working or it is not. When it is not working an technician is alerted. These include:
- State of system services
- Availability of network services
- SSL certificate status
- System time variance
- Network interface errors
We track trends in these parameters and retain historical data for four years. From these trends, we can often predict when system slow-downs or failures might occur and take corrective action before these things impact business operations. These include:
- Top 5 processes by CPU utilization
- Top 5 processes by memory utilization
- Extensive monitors for database server performance
- Custom monitors for line-of-business applications
These monitors are designed to simulate an actual user's actions. For example, we'll send an email to a customer's server and check there to make sure it was received. Then the customer's server will send an email back to us and we'll make sure it shows up on one of our servers. These monitors are:
- Email sending and receiving
- Synthetic website transactions
Configuration Tracking (INtrack)
Our INtrack system retrieves and stores configuration information from servers, workstations, firewalls, and other network devices. This enables us to provide point-in-time recovery of many network devices. It also helps us ensure that all configuration changes are authorized and documented. Armed with this information we can quickly provide the "who, what, when, and why" of almost any changes to the configuration of customer equipment.
INtrack maintains information about what software is installed on customer computers and what programs are set to automatically launch during a computer’s startup procedure. Because INtrack detects changes in these items, it can often identify viruses and other malware before virus-scanning software is able to do so.
INtrack's audit capabilities allow us to safeguard the configuration of many network devices and ensure that no unauthorized changes have been made. Here are just a few of the itmes INtrack audits on a daily basis.
- Firewall configuration
- Switch, router, and access point configuration
- VMware configuration
- Windows Group Policy
- Login scripts
- Windows Active Directory
- System launch point configuration
- Installed software
- Installed patches
- Security information for key folders
- Malware protection software configuration
- Email security configuration
Network Mapping (INmap)
INmap scans a customer’s network and maintains a map of the devices attached to it. If a new device shows up on the network or new ports open up on existing devices, a technician will be notified. The technician can then determine if the new device or port is the result of rogue activity and take appropriate action.
Log Collection, Retention, and Review (INlog)
An average Microsoft Windows Small Business Server produces between 200,000 and 400,000 events daily in its logs. Most technology companies never look into these logs until something goes wrong. Also, due to the sheer mass of data in these logs, most servers are configured to throw away events more than a couple of days old.
At INDIGEX our INlog service intelligently monitors these logs, collecting important data and ignoring the fluff. Important data from these logs is forwarded to our INlog servers, where it is retained for a year. It is also further processed to identify “interesting” information. The interesting events are then forwarded to a technician for review. The technician can then decide if any action needs to be taken.
Software Update and Patch Management (INpatch)
In today's environment, where everything from phones to coffee pots are connected to the Internet, new security vulnerabilities are discovered daily. Most major software vendors regularly release updates to fix bugs and close security holes in their products. It is important for businesses to keep their equipment updated with the latest software patches in order to maintain the security of their data.
INDIGEX uses a two-phase approach to ensure that customers' software is kept up to date. First, we set up automatic download and installation of updates for software from Microsoft, Adobe, Apple and many others. Because these updates will be installed silently in the background, we suppress the annoying pop-up notifications that many of these software packages produce. Our software will find and update over 100 software packages whether or not they were originally installed by us.
In order to ensure integrity of the process, on a monthly basis we review the status of software updates to ensure that the appropriate patches have been applied.
Anti-virus, Anti-malware, and Malicious Web Site Protection
INDIGEX has partnered with Trend Micro to provide protection from malicious software and web sites. According to NSS Labs, Trend Micro makes the best anti-malware product on the market; however, even the best software protection does not guarantee your computer won't get infected.
When this happens, we have a second line of defense: INtrack. Our unique INtrack system will not prevent your computer from getting infected, but it can often detect when a computer has been infected, even when anti-malware software cannot. Knowing your computer is infected allows us to quickly quaranteen it and remove the malicious software. Quick action is the key to minimizing compromise or loss of data.