We are a managed service provider that serves Bulloch and neighboring counties in Southeast Georgia. We specialize in HIPAA Covered Entities, but are a great fit for most businesses with fewer than 75 employees. We are essentially your part-time IT staff: we use automation and technology to manage your IT infrastructure remotely, and only come on-site for hardware issues.
What are managed services?
The easiest way to explain is with a comparison.
- Twenty-five years ago, we used what is now called the “break-fix” model:
- if something broke, you’d call us.
- Regular clients would get discounted rates and would pre-pay for a given amount of hours in a month.
- Support required coming on-site, talking through problems over the phone, or a VPN connection so remote control of desktops was possible.
- For the most part IT services were hands-off, but we were there when you needed us.
- Today, we are much more proactive. We:
- Manage updates and insure they are installed properly every day.
- Manage security, with multiple tools on every computer (and filtering on e-mail) designed to provide defense-in-depth to malware and other modern threats.
- Track performance on every machine so we can tell you when a computer is getting slow enough to warrant an upgrade.
- Run regular checks to insure all machines are in compliance with your policies – are all computers encrypted with Bitlocker? Are there files on user machines that are storing PHI in an insecure way?
- Manage backups so all backups are stored encrypted and off-site, and make sure these are happening regularly on every device.
- Remote control a user’s machine when tech support is required, to quickly identify the problem and show the user how to resolve this in the future.
The MSP model is now much more pro-active and preventative, with a lot more automated processes and tools to maintain efficiency.
This also means we have a lot more flexibility in the physical location of computers we can manage – where before we were limited to managing computers in a single site where we had visited before, it’s conceivable that someone on Germany or Malaysia can contract with us to manage their laptops, install our management software from a download link we sent them, and be fully managed in an hour.
Full service or just our Baseline package?
You want your office equipment to “just work,” day in and day out. Maintaining that smooth, easy, carefree environment requires:
- Monitoring your computers and network so problems can be detected as soon as they show up
- Software updates and patches that are performed daily to insure that bugs are fixed and security vulnerabilities are eliminated as soon as they are found
- Regular backups that are maintained off-site so you can recover quickly if the worst happens
- Computers are protected against modern-day threats
- E-mail is protected from malware and phishing using traditional tests, but also subjecting every e-mail to AI-based detection models.
- All incoming e-mail attachments are tested for safety before your users can download them
- Individual machines are prevented from going to sites that are likely to be unsafe
- Every machine has it’s firewall monitored and set to optimal settings
- Every process running on every machine is monitored, looking for changes that indicate something nefarious might be afoot
- Best in class antivirus and endpoint detection is running on all machines, and suspicious files are immediately sent to a team of specialists
- Every user can enter a support ticket from their desktop with a couple of clicks, and our support personnel can remote control the user’s screen to help them solve any IT issue that arises
- Secure password management is included, so users don’t rely on browser caching of passwords (which can be accessed by certain types of malware)
- Users can be allowed remote access to their office computers, via our secure portal, so all your important data stays on your computer under your control but users can work from home as required.
This is all part of our “software stack,” and this represents the baseline level of proactive protection any office computes should have.
Baseline Only
If your business needs someone to manage patching, monitoring, backups, and security, but you do not need regular tech support, hand-holding, and you are managing your own Microsoft licensing, we are a very affordable option. We will manage your computers at the same time as we manage the rest of the fleet, using the same tools, and can do so for $45 per month per device.
Standard full service
Our standard level of service is more of an alternative to hiring your own IT person:
- Do you need tech support, including a number to call when business is impacted by an issue? Do you want help when your receptionist is struggling with a scanner? We do that. Is it finally time to replace that scanner, printer, or other piece of hardware? We can help you figure it out and spec out a replacement.
- Are you a HIPAA covered entity that requires a BAA? We can sign one, and we have BAAs with all the companies that provide services (like backups and management) that are part of our software stack. We do not provide BAAs to baseline customers.
- While full service does not include purchase of Microsoft licenses, it absolutely includes removing and adding users to your existing accounts. We can purchase and manage licenses for you.
- All e-mail accounts are protected by best-in-class e-mail protection.
- Regular security awareness training is included and tracked for all users. We will occasionally test users with simulated phishing emails, and both educate and track users who click things they shouldn’t.
- We offer a non-intrusive monitoring service that meets your business needs without infringing on user privacy. We can break down how much time was spent on each application on a user’s computer, and if Chrome is their primary browser we can differentiate between time spent in your line of business applications and time spent on Facebook. This is really only useful with new hires and those that you already suspect may have developed short-timer’s syndrome, but it is there if you need it.
- We can block your computers from visiting entire categories of web sites, and can offer granular control on a machine-by-machine basis. If we miscategorize a site a simple link below the “this site is blocked” screen will request it be unblocked, and we can do so in real time.
- Capacity planning, new hardware purchases (or just specifications), and most everything tied to managing the IT of your growing business are included.
Standard full service is available for $83 per month per device.