Desktop Management

REMOTE SUPPORT

With Kalmer Solutions managed services plan in place, you can have our technicians remotely troubleshoot issues you may be having at your business. Instead of calling our office and scheduling a technician to get onsite (which can sometimes take hours), we can troubleshoot your problem real-time. This will help your company increase up-time and productivity. With remote support and managed services working together, our technicians have a significant amount of information about the problem before they look at it. This increases the chance of your issue being resolved on the first try. We can remotely troubleshoot PC’s, servers, routers, and firewalls.

HELP DESK

Our help desk is available from 8 – 5pm M – F. Our clients have the ability to call the help desk directly for support, or they can generate a ticket online. Our technicians can walk the client through an issue via the telephone, or we can remote into the computer. All calls made to the help desk are tracked and logged. This allows Kalmer Solutions to provide documentation on a monthly basis to our managed services clients. We will document the nature of the call and how long it took to resolve the call. We want our clients to know they are in good hands. If an issue arises, chances are we already know about it – but the client has an option to log a ticket online or call our help desk. We also have an online ticket tracking system which allows our clients to verify the status of their services request.

PRINTER MANAGEMENT

Not only can Kalmer Solutions remotely manage your firewalls, client PC’s, and servers, but we can also manage your printers. As long as the printer is on the network we can probe the device remotely and verify copy counts and alerts. Through our managed services plan, we will know if there is a problem with your printer before you do! This will allow us to be proactive in finding a solution, and will help increase company up-time and overall productivity. Here are a few of the many brands we can manage:

• HP
• Lexmark
• Xerox
• Ricoh
• Epson
• Pitney Bowes
• Fujitsu
• Olympus
• Oki Data
• IBM
• Toshiba

24/7 MONITORING

Our Network Operations Center (NOC) is located in our corporate office in Jonesboro, Arkansas. From this location Kalmer Solutions establishes a secure connection into a Client’s network. At this point, we can monitor and manage their topology in real-time. We receive notifications regarding the health of a PC, server, router or firewall, and overall network stability. Our monitoring is done 24/7, 365 days a year.

Some advantages of real-time 24/7 monitoring include:

• Immediate detection of threats or problems
• Virus or intrusion prevention
• Increased up-time
• The ability to have documentation on network performance before and after business hours
• An overall increase in network security

Security Management

FIREWALL MANAGEMENT

Kalmer Solutions can make sure that your firewall contains secure software as well as proper ACL’s and policies. Through our managed services plans, we can monitor your firewall real-time 24/7, 365 days a year. Firewall solutions we can support (but aren’t limited to) include: Cisco, Proventia, SonicWall, 3Com, Enterux, Juniper and WatchGuard.

PATCH MANAGEMENT

Computer networks are only as secure as the weakest link. It’s critically important to keep servers, clients, routers, and firewalls up-to-date. Manufactures such as Microsoft, Cisco, and Sonicwall, often release patches which can fix security glitches or improve performance. Keeping up with these patches can sometimes be a challenge when you have multiple servers, routers, and client PC’s. Kalmer Solutions can take care of your patch management needs or concerns. We can manage critical patch levels for:

• Virtually all Microsoft products
• Cisco ASA & PIX
• Cisco IOS – switches and routers
• Client PC’s
• Servers – Linux, Microsoft
• Virtually all firewall solutions

ANTI-VIRUS/SPYWARE MANAGEMENT

A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without permission or knowledge of the user. The original may modify the copies or the copies may modify themselves, as occurs in a metamorphic virus. A virus can only spread from one computer to another when its host is taken to the uninfected computer, for instance by a user sending it over a network or carrying it on a removable medium such as a floppy disk, CD, or USB drive. Additionally, viruses can spread to other computers by infecting files on a network file system or a file system that is accessed by another computer. Kalmer Solutions can actively monitor our client’s PC’s and servers to verify that:

• The PC or server has adequate virus protection.
• The virus protection is up-to-date.
• Critical updates are downloaded and applied to the PC, server, router, or firewall.

If a virus or security related issue is discovered, Kalmer Solutions can resolve the issue quickly from a remote location. This could significantly increase the up-time of a PC, server, or network.

24/7 MONITORING

Our Network Operations Center (NOC) is located in our corporate office in Jonesboro, Arkansas. From this location Kalmer Solutions establishes a secure connection into a Client’s network. At this point, we can monitor and manage their topology in real-time. We receive notifications regarding the health of a PC, server, router or firewall, and overall network stability. Our monitoring is done 24/7, 365 days a year.

Some advantages of real-time 24/7 monitoring include:

• Immediate detection of threats or problems
• Virus or intrusion prevention
• Increased up-time
• The ability to have documentation on network performance before and after business hours
• An overall increase in network security

Server Management

WINDOWS SERVERS

Windows servers will generally be version 2008 or 2003. We will make sure that the patch levels and virus protection are up-to-date. Through our managed services plan, we can verify the patch levels, virus protection, and error log activity from our network operations center (NOC). We will know real-time the overall health of your Windows server. For example, if your server was running RAID 5 and you had a hard drive fail, we could dynamically rebuild the drive remotely. This would keep your server going and keep your office productive.

Windows server monitoring can include Exchange Server, Active Directory, and other packages installed on the system. If you have specialized applications such as fax server software that you need monitored, we can do it.

ACTIVE DIRECTORY MANAGEMENT

Active Directory is an implementation of LDAP directory services by Microsoft for use primarily in Windows environments. The main purpose of Active Directory is to provide central authentication and authorization services for Windows based computers. Active Directory also allows administrators to assign policies, deploy software, and apply critical updates to an entire organization. Active Directory stores information and settings relating to an organization in a central, organized, accessible database. Active Directory networks can vary from a small installation with a few hundred objects, to a large installation with millions of objects.

Once Kalmer Solutions gains an understanding of our client’s objectives; we can mold an active directory solution to fit their needs. In addition, we can remotely monitor active directory objects, policies, and critical updates that influence active directory and overall network security. We can also add or remove objects and users as necessary.

EXCHANGE SERVER

Kalmer Solutions can help manage your Exchange Server onsite or remotely through a managed services plan. We can help you with:

• Spam filtering
• Relay prevention
• Virus prevention
• Mobile access configuration
• User and group management
• DNSBL tracking / prevention
• Sharepoint and Online Colabra
• Filter rules based on sender ID
• SPF record implementation

SQL SERVER

Our managed services package will monitor SQL related events. The forwarding of these alerts or events has many advantages. It allows the SQL logs, events, and alerts to be:

• Centralized: We will have a centralized and consolidated view of the events of many SQL Server instance. A single point of control.
• Scalable: We will be administering many physical servers as one logical server. Add or remove servers to this physical server group as needed.
• Efficient: We will save time spent configuring new servers because alerts and operators are defined only once on the central server.

We know how important your database backbone is to your company. No matter if your running MSSQL, MySQL, or another database platform, we can handle your remote database management needs.

Backup Solutions

Kalmer Solutions can implement an in-house or off-site backup solution. Our backup solutions can include tapes, redundant internal backups (such as partition replication), redundant external backups (such as an external harddrive), and remote backups. We have found that a combination of a good internal and external backup is sufficient for most clients.

MOST BUSINESSES DON’T HAVE A BACKUP PLAN THAT COMPLETELY PROTECTS THEM!

Here are some vital statistics regarding data loss (statistics from protect-data.com):

HARDWARE OR SYSTEM MALFUNCTIONS (44 percent of all data loss)

Possible Symptoms

• Error message stating the device is not recognized
• Previously accessible data suddenly gone
• Scraping or rattling sound
• Hard drive not spinning
• Computer hard drive doesn’t function

Examples

• Electrical failure
• Head/media crash
• Controller failure

HUMAN ERROR (32 percent of all data loss)

Possible Symptoms

• Previously accessible data suddenly gone
• Message similar to “File Not Found”

Examples

• Accidental deletion or drive format
• Trauma caused by drop or fall

SOFTWARE CORRUPTION (14 percent of all data loss)

Possible Symptoms

• System messages relating to memory errors
• Software application won’t load
• Error message stating data is corrupted or inaccessible

Examples

• Corruption caused by diagnostic or repair tools
• Failed backups
• Configuration complexity

COMPUTER VIRUSES (7 percent of all data loss)

Possible Symptoms

• Blank screen
• Strange and unpredictable behavior
• Error message stating
• “File Not Found” Message announcing virus appears on screen

Examples

• Boot sector viruses
• File infecting viruses
• Polymorphic viruses

NATURAL DISASTERS (3 percent of all data loss)

Possible Symptoms

• While floods and earthquakes have obvious symptoms, brownouts and lightning strikes often leave no clues

Examples

• Fires
• Floods
• Brownouts

Virtualization

VMware, the industry-leading virtualization software company, empowers organizations to inovate and thrive by streamlining IT operations. By virtualizing infrastructure – from the data center to the cloud to mobile devices – VMware enables IT to deliver services from any device, anytime, anywhere.

Virtualization is the process of running a virtual instance of a computer system in a layer abstracted from the actual hardware. Most commonly, it refers to running multiple operating systems on a computer system simultaneously. To the applications running on top of the virtualized machine, it can appear as if they are on their own dedicated machine, where the operating system, libraries, and other programs are unique to the guest virtualized system and unconnected to the host operating system which sits below it.

Virtual CIO

It is challenging for Small and Medium sized business to keep up with the Technology changes in addition to running the business.

Kalmer Solutions can provide you with advice and planning to help your business make better decisions regarding technology and how to use it to grow your business.

• Liaison (Regulatory Exams and Third Party Audits)
• Policy and Risk Assessment Maintenance
• Strategic Planning
• Capital Planning and Investment
• Process Improvement
• Architectures and Infrastructures
• Technology Assessment
• Security and Information Assurance