Web Protection Part 3: Deployment, Reports, and Usage

In part one of this series on Web Protection, you had a discussion with a client or potential client about implementing Web Protection. In part two, we covered setting up a demonstration policy and implemented it on a single device to begin collecting data for analysis. Now that you have had a few weeks to let Web Protection analyze the network traffic on your client's endpoint, the time has come to show the results of what type of information has been passing through this device. Bear in mind that while Web Protection has been deployed, it has been collecting and analyzing data. This data is available through the various reports within the MSP Remote Monitoring and Management Cloud Dashboard (MSP RMM Cloud). In the future, note that you can provide feedback on multiple levels. For the sake of this initial demonstration, you will only have tracking information for a single device.

Web Protection Part 2: Setting up a New Policy

In Part 1, we discussed how to have the initial conversation with your client's concerning Web Protection and how their company handles monitoring and managing their user's web activity. We now move into setting up a demonstration for the client to illustrate the benefits of Web Protection. To start out with your new customer, you can offer to run Web Protection on a single, active device for 30 days in order to collect data. This information is what can be viewed per device, and is what drives the generated ports. This demonstration gives you the best opportunity to illustrate the type of data that the client is not currently capturing, and helps them ensure that they are monitoring web access effectively.

Move it on up! Migration to more

OK, last year you successfully moved that stubborn break-fix client one step toward a managed contract.  At that time they had a contract with an old version of  SomeUnTech End-your-Point anti-virus.  The contract was expired and the new version was such a resource hog it couldn’t even be installed on some of their machines. All they want is anti-virus, so that made a "MAV-Only" deployment of your MAXfocus Managed Anti-Virus a perfect fit.

A year later and it’s time to revisit their agreement. It's a perfect time to move them up a notch in managed services.  So you walk in armed with an Asset Tracking report and a new contract that provides them the added security of MAXfocus Patch Management and the convenience of Remote Desktop technical support all for a fraction of the cost of on-site support, but raises their monthly cost by less than 50%.  In turn, it doubles your margin.  

What do you know, they’re ALL IN!  And now the fun begins.

Going, Going, Gone.

By: Ernest Byrd

     One of my Managed Care Customers contacted me Today and requested that I install Adobe Reader to all of their Machines.  Although my schedule is pretty packed, I told them that I can handle this within the next day or two.  I now realize the network is unstructured and there is no Domain Controller to utilize for Group Policy Deployment.  I need to figure something out, and fast...

Take An SNMP Walk - Creating New SNMP Checks using MIB Browsing Tools

How many times have you wanted to use GFI MAX to monitor a piece of hardware like a router or printer but didn't know how?  GFI MAX offers several ways to monitor IP addressable devices.

• Ping check - pings a device using its Hostname, FQDN or IP Address and fails if no response is received
• TCP Service Check - Attempts to connect to the specified port/service.  The check can be configured to pass or fail based on connection status.  In this way it can be used to check for services that should be running or alert you when ports that should be closed become open.
• Web Page Check - Checks a web page and passes the check as long as it responds with the expected text.
• SNMP Check - Used to query SNMP server hardware and SNMP enabled network devices such as routers, switched and printers.

So the first three checks are pretty self-explanatory.  SNMP checks however require a bit of digital mysticism.  Here is basic process for creating a new SNMP check that can then be used over and over again on your dashboard.

Managed Antivirus Only Deployments - Setup

Managed Antivirus (or MAV) can be deployed through GFI MAX to clients that want only antivirus.  By following the information below you can use just the antivirus for your clients and be charged only for antivirus.
 ATTENTION!  If the system is not set correctly beforehand additional charges may apply.  Read our article "Naked" MAV Setup regarding what NOT to turn on so you are not charged anything additional.  Once the system is set correctly, simply follow the steps below to create a MAV only deployment.

We Don't Need No Stinking Group Policy!!

Yeah, so everyone's talking about pushing out the agent in a domain, but not every client has a domain, do they?  I mean, we've all had a Dentist office for a client.  And they're just smart enough to know that the big "wide telephone-looking cable" goes into the back of the computer and the other end goes into that  Link-gear or Net-sys box in the closet, right?

Ugh.  So while you (and all the engineers) may not want that kind of client, their money spends just as well as anyone else's, so let's get them up to (technical) speed as much as we can, OK?  But before I can do that, I need to get my agents on their machines without watching someone's root canal in living color.  So, how does that happen?

(T3) Template/Deployment Scenarios

 Deploying agents to clients can be as varied as the clients themselves.  You may not need to monitor the computers at your bakery client the same way as you do at that law office.  GFIMAX currently addresses it a couple of different ways depending on the deployment scenario you're talking about.

Making sure you know when a server goes offline

Rumor has it that servers are somewhat important, and bad things may occasionally happen when they go down for an extended period of time.

All joking aside, servers are crucial. Maintaining and monitoring them is a big part of why you are in business. So nothing feels worse than having your customer call to tell you their server has been offline for 30 minutes, when you supposedly have a system in place to alert you in the event of downtime.

Let's make sure it doesn't happen to you.

Quick Tip: Road Warriors and Max RM

Site Concentrators are great for limiting bandwidth consumption in your network by having all the workstations on your network pull patching and Managed AV information from your server, but if your site had road warriors (travelling salesman / techs whose computers are regularly working remotely), you need to make accomodations. 

The easiest fix is to put a company's road warriors into their own site, with no Site Concentrator specified. This will make sure that these machines always pull patching and Managed AV definitions straight from the internet, as they may not always have a connection to the network's Site Concentrator.

Additionally, the Site installation package might not work for these machines and it may be difficult to manually install the agent yourself due to their mobility. Your best bet to deploy the agents to a road warrior's machine would be the Remote Worker installation: email them the one-click silent installer, and problem solved!

Fine-Tune your Performance Monitoring checks in MAX RM

When you first install MAX RemoteManagement on a server, you may notice a high amount of performance monitoring alerts. This may seem daunting at first, but you can quickly get these alerts under control, as shown in this video:

 

While you should watch the full video for the detailed instructions, the process can be summarized as follows:

1. Temporarily Suppress Alerting while data is collected
2. Analyze the Performance Monitoring Data to determine the proper baselines for the system
3. Edit Performance Monitoring Checks to reflect those new baselines
4. Change General Performance Monitoring Alert Thresholds to report on overall trends instead of spikes

Multiplying your results: One action, multiple devices

It's a no-brainer that doing an action once is better than doing that same action 39 times. Efficiency is one of the reasons why people choose an RMM solution, but they may not know of all the dashboard features available to help them achieve this goal.

(T3): Deploying Managed Anti-Virus

Deploying Managed Anti-Virus

Updated by David Ianetta

MSP RMM’s Managed Antivirus feature allows Managed Service Providers (MSPs) to make an antivirus security solution available to clients without an annual renewal contract. All management of the application, from deployment to threat remediation, is completed within the MSP RMM dashboard console.