New Service: IPCS Tier 1 Monitoring

Dan Bailey, president • Jan 28, 2016

Iowa PC Services is proud to announce this very smart new offering:  Continuous health monitoring of your computer.  We call it “IPCS Tier 1 Monitoring.”  This service includes:

  • Continuous 24/7 monitoring of your computer.
  • Regular updates of the software on your computer
  • Antivirus
  • Malicious web site blocking
  • Regular hard drive maintenance
  • Remote support availability

Daily Monitoring

With our remote monitoring service, we don’t hang around waiting for you to call when something goes wrong. Instead, we’ll check your system around the clock, day and night, for any problems that might interfere with your ability to do business. And when we spot trouble, we’ll fix it right away – probably before you even know about it.

With the Conventional Process…

  • A problem occurs and you deal with it in growing frustration.
  • You eventually call us when you can’t make any progress.
  • You describe the problem to us so we can either assign the right person or fix it over the phone.
  • Once we have a clear picture of the problem, we act to fix it.
  • We receive an alert within 15 minutes on average.
  • We’re told the exact cause of the problem (e.g. Windows service has failed)
  • We fix it remotely or dispatch someone to the site.  Instantly.
  • Your backup is complete to make sure your data is safe
  • Your antivirus pattern file to make sure your protection is always up-to-date
  • Your disk space to ensure your system won’t crash and your workers aren’t left unproductive while you recover
  • Your hard disk and memory health to ensure your system is always in peak operating condition
  • Your Critical Event Logs to spot other developing problems that could cause downtime during the day

This service is performed automatically – so it’s guaranteed to happen even if staff are sick or on holiday.  If we find problems, we’ll immediately alert an engineer so he can act fast to cut potential downtime.  We’ll even send you a short note to confirm the checks carried out and their results.

Regular Updates

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday we run scheduled checks to ensure that common software on your computer is up-to-date.  These updates are crucial to ensure that known vulnerabilities that have been fixed do not become your problem, by checking for updates from the software vendors.

Antivirus

The antivirus that is available with this monitoring system is tightly integrated into this monitoring service in a way that allows us to monitor whether it has been updated properly with the latest virus definitions.  We are also able to see what viruses it may have encountered, and whether these were completely removed or not.  Any anomalies in this managed antivirus system will raise a red flag, which allows us to be pro-active when problems arise.

If you use a different antivirus program, it’s possible that we will be able to monitor that program in place of the managed antivirus provided by Tier 1 Monitoring.  Other antivirus programs are not as tightly integrated as the managed antivirus, and we will not be able to see what viruses these antivirus programs have encountered on your computer, however we are often able to monitor the state of the a-v definitions for this different antivirus.

Malicious Web Site Blocking

Most viruses come through the web, and our web blocking system is able to prevent stumbling on sites that can cause serious difficulty on your computer.  These blocking rules can be customized for your needs, and for some people, we have disabled this altogether.

Regular Hard Drive Maintenance

We schedule a weekly temp file deletion and hard drive defragmenting.  Other regular maintenance tasks are possible as needed.

Remote Support

We use a remote support tool that allows us to remote-control your computer when you need help.  We charge our regular hourly fee for this time – it’s not covered by the monthly fee for Tier 1 Monitoring.  But we have use this many times to remote into a computer and fix problems for our customers on a more timely basis.

These are the various services available under the umbrella we call “IPCS Tier 1 Monitoring”.  And all this for far less than the cost of a cappuccino!

How to get started?  Just give us a call at 515-299-4555, or use the contact form.  We’d love to help!

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