THE ROOT GROUP NEWSLETTER

Two products from Microsoft that automate end point management and greatly improve your overall security preparedness (not to mention your IT staff productivity) are SCCM aka ”Systems Center (now End Point) Configuration Manger” and InTune, Microsoft’s Mobile Device Management platform. You can think of these as corporate desktop patch / upgrade management (SCCM) or external IOS / Android device management tools. These tools automate Operating System deployments, systems patching and application deployments. We offer services to help you define Automatic Deployment Rules, architect Primary Site and Distribution Points, schedule server and end point updates, verify and report on device compliance and much more. If you do not have the resources to deploy SCCM or InTune, The Root Group offers either project-based or CoManaged services that put the majority of the work of deploying and/or managing these environments on us. Our senior engineer who heads up this program has over 6 years of designing and running a large, multi-site SCCM production deployment. The good news is that generally, SCCM is included as part of your Microsoft Enterprise Agreement or other MS licensing.

CoManaged Services – Monthly management of Network, Security and MS environments

Most of our customers are very familiar with our Project or Incident Response engineering services. In 2019 we launched CoManaged Services to address the need for a service that provides daily monitoring, management and troubleshooting of a specific environment by senior-level Root Group engineers, while your staff takes care of Tier 1 and 2 Help Desk. Available for network, security or Microsoft environments, this sharing of responsibility between you and The Root Group keeps you engaged and in control of those environments with us doing the heavy lifting of design, monitoring, patching, upgrades and performance tuning. This is a particularly good fit if your staff lacks the time or expertise to adequately manage a specific environment or if there is no funding to add headcount.

CoManaged Services Features:

• Health check and remediation of existing environment to desired performance and uptime requirements
• Monitoring and management of existing environment with patching and upgrading of Operating System and application environments
• Documentation of environment and implementation of change management and escalation procedures
• Regular meetings between client and Root Group to communicate effectiveness and address areas of concern

CoManaged Services Benefits:

• Reduces cost by improving IT staff utilization and eliminating the need for additional headcount
• Improves IT visibility by by focusing resources on IT projects which address high value business needs
• Improves system performance and uptime by having senior engineers troubleshoot and maintain those systems

Comparison of Consulting Engagement Options