Regular ping monitoring from our IPMonitor system allows us to verify that your server is available online. If your server stops responding to ping requests, our fully staffed, 24x7 network operations center will follow escalation procedures that you, the customer can defined. These escalation procedures can be as simple as having our staff place a phone call or reboot your system, or with our more advanced Manage Services plans, can be as detailed as having us restart services, verify applications are responding, check system logs and/or produce outage reports.

Smart Team provides comprehensive Microsoft and CentOS Linux update and Security patch services. Microsoft customers are configured with Windows Update, which is monitored and managed centrally by our Information Security team. General release patches are applied using a customer defined maintenance window. Security updates are typically tested and installed within 8-48 hours of their release from Microsoft or CentOS. Our Information Security team monitors Cert advisories, SANS advisories, Slashdot, Microsoft TechNet and other operating system watchdog services.

Our network operations center is staffed with quality technicians trained in multiple operating systems, network essentials and multiple applications. Whether you need assistance bringing a server back online, installing new hardware or just getting someone to reboot your server, our staff is setup to assist you as quickly as possible.

Aside from simple ping monitoring, our IPMonitor system can monitor various services as requested by customer. From our systems, we can monitor your server to ensure that services such as FTP, HTTP, SSH and others are not only answering, but also responding as expected. Monitoring requests and specific parameters can be provided by completing a form. If a service ceases to respond as expected, our monitoring service will automatically send a notification to the email address(es) specified by the customer.

A good place to start with your risk mitigation is with a vulnerability assessment. Vulnerability assessments idenfity your systems and the components operating on your servers, and then test these components using a vulnerability database Smart Team updates daily. Using the resulting list of vulnerabilities, the client can either repair these vulnerabilities on their own or have Smart Team apply the appropriates patches and updates.

As hackers continue to come out with new strains of viruses in attempts to compromise services, one way to try to stay protected is with anti-virus software. With specific Managed Service Plans, we will install and monitor licensed TrendMicro anti-virus tools to help protect your server.

Hardening your servers can serve to mitigate your risk of being hacked or suffering a denial of service attack by over 90%. Because most hackers use fingerprinting to identify what is running on your system, hardening techniques can hide this information or send misleading information that will make them think, for example, that your Windows 2000 system is a Novell system. This will, of course, cause all their Novell hacks to be completely ineffective. O/S hardning tactics are frequently updated, and require high levels of security and system administration expertise.

Ever wonder how insecure your server really is? Smart Team's Information Security team can perform a full-fledged penetration test of your hosted server to show you if your system is vulnerable to hacking attempts. This type of testing allows organizations to concentrate on those systems that are the most vulnerable. Penetration testing and vulnerability assessments are often required to comply with our industry requirements such as Visa certification, FDIC certification, HIPPA compliance, GLB act compliance and others. Using industry-standard and underground tools and techniques, Smart Team's certified security engineers will do everything possible to fully test the security of your hosted systems. Our network operation center is staffed with quality technicians trained in multiple operating systems, networking essentials and multiple applications. Whether you need assistance bringing a server back online, installing new hardware or just getting someone to reboot your server, our staff is setup to assist you as quickly as possible.

Depending on the Managed Services Level, the customer may get additional operating system administrative assistance. This might include requests to help adjust the operating sy stem to match new service requirements, install software, maintain user policies, etc. Requests can be regularly scheduled maintenance or ad hoc requests.