Introduction

The key element of delivering a managed services technology is allowing EAPEN engineers to remotely and securely monitor, maintain and manage desktops, servers, network devices and applications at customer locations over the Internet not requiring a VPN or any firewall/NAT reconfiguration.  Our engineers can manage desktops, servers, SNMP network devices and applications from our own remote administration console. All components operate outbound over port 443 and port 16145 utilizing 128-bit encrypted connections and do not require firewall or NAT reconfiguration or inbound access of any sort.

Agents are installed on every desktop and server that will be managed.  The Data Center Application handles all the analytical processing, alerting, reporting and controls the interaction with the agents.  The Remote Administration Console allows our engineers to analyze and troubleshoot problems.  An optional Gateway software component which caches downloads for desktops such as patches and updates for the agents. This allows all local machines to use just one download rather that each agent going out to the data center and downloading patches and updates separately, saving on considerable band width.

Desktop/Laptop Agent -
Every managed desktop or laptop computer must have the Agent installed. The Agents can be deployed manually, with a remote deployment tool or by login scripts/GPOs. The agent collects system configurations, asset information (software and hardware), Microsoft patch status, S.M.A.R.T. hard drive statistics, and antivirus and anti-spy ware information which are then sent to the Data Center Application. The Agent is also responsible for executing patch and software deployments, uninstall routines, maintenance activities and remote control initiation. The Agent performs its functions based on instructions received from the Data Center Application.

Server Agent -
Like the Desktop/Laptop Agent, the Server Agent must be installed on every Windows Server that will be monitored or managed. The Agent monitors parameters on the host server and can be directed to monitor Linux servers and SNMP network devices. The Agent continuously monitors performance counters, log files, event logs, WMI data and a myriad of other critical files and information sources transmitting this information to the Data Center Application for further processing, analysis and alerting.  When an issue occurs on the host server or on other devices being monitored by the Agent, the agent sends the alert to the Data Center for immediate processing and any necessary alerting.  Alerts are posted on the web portal for Engineers to escalate as need be.  The Agent also collects and transmits data to the Data Center that will be utilized for performance trending and analysis.

Data Center Application (DCA) -
The DCA is responsible for alert management, analytical processing, managing secure connections with the Server and Desktop Agents, problem workflow management and running internal NOCCS (Network Operations Center Control Software). The DCA resides on a highly redundant server farm on the West Coast rated among the top ten data centers in the world mirrored also at a high availability site on the East Coast. The DCA is the brains of the Managed Services Technology which allows the Desktop Agents and Server Agents to be extremely small applications minimizing their impact on the managed machines.  This architecture eliminates the need for Small and Medium Business enterprises to buy and maintain hardware and software.

Gateway Component -
Each Desktop/Laptop or Server Agent separately downloading patches, updates or software from the Internet is bandwidth-intensive. The gateway component is installed on one machine on a local area network and it functions like a download cache/proxy. The Gateway component can be installed on any desktop or server running Windows 2000 or higher and should be online 24 hours each day. The gateway component contains an embedded web server or can be installed on a server running IIS 5.0 or above. Any Agents installed at a client site will communicate to the gateway using standard http instead of utilizing Internet bandwidth.