Expand Your IT Team’s Capabilities with Co-Managed IT Support

Having ideas for initiatives marks the beginning of your journey toward meeting your organization’s goals. But what comes after, particularly when your in-house IT team is drowning in tasks that either surpass their capabilities or cannot be squeezed into their schedules?

You don’t have to choose between overtaxing your in-house resources and outsourcing. You can work hand-in-hand with an outsourced team to expand your internal team’s capabilities. This means:

• Leveraging our curated tools, processing, and execution in focused areas so you can focus on more strategic work.
• More freedom to complete whatever initiatives are important to your success
• Access to greater skill sets and expertise that you may not have on hand
• Limitless options to drive your business forward with digitization

Our experts have years of experience with not only different technologies but also different environments. This means we know what works well and what doesn’t so we can help you achieve more predictable outcomes. If you don’t want to hire and train more staff, let us guide you toward success as you leverage our team instead.

You’re in Control of How You Leverage our Co-Managed IT Services

Forthright becomes your partner for whatever initiative is most important to your success. These include, but are not limited to, assessments, implementation projects, remediation, optimization services, and infrastructure support. You’re in control of how you leverage our comprehensive, user-centric IT services with unparalleled flexibility and priority access to our entire team of award-winning professionals.

 

runIT – NOC Services

Forthright’s runIT Network Operations Center (NOC) offerings allow you to contract with Forthright for support of your dedicated networks, systems, databases, and select applications. Forthright’s modern approach to IT management allows you to select services that best support your individual business goals and current capabilities.  Each of the levels encompasses the previous levels. There is no loss in service when moving to a more comprehensive level, meaning that no operational tasks are lost when moving between levels.  Forthright provides three levels of managed services:

• Advanced Monitoring. Includes error/exception monitoring, performance threshold monitoring, and historical performance data collection and reporting. Advanced Monitoring includes comprehensive monitoring and alerting for supported technologies. In addition to basic availability monitoring of devices and services, Forthright also provides error/exception monitoring, threshold monitoring and performance utilization monitoring. When an alert is generated from the monitoring system, an incident will be generated in Forthright’s ticketing system. This allows you to maintain a record of events on the devices. All monitoring data is available through a web-based reporting engine. Maintenance/technical support, patching, and application of major software releases are not included in the fixed monthly fee. These services, however, are available on-demand on a time-and-materials basis. There are no SLAs for service uptime.
• Proactive Maintenance. Contains advanced monitoring services and additional limited, basic proactive support, such as vendor security patch availability monitoring, security patch necessity and priority analysis, and patch application. Proactive Maintenance includes basic patching and comprehensive monitoring and alerting for supported technologies. Forthright provides Advanced Monitoring of the technology in question, proactively monitors vendor security patch availability, analyzes security patch necessity and priority, and applies recommended patches to your system. Reactive problem resolution/technical support and the application of major software releases are not included in the fixed monthly fee. These services, however, are available on-demand on a time-and-materials basis. There are no SLAs for service uptime.
• Availability Management. Includes all advanced monitoring and proactive maintenance tasks plus Service Level Agreements (SLA) guarantees, all necessary reactive maintenance/technical support and standard administrative tasks.

Availability Management includes basic patching and comprehensive monitoring for supported technologies, plus full coverage of regular maintenance of the technology in question. Availability Management includes SLA guarantees for uptime of managed technologies. Problem resolution/technical engineering is included, as are most day-to-day functions (such as maintaining firewall access lists) necessary for the technology in question. Backup recovery functions are also managed and maintained by Forthright under Availability Management, provided the server is using the Forthright-hosted data backup service.

 

runIT – Hypervisor

Forthright Managed Services for Hypervisor take on the responsibility for tasks associated with monitoring, upgrades, maintenance, reporting, and hardware incident management for Hypervisor environments.

Key Features for Availability Management:

• Monitoring of resources
• Monitoring of hardware failures
• Install of Hypervisor OS updates
• Manage Storage
• Perform incident and problem management for Hypervisor-related Issues

 

runIT – Windows Server                                             

Forthright Managed Services for Windows Server address the essential needs of managing a Windows Server. Depending on the tier, Forthright’s NOC will address services from advanced monitoring, to proactive maintenance, to full availability management.

Key Features for Availability Management:

• 24×7 comprehensive monitoring storage, CPU, memory, and other critical services
• Monthly system patching
• Perform routine and regular maintenance
• Technical change control
• Perform incident and problem management for Windows server-related issues
• Support server roles include Active Directory, File Server, SQL, SNA, DHCP, RDS, and IIS

 

runIT – Network Device

Forthright Managed Services for Network Device addresses the essential needs of managing that particular network element. Whether it is a switch, wireless controller, router, or firewall, Forthright’s NOC will address services from advanced monitoring, to proactive maintenance, to full availability management.

Key Features for Availability Management:

• 24×7 monitoring
• Install, test, and troubleshoot vendor updates
• Perform standard maintenance such as ACL changes, rules, VLANs, configuring interfaces, etc.
• Hardware incident management
• Reporting

 

runIT – Citrix Environment

Forthright Managed Services for Citrix includes support for many of the Citrix products within the Citrix DaaS (formally Citrix Apps and Desktops). Forthright supports the Citrix platform 24 x 7 x 365. Forthright also provides break/fix support for hosted application issues, after Citrix Virtual Apps is ruled out as the root cause of an issue. Support at the application layer is limited to weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST.

Key Features for Availability Management:

• 24×7 monitoring on environment health
• Alerts may include, but are not limited to:
  • Availability monitoring
  • Performance monitoring, such as CPU, Memory, and Disk space
  • The health of the underlying managed platform
• Scheduled patching, consisting of only Citrix and Microsoft security and vulnerability patches, is applied to the supported environment
  Forthright uses a hierarchical approach to categorizing servers using a simplified-tier approach to manage server monitoring, alerting, and patching
• High-level reporting on environment health and service performance
• Regular preventative maintenance and patching of the Managed Citrix Platform in line with vendor recommendations
• Technical change control over the Citrix platform

 

runIT – Citrix Managed Images

Forthright Managed Services for Citrix will maintain the Citrix Managed Images within the Citrix environment for the non-persistent images. Image management follows Forthright’s monthly release cycle and processes. Depending on the size of the base Citrix environment, some managed images are included with that service. Each Citrix Managed Image comes with one (1) update each per month. Refer to our Release Management process for details.

Enrollment of new images has a setup fee noted in the Service Agreement.

Key Features for Availability Management:

• Monthly updates of OS, agents, and software
• Change log for each version
• Controlled release cycle for staging, testing, UAT, and production
• Work with Client to define/develop testing of application and services post-patching and test window(s)
• Assist in business application end-user testing based on Client-provided procedures and run sheets

 

Why Forthright Co-Managed IT?

We’ve been helping our clients navigate to success for over a quarter of a century. Now, with a simple service agreement, we’re offering clients the opportunity to gain access to our entire portfolio of resources: our professional services team with decades of experience in the enterprise, mid-market, and SMB spaces; our preferred toolsets; our documentation library; and our service delivery methodologies. Furthermore, we provide top-rated IT consulting services to ensure a proprietary framework for success and a focus on end-user experience.

Start your journey of enablement today – book a discovery call now!