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mindphlux
Jan 8, 2004

by R. Guyovich
So, it's been a while since I had to set up a new message continuity / filtering service for an exchange server.

I use(d) Postini for all my clients, but they've been bought by Google and the Google Apps implementation is a bit messy.

Any recommendations for e-mail filtering services? I've tried Microsoft's Forefront, and it sucked balls imho - I'm just googling at this point for something at a similar pricepoint (cheap) - and finding a lot of options.

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Biggz
Dec 27, 2005

mindphlux posted:

Any recommendations for e-mail filtering services?

We use Mimecast. Not the cheapest but it does a lot more than just email filtering.
We have also used Maildistiller, which now looks to be Proofpoint Essentials. I didn't realise they've changed to Proofpoint but the customers we have on it haven't had any problems.

Richard Noggin
Jun 6, 2005
Redneck By Default
We've transitioned to MXLogic and I don't hear any complaints.

Thanks Ants
May 21, 2004

#essereFerrari


What are your recommendations for structured storing of data about client sites (e.g. servers should include user accounts, IPs, serial number, specs etc. network hardware should include user accounts, IP addresses, interfaces, maybe even be able to virtually cable devices together).

The most important thing is that it's easy to put the data into the system, easy to edit it, and easy to pull it back out. My experience with GLPI has taught me that while it's very powerful, it's also horrendous to use, so nobody does. Search is incredibly important - I want to be able to type in "[client] router" and it shows me everything that is categorized as a router relating to that client.

I guess an alternative to something specifically designed for IT hardware would be a wiki style application that can be divided up by client with some customizable and enforced templates, but that sounds like a lot of work.

Richard Noggin
Jun 6, 2005
Redneck By Default

Caged posted:

What are your recommendations for structured storing of data about client sites (e.g. servers should include user accounts, IPs, serial number, specs etc. network hardware should include user accounts, IP addresses, interfaces, maybe even be able to virtually cable devices together).

The most important thing is that it's easy to put the data into the system, easy to edit it, and easy to pull it back out. My experience with GLPI has taught me that while it's very powerful, it's also horrendous to use, so nobody does. Search is incredibly important - I want to be able to type in "[client] router" and it shows me everything that is categorized as a router relating to that client.

I guess an alternative to something specifically designed for IT hardware would be a wiki style application that can be divided up by client with some customizable and enforced templates, but that sounds like a lot of work.

Short of a real PSA tool like ConnectWise, RackTables can do pretty much everything you're asking.

Trouser Mouse Bear
Mar 20, 2004
Bancount - 1

bimmian posted:

What does everyone use for password management? Ours are a bit scattered so I'm looking into solutions, I've used Keepass prior and use lastpass personally. Anyone use lastpass enterprise?

Part of our MSP business uses Secret Server. When it came time for the entire business to use Secret Server we evaluated our options and decided on going to AuthAnvil instead.
The out of box integration into Kaseya was the deal clincher really as we are lazy like that. However, for a comparable cost to Secret Server we got a shitload of extra functionality (2FA, SSO) and we also have a platform that we can sell as Authentication As A Service (although somehow convincing customers that it is a worthwhile service will be difficult).

I'm currently deploying it on AWS so holla at me if you need questions answered about it.

Biggz
Dec 27, 2005

I'm currently looking at GFI to replace N-Able. We pretty much only use N-Able for it's DirectConnect remote desktop and monitoring ~200 endpoints via ping only.

I've been looking specifically at GFI because it uses TeamViewer, which is what I always use when N-Able's DirectConnect doesn't work or is slow, which is most of the time.
I've seen a few posts earlier in here not liking GFI because it uses TeamViewer. Is there anything I should know about with it? Its seemed to work great for me when ever i've used it.

incoherent
Apr 24, 2004

01010100011010000111001
00110100101101100011011
000110010101110010
We rolled teamviewer into the software we develop, and I love it a lot. I do not like the licensing though, it is borderline ripoff.

Biggz
Dec 27, 2005

incoherent posted:

We rolled teamviewer into the software we develop, and I love it a lot. I do not like the licensing though, it is borderline ripoff.
Buying teamviewer outright is expensive, especially if you need more than one channel. The GFI rebranded Teamviewer is £0.20/month/workstation, I've not seen any limits on concurrent users. I've not tested that but I don't think it will be an issue.

bimmian
Oct 16, 2008

Trouser Mouse Bear posted:

Part of our MSP business uses Secret Server. When it came time for the entire business to use Secret Server we evaluated our options and decided on going to AuthAnvil instead.
The out of box integration into Kaseya was the deal clincher really as we are lazy like that. However, for a comparable cost to Secret Server we got a shitload of extra functionality (2FA, SSO) and we also have a platform that we can sell as Authentication As A Service (although somehow convincing customers that it is a worthwhile service will be difficult).

I'm currently deploying it on AWS so holla at me if you need questions answered about it.

Thanks, I'll take a closer look at that. We use autotask and n-able and it has integrations with both, so that certainly makes it more attractive.

bimmian
Oct 16, 2008

Biggz posted:

I'm currently looking at GFI to replace N-Able. We pretty much only use N-Able for it's DirectConnect remote desktop and monitoring ~200 endpoints via ping only.

I've been looking specifically at GFI because it uses TeamViewer, which is what I always use when N-Able's DirectConnect doesn't work or is slow, which is most of the time.
I've seen a few posts earlier in here not liking GFI because it uses TeamViewer. Is there anything I should know about with it? Its seemed to work great for me when ever i've used it.

Directconnect has improved drastically for us over the past few months, I rarely hear complaints from our techs anymore. Obviously it doesn't look like you utilize much of the functionality, but I'm interested in why else you're moving away from it. Most of my complaints revolve around patch management at the moment.

Biggz
Dec 27, 2005

bimmian posted:

but I'm interested in why else you're moving away from it.

The new managed AV client (based on BitDefender I think) causes some of our customers on WinXP (yeah I know) to have performance problems, even with the Low Resource AV profile. Wouldn't let other customers load Sage Accounts, a very popular UK accounting software. And the very best one, copying anything to the clipboard on 2003 based servers, by both control+v and right click->copy, would cause the server to crash and restart. We've really lost confidence in the AV.

My manager has been speaking with N-Able support a lot about the issues we've seen and it's still not fixed. To be fair to N-Able their DirectConnect was a massive improvement over VNC :v:

We currently don't use the full potential of N-able, it's mainly for remote desktop access and <100 managed AV clients.

I really don't want to poo poo on N-Able, when DirectConnect works it works great, and there's some sites where AV works fine too... I'm just getting sick of it not working.

mindphlux
Jan 8, 2004

by R. Guyovich
FYI y'all - I ended up using MailRoute for my client needing exchange e-mail filtering/delivery security. It works absolutely great and the layout is exactly how I was expecting it to be, coming from Postini. I highly recommend it to any of y'all.

You can even set up customers, so you assign domains to customers, which is perfect - makes it easy to use as a centralized console for multiple clients. I think I'm going to switch everyone I have using mail filtering over to my mailroute account, and start reselling it as an add-on service.

Stugazi
Mar 1, 2004

Who me, Bitter?
Any recommendations for monitoring network devices? Continuums built in capabilities are not enough for some of the bigger networks we need manage.

Solarwinds bought n-able. Has any of that sweet network monitoring made it to n-able?

We have called ZenOSS.com several times but no response. :(

bimmian
Oct 16, 2008

Biggz posted:

The new managed AV client (based on BitDefender I think) causes some of our customers on WinXP (yeah I know) to have performance problems, even with the Low Resource AV profile. Wouldn't let other customers load Sage Accounts, a very popular UK accounting software. And the very best one, copying anything to the clipboard on 2003 based servers, by both control+v and right click->copy, would cause the server to crash and restart. We've really lost confidence in the AV.



poo poo, hadn't heard of that 2003 bug, luckily we've moved all our managed customers to 2008/2012 at this point. I can't say I'm terribly impressed with bitdefender either tbh, but it does a decent enough job for $12/endpoint/year. We have a new customer onboarding now with sage, I'll keep that in mind, thanks.


Stugazi posted:

Any recommendations for monitoring network devices? Continuums built in capabilities are not enough for some of the bigger networks we need manage.

Solarwinds bought n-able. Has any of that sweet network monitoring made it to n-able?

We have called ZenOSS.com several times but no response. :(

Unfortunately no solarwinds goodness has made it's way into n-able. That acquisition has been a bit frustrating, just absolutely zero word still on how/if any functionality will come over.

I started using zenoss core for my side business, jury is still out on it, but it works pretty well out of the box so far. There are some hosted services that are decent too, I'll have to look through my notes to see which ones I was considering.

Maneki Neko
Oct 27, 2000

bimmian posted:

Unfortunately no solarwinds goodness has made it's way into n-able. That acquisition has been a bit frustrating, just absolutely zero word still on how/if any functionality will come over.

I started using zenoss core for my side business, jury is still out on it, but it works pretty well out of the box so far. There are some hosted services that are decent too, I'll have to look through my notes to see which ones I was considering.

N-able did do a half assed helpdesk integration with a (terrible) helpdesk product that Solarwinds bought, but yeah, not much else.

Biggz
Dec 27, 2005

Maneki Neko posted:

N-able did do a half assed helpdesk integration with a (terrible) helpdesk product that Solarwinds bought, but yeah, not much else.

Was that Web Help Desk? I was planning on taking a look at that next week, from the 30 minute look I had a couple of months ago it looked a lot better than what we currently use, which is pretty much a glorified shared mailbox.

The company owner has a hard on for using a Microsoft Dynamics package to handle incidents and we're about to take a look at http://alfapeople.com/itsm-dynamics-crm/. To be honest it looks alright, certainly better than what we're currently using.

Does anyone know of any other Dynamics based ITSM prodcuts?
What do you guys use and find good / bad? On my list to check out are:
  • http://freshservice.com/ - Doesn't look like it handles multiple clients well
  • Web Help Desk
  • ZenDesk
  • http://www.sysaid.com/features

Thanks Ants
May 21, 2004

#essereFerrari


I can't complain about Zendesk, but I don't pay the bills.

Maneki Neko
Oct 27, 2000

Anyone use AVG Managed Workplace as an RMM? Our eval of labtech fell apart for the most part when we actually went through it, and Kaseya has a fair amount of complexity and cost, so looking around at alternative options.

Biggz posted:

Was that Web Help Desk? I was planning on taking a look at that next week, from the 30 minute look I had a couple of months ago it looked a lot better than what we currently use, which is pretty much a glorified shared mailbox.

Yeah, it's a solid "meh", although it's possible that we're using it wrong.

mindphlux
Jan 8, 2004

by R. Guyovich
I use zendesk. I like it. It's not horribly expensive. I'm also not a huge MSP though.


that said, I signed 3 huge contracts last week. I'm simultaneously scared out of my mind, and really excited. and working 8am to 2am. I need to hire someone. :ron-paul-its-happenninningggg:


really need to figure out something better for client notes/password management, I'm just sick as poo poo of evernote. Does anyone using continuum actually use their built in password vault for anything other than giving the NOC admin credentials? it looks pretty lovely, but I guess at least its structured...

sanchez
Feb 26, 2003
I don't trust them enough for that. Look into something like secretserver if you're going to hire somebody, dealing with password management from the get go will make it so much easier when you have staff turnover.

mindphlux
Jan 8, 2004

by R. Guyovich

sanchez posted:

I don't trust them enough for that. Look into something like secretserver if you're going to hire somebody, dealing with password management from the get go will make it so much easier when you have staff turnover.

Yeah, me either.

I am not opposed to something like secretserver, but I guess part of what I'm looking for/wanting would be free-form note taking. Which is what I like about things like evernote/onenote. If I want to create a note/secret/whatever with a password on it, I can also note along with the credentials 'this server has chronic issues on F: drive, but client refuses to replace drive' or something. Or if someone sends me a floorplan for their office, I can just attach it in to our notes in evernote.

so I don't know, I guess I'm looking for a structured, freeform enabled, note-taking/password management application. my god that is so annoyingly contradictory, I feel like my worst client at this very moment.

Stugazi
Mar 1, 2004

Who me, Bitter?
Sounds like two things to me: a wiki and password mgmt.

For passwords we use lastpass. Good group features.

Considering confluence for a wiki. What do others use for their knowledgebase? The KB inside Connectwise is terrible.

mindphlux
Jan 8, 2004

by R. Guyovich

Stugazi posted:

Sounds like two things to me: a wiki and password mgmt.

For passwords we use lastpass. Good group features.

Considering confluence for a wiki. What do others use for their knowledgebase? The KB inside Connectwise is terrible.

thanks. of course I've heard of lastpass before, but haven't trialled it yet. had used keepass, not too happy with it. will give lastpass a go.

wiki/free form notes I really could use some suggestions for too. interested to hear what others use.

mindphlux
Jan 8, 2004

by R. Guyovich
Lastpass worked really well. I've rolled it out as my primary password management tool, and I rarely need to look up a password after a few weeks of use. My new hire says he's good there too, and I can hide the password so he can log in, but not access the password. Perfect.


My information sharing project went horribly though. Tried evernote, a wiki, docs on a shared drive - it all just completely sucks. Most colossal failure was with trying to restructure evernote information into another format.

Really hoping some of you folks have suggestions for sharing client site info, because this poo poo is a mess as it stands.



In more positive news, aside from hiring a tech to help me out, my tiny MSP business is going gangbusters. I've taken on so many new clients/projects in the last month my head is ready to explode. can't wait to graduate to the next level. on the downside I'm working 14 hour days. :(

SquirrelGrip
Jul 4, 2012

mindphlux posted:

Lastpass worked really well. I've rolled it out as my primary password management tool, and I rarely need to look up a password after a few weeks of use. My new hire says he's good there too, and I can hide the password so he can log in, but not access the password. Perfect.


My information sharing project went horribly though. Tried evernote, a wiki, docs on a shared drive - it all just completely sucks. Most colossal failure was with trying to restructure evernote information into another format.

Really hoping some of you folks have suggestions for sharing client site info, because this poo poo is a mess as it stands.


In more positive news, aside from hiring a tech to help me out, my tiny MSP business is going gangbusters. I've taken on so many new clients/projects in the last month my head is ready to explode. can't wait to graduate to the next level. on the downside I'm working 14 hour days. :(

The last few hours spent with bottle in hand right?

For the sharing client info stuff we are microsoft partners for sharepoint/dynamics CRM and it works well when people actually use it. Can confirm most of connectwise is terrible.

Maneki Neko
Oct 27, 2000

Oh hay, it's the MSP thread.

All of our clients are 100% fully managed, we occasionally see requests for AD access from specific "power users"s. I come from a lot more formal centralized IT background, so this seems really weird to me to care about considering they are throwing decent amounts of money our way to not have to worry about their infrastructure at all.

How does this work elsewhere? I don't have any big objections to read only access as long as we sit down and walk through OU structure, explain how things work, etc. but we do get the occasional "lol domain admin plz" requests from customers, which seems like a goddamn nightmare (even with a "YOU BREAK IT, IT'S BILLABLE" agreement in place).

DrAlexanderTobacco
Jun 11, 2012

Help me find my true dharma
If you do give out domain access, make sure it's only to people who you *know* are competent. Make sure they understand, get them to sign a waiver saying they're fully aware of the consequences. Turn on auditing.

Richard Noggin
Jun 6, 2005
Redneck By Default
And don't privilege their "daily" account. Make a separate account just for admin stuff. That said - if they're on any sort of all-you-can-eat contract, don't do this. You give them a user account and a ridiculously long complicated password in a sealed envelope. Audit logon events for that account. If you find that it's been logged on to, you charge a fee to audit the network for changes.

Stugazi
Mar 1, 2004

Who me, Bitter?
Was a gfi max client for a while. Changed platforms and canceled service. They botched the request and follow up.

Now a collections lawyer is harassing me over $200. Two hundred loving dollars.

Flawless credit score and then these dicks come along.

gently caress GFIMax.

Edit: I dug up the email that showed they botched cancelation. Lawyer sent me a gfi response acknowledging it. They still harrass me for the wrong amount. For the record I would close out correct balance if they got their poo poo straight. Email direct to GFI has been ignored.

Stugazi fucked around with this message at 03:29 on Sep 5, 2014

mindphlux
Jan 8, 2004

by R. Guyovich

Stugazi posted:

Was a gfi max client for a while. Changed platforms and canceled service. They botched the request and follow up.

Now a collections lawyer is harassing me over $200. Two hundred loving dollars.

Flawless credit score and then these dicks come along.

gently caress GFIMax.

Edit: I dug up the email that showed they botched cancelation. Lawyer sent me a gfi response acknowledging it. They still harrass me for the wrong amount. For the record I would close out correct balance if they got their poo poo straight. Email direct to GFI has been ignored.

wow.

I don't know why I did it, but I'm glad that I did - when I left GFI max I insisted multiple times to both their accounting department and customer service department to give me in writing something saying that my account was fully paid and closed out. Something about how they handled accounting made me really uneasy that I was actually deactivated. They basically told me to just 'remove all my GFI clients' in my portal, and that was all I needed to do to discontinue service.

I was like 'no, please delete my account' and they were like 'sorry we don't do that'. and I badgered them until they did.


I'm using GFI backup now because it's cheap, and I haven't gotten a bill yet. I've had a client on that should result in me getting billed about $300/mo, and literally no bill for two months.

company isn't the best run...

mindphlux
Jan 8, 2004

by R. Guyovich
I'm sort of curious how you all bill, and report time spent on incidents.

Past few years, I've just used zendesk's integration with harvest to present a list of items we addressed in a monthly period. Items included on a monthly service plan are billed at $0, whereas afterhours or onsite or whatever is billed at our hourly rate. Work order summary and billable items are all presented on one (sometimes gigantic) invoice, along with itemized expenses.

We give a lot of detail compared to invoices I've seen from other companies. I've seen IT companies submit invoices for $15,000 with literally like two line items. Our average invoices have 7-15 line items, usually 2-4 of those billable as our service contracts, etc.

I have brought on some new major clients where I literally have 50-60 line items on an invoice, so I've broken it out into 'recurring expenses' - IE, what they're paying for service plan, telco, backup, etc. - and then 'non-recurring expenses', which includes all the $0 billable work order summaries, and any after hours/onsite billable items that are outside of our normal contract.

anyways, I think it works ok, but just wanted a sanity check - how do y'alls company bill out your time/materials/incident reports?




edit : also E/N; onward and upward - new part time tech hire is working out great, I'm billing an insane amount (for me) a month, actively getting new clients, making connections in the local chamber of commerce networking groups, 'bout to turn this poo poo up a notch.

mindphlux fucked around with this message at 08:09 on Sep 6, 2014

Stugazi
Mar 1, 2004

Who me, Bitter?
More detail is better. Long invoices are a good thing as long as they are never printed. Makes clients feel like they got their moneys worth and is good practice to be detailed in your documentation.

Thanks Ants
May 21, 2004

#essereFerrari


Agreed, show them what they got that month as a reminder that you are worth having around. If it supports actually billing the hourly rate and then discounting it due to it being inclusive to their contract then ever better.

The place I currently work at doesn't believe in putting product model numbers in quotes because then people will just buy it somewhere else after we've done the work to spec out the solution. I can't begin to express how much I hate that attitude. If the only thing stopping people buying hardware somewhere else is that they don't know what to get then you either have lovely clients or your service isn't worth a god drat. In either case, being elusive as gently caress about what the customer is actually paying for isn't the answer. gently caress it, a consultancy fee for speccing out a system credited against the hardware invoice would be better if you're really that worried about it.

mindphlux
Jan 8, 2004

by R. Guyovich
Cool, glad to hear I'm not being insane. I like my invoices, and if I was a client, it's the kind of detail I'd like to see. It also makes me feel better about billing large amounts of money - which I guess is something most people who don't actually care about their clients don't really worry about.


Thanks Ants posted:

The place I currently work at doesn't believe in putting product model numbers in quotes because then people will just buy it somewhere else after we've done the work to spec out the solution. I can't begin to express how much I hate that attitude. If the only thing stopping people buying hardware somewhere else is that they don't know what to get then you either have lovely clients or your service isn't worth a god drat.

I don't know, I have mixed feelings about this. I don't put exact model numbers on most of my invoices, just because a lot of the equipment I purchase I'm marking up a good deal - or if it's like actual computer systems, I usually get a custom configuration from my vendor (Dell :( ), so there isn't really an exact model number to quote.

Like, an example : I sold a client a USB3 hub for about $49, and I paid about $18 for it. I don't want them to be like, 'hey let me google this thing - oh wow this company just sold me a $19 for almost 50 dollars, what assholes.' - same thing for cabling and other minor expenses. I can get cat6 super cheaply, but most people's experience with cabling is going to best buy and paying $25 for a 10 foot cat5 cable, so of course I'm going to charge retail rates...

dunno. it matters less with larger purchases, because of course if you're buying 10 workstations from me, you should expect I'm making money off that. I feel like tacking $300-400 on to a wholesale $700 system price is a lot more defensible than a 100% increase on a small parts purchase - but the amount of effort it takes to sell either one is roughly the same. which is the reason for the discrepancy in margin percentage (because why bother if I'm literally making $5 on a sale), and also why I have mixed feelings about all this.

it should be said though, reselling hardware is not a huge part of my business - I'd put it at maybe 10% of gross revenue.

Stugazi
Mar 1, 2004

Who me, Bitter?
AutoTask bought an RMM company called CentraStage.

Never heard of them but find it interesting. CentraStage could offer new MSPs or those lookign to switch an RMM that isn't saddled with legacy crap (looking at you ConnectWise).

Anyone have experience with CentraStage?

bimmian
Oct 16, 2008
I used it for a year or two at a previous job and currently use it for my on-the-side business. I'm on the run atm, but I can write up an overview tonight or tomorrow morning, let me know if you have any specific questions.

Maneki Neko
Oct 27, 2000

Interesting, although I do wish there was an on-prem version, we have a lot of stuff out in the middle of nowhere and have had wildly inconsistent performance on the SaaS rmms we've demoed :(

mindphlux
Jan 8, 2004

by R. Guyovich

Stugazi posted:

AutoTask bought an RMM company called CentraStage.

Never heard of them but find it interesting. CentraStage could offer new MSPs or those lookign to switch an RMM that isn't saddled with legacy crap (looking at you ConnectWise).

Anyone have experience with CentraStage?

I trialed it when on my hunt several years back, it looked capable enough and had a nice interface, but I was priced out. Would love to read a writeup.

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Richard Noggin
Jun 6, 2005
Redneck By Default

Stugazi posted:

AutoTask bought an RMM company called CentraStage.

Never heard of them but find it interesting. CentraStage could offer new MSPs or those lookign to switch an RMM that isn't saddled with legacy crap (looking at you ConnectWise).

Anyone have experience with CentraStage?

Picking nits, but ConnectWise isn't an RMM, it's a PSA, like AutoTask. CentraStage looks neat though.

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