External IT

Here is one of the most helpful pieces of advise we can offer: when talking to any hosting company make sure to ask them to detail the types of function-specific server management options that they provide. If you press them for a specific list, what you'll discover is that many, if not most of your administration issues, will remain.

This is particularly true If you are talking with a large managed hosting company as they don't support your custom applications.

When you select a dedicated managed server in our secure Data Centers, or one of our partner cloud providers, you’ll have a functioning servers with processor(s), RAM, operating system, storage and additional components immediately provisioned to your specifications. All servers are monitored 24/7 and fully integrated with administration tools, our OS33 Cloud Portal, and other resources.

Do it in-house or leave it to us

Depending on your needs and level of in-house IT staff, the External IT team can provide basic OS-down server management while your internal, or 3rd party team, handles everything OS and up. As an alternative, we can support everything through to the application layer.

Most servers are used for specific, well established functions. A Citrix server is used for delivering applications, there's a SQL Server, Exchange Server, File, Print, AD, SharePoint and so on. External IT can provide all-inclusive 24/7 management for all these function-specific servers, as well as for custom requirements beyond this basic range.

Function-specific server management services
	Initial Citrix XenApp 5 installation and configuration Install and publish Core Application Setup monitoring of key Citrix services Maintain patch management process for Citrix updates and rollups Maintain snapshop of system state
	Initial IIS installation and configuration Activate and maintain monitoring of IIS specific services Maintain necessary IIS-related patches and security updates Maintain standard IIS components (SMTP, .NET framework, etc.) Maintain IIS related disk space
	File share setup and management Activate and maintain monitoring of file system specific services Audit and investigate disk utilization Configure and maintain shadow copies Install and maintain file specific backup agents
	Initial Exchange installation and configuration Activate and maintain monitoring of Exchange specific services Perform routine Exchange database maintenance Maintain necessary Exchange specific patches and security updates Install and maintain Exchange specific antivirus solution Install and maintain Exchange specific backup agents
	Initial SQL installation and configuration Activate and maintain monitoring of SQL specific services Perform routine master database maintenance Perform routine log file maintenance Maintain necessary SQL specific patches and security updates Install and maintain SQL specific backup agent
	Initial SharePoint installation and configuration Activate and maintain monitoring of SharePoint specific services Maintain necessary SharePoint specific patches and security updates Install and maintain SharePoint specific backup agent

Citrix server management

Citrix is our recommended platform for hosted delivery of Windows-based applications. The team at External IT has been managing Citrix servers since Metaframe version 1.0 back in the late 1990's and has truly mastered the art. With Citrix servers managed by External IT, integrated with OS33, your applications are securely accessed in a seamless window mode. Industry standard Secure Sockets Layer encryption technology is used to secure all traffic between clients and their application servers. Apps look and work the same as those locally run. Often, they run faster through the portal than when they're local.