For organizations that hear about outages from their users, and patch when someone remembers.
We watch your servers, storage, network devices, and cloud so problems are found before users report them. We patch in rings on a schedule and put each change through a board before it is made.
We watch the systems and fix what fails, and we patch on a schedule with each change recorded.
Monitoring and response
Hardware, storage, Windows, virtualization, and network telemetry correlated, corrective action taken, and the single points of failure found and removed in a stabilization plan.
What you get
Your monitoring tool tuned, or Azure Monitor where none exists
Alert correlation and de-duplication
Customer-approved runbooks for recurring alerts
Dependency review and a stabilization plan, biggest risk first
Capacity checks and a monthly capacity report
Outage report after each outage
Best for
A monitoring tool that floods inboxes with duplicate alerts, and an outage last year nobody wants to repeat.
Patching and change control
Operating systems and third-party applications patched in rings in windows your security office approves, with each change through a weekly board and recorded.
What you get
Servers patched with Azure Update Manager or Configuration Manager
Third-party applications patched with Patch My PC
Rings: test, low-risk, infrastructure, production, then identity servers
Monthly patch review with your security office
Weekly change board with standard, normal, and emergency changes
Freeze calendar and emergency windows honored, each change recorded
Best for
Servers patched one at a time with no record, and changes made on a Friday afternoon without approval.
A major New York City university ended its contract with a reactive managed services provider and chose Preeminent Solutions after a competitive evaluation.
Ongoing since 2020Read more
Questions we get
Which monitoring tool do you use?
Yours, if you have one, tuned rather than replaced. Where nothing exists, Azure Monitor with Azure Arc covers servers on-premises and in Azure from one place. Where servers still need onboarding to Azure Arc, that is a project under Hybrid Infrastructure.
Monthly for security and critical patches, in the rings listed above. Non-production is patched midweek and production in a weekend window. Service packs and firmware run on their own slower cycles, and emergency patches go through the nightly window when a vendor says so.
Will patching take systems down?
Highly available systems are patched in two cycles so one node stays up. Everything else goes through the maintenance window you approve. A patch that fails is rolled back, or the server is restored from the pre-patch backup.
Who approves changes?
A weekly change board you sit on. Standard changes are pre-approved, normal ones are reviewed with the application owners, and emergency changes are recorded and reviewed after the fact.
What sets the scope of monitoring and patching?
Mostly how many servers and network devices are watched, and whether workstations are patched as well as servers. The number of maintenance windows you allow also counts, and so does whether the monitoring tool is yours or ours.
Are alerts watched at night?
Yes. An alert opens a ticket in your service desk tool, such as ServiceNow, and the team triages it at any hour. Priority 1 incidents are escalated.
Can we buy this on its own?
Yes. Monitoring, Patching, and Change can be bought on its own or with the rest of Managed IT Services, and agreement terms are negotiable. The proposal sets which servers and devices are watched and patched.
Talk to us about Monitoring, Patching, and Change
It starts with a 60-minute call. If we need more to scope it, a short questionnaire follows. Then a written proposal and statement of work. Once you approve, we begin with the Assess phase.
