Professionalism, experience, and creative approach – these are the fundamentals of the prexout system platform, which has been developed in order to provide stable IT infrastructure in micro- and small-sized enterprises.

Unfortunately, in such companies, but also in large enterprises, the emphasis placed on modernizing technical resources does not translate into a proactive approach to prevention, which includes the on-going analysis, supervision, and monitoring of company resources. Naturally, the solutions offered by leading hardware manufacturers make it possible to analyze such resources in terms of their technical parameters, e.g. temperature of components, but this functionality is limited only to manufacturers’ own products. Prexout is utilitarian. For workstations, it is compatible with devices of all manufacturers, using agents. In other cases, it uses the SNMP protocol. It also supports mobile devices with Android – what is more, its developers have designed it to be open to new perspectives, including connection to systems which use API, such as ERP and CRM.

Think Today

Prexout consists of two independent e-services: e-service and e-controlling. The first one meets everyday needs – it provides regular insight into the map of network-connected devices, showing their topology. Its schema is interactive, which means that what we see is not merely a simple structure of connections but a living system indicating how individual components work. No need to explain how useful this feature is – undoubtedly, each CEO would like the technical support to react faster than the exponentially increasing temperature of the processor. How can you react? By logging in with an encrypted tunnel on the device, saving the data, and turning it off.

E-service helps you monitor and control everything that is installed on your device. You can view the list of software, including licensing models (free, commercial, etc.). This allows you to verify the cases where the user has installed something by himself or uses unauthorized software within the organization. What is an undeniable advantage of e-service is the data collection within the two above-mentioned functions, for example, when the end-of-the-year stocktaking is approaching, e-service provides you with data on the quantities of equipment in stock, while topology will tell you which equipment type you are looking at (the icons of a workstation, server, printer, mobile devices, etc. come in handy). When you need information on the number of operating systems in your organization, e-service will show you the list through a detailed analysis of workstations, so there is no need for the time-consuming verification of COA numbers of every laptop or workstation.

Each day, your devices are heavily exploited. In the event of a breakdown, we aren’t always able to quickly check if the manufacturer gave us warranty for two or three years, or what type of maintenance service we have: on-site, door-to-door, etc. Collecting packaging with serial numbers is burdensome, too. In prexout, clicking on the relevant icon gives us seamless access to serial numbers, which shortens the path of complaint and warranty requests.

The bookkeeping of fixed assets is necessary. In addition to technical information, e-service generates data on service terms and conditions which oblige the warrantor/provider to take certain actions, at the same time providing an insight into the repair archive, which includes data on e.g. ticket response time and repair time.

ALWAYS FOCUSING ON ONE GOAL

Keeping up with the ever-increasing market demands forces organizations to take diversified and multidirectional actions mainly focused on financial performance and then on the operationalization of their resources in terms of their potential applications. Integrating the existing tools into the company’s offer is certainly not so obvious; however, it is possible with the second correlated prexout module. Apart from providing sophisticated tools which streamline the functioning of each organization, e-controlling supports companies oriented at IT outsourcing.

Functionally, e-controlling works on two levels: the first one improves the event-message information flow. Exceeding the device optimal parameters is reported with a message which can be configured into: a notification on the user’s screen, e-mail, helpdesk ticket, or a notification displayed in the admin panel. The second level can be defined as a set of implemented criteria for generating reports. At the local level, e-controlling provides a list of devices that are constantly being monitored in terms of their parameters. Network-wise, you are able to verify the condition of network interfaces. This functionality is to be connected with another type of report, i.e. the report on infrastructure changes which gives instant insight into authorized and unauthorized interventions, presenting the picture of potential threats. When you exclude willful interference and need to refer to the event history, a fault report will show you the past device problems and their removal procedures.

Operating system updates are a common problem – some of them make up the existing shortcomings; however, sometimes they interfere with the setup of the existing infrastructure, triggering a variety of issues. The update status report allows you to monitor the installed operating system versions and their updates. Owing to this, you can identify a workstation whose system has not been updated, thus eliminating the risk of security holes and vulnerability, but also rectify the issue caused by the already installed update.

The second functional level of e-controlling includes Helpdesk, which has two functions.

The first one focuses on the existing service activities (i.e. customer ticket management). With e-controlling, you can monitor and verify tickets as well as know when they remain open for too long. What is important, you have ongoing access to customer tickets, which, in the long run (thanks to the service activities reporting tool), allows you to reflect upon the services provided by third party companies as well as upon your devices. In turn, it may help you make a decision about changing your service, hardware, or software.

However, Helpdesk also has a different, much broader function. What we have in mind when talking about the need to use your own tools in the business environment of micro- and small-sized enterprises, which means including such tools into company offer, is a tool that enables you to simultaneously maintain your infrastructure and provide IT outsourcing services. With prexout, the compactness of the environment, reduced costs, and ready-made solutions will translate into greater profits, efficiency, and professional reliability of your business.

Prexout – Conclusions

When summarizing the pros and cons of any solution, it is the facts that matter – the implementation costs are the required infrastructure. Prexout is far away from big-budget solutions which, apart from investing in the platform, require companies to thoroughly review their existing infrastructure, which often makes it impossible to implement the system. The platform developed by Scan-IT uses external resources (SaaS), which makes the deployment of prexout in new environments seamless and easy. What is more, the three-step installation is a piece of cake, as it includes nothing more than registration, installation, and configuration reduced to personalization. Now, it is possible to think today, looking at tomorrow. With prexout approach and idea, your tomorrow can be simple and fun.