Call 877.789.5893

ACT has been working closely with Zenith-Infotech, a world leader in offsite backup and managed services, to develop a combination of hardware, software, and services that is tailored to our clients needs. We call this product ProACTive.

ProACTive addresses two major issues, Backup and System Monitoring.

Why should you care?  -- Industry surveys show: 

• On Average 5 - 20% of nightly tape-based backups fail.
  

• 64% of small and medium sized businesses DO NOT backup offsite.
  

• 70% of companies that experience a backup disaster go out of business with 3 years.

The amount of detail available concerning a server’s health is incredible! Let me share some experiences from our very first install:

• Within 24 hours of the install we were notified of a pending drive failure. The drive was replaced preemptively and avoided downtime.
  

• When moving a server, a power cord was knocked loose on one of the redundant power supplies – we were notified within minutes!
  

• The CPU on a server was hitting the top end on the reporting threshold and we were notified promptly.
  

• A disk-to-disk backup filled a server drive to capacity and we were instantly notified by telephone.

Yes, these are all things that could have been found digging through event logs, but who has the time? Even if you checked every server once a day, an event could occur at any time.

Backup.

Tape backup systems can no longer keep up with today’s data volumes. As tape capacity increases so do tape error rates. We have found that the newer generations of tape drives are extremely prone to error driving up the cost of running and maintaining backups.

In addition, tough new regulations, like the new Massachusetts Privacy Law, mandate tight control over offsite backups and dictate encryption standards. Most tape software does not encrypt data. Lost backup tapes have lead to huge headlines concerning lost confidential information. This means a loss of client trust, possible fines and expenses, and in many cases a loss of business.

ProACTive utilizes a hardware device we call a NAS (Network Attached Storage) Unit that sits on your network along with software agents on each system to be monitored. This combination can provide local backups of all your Windows based servers. In addition, the backup image can be transferred offsite in an encrypted format to two secure data centers. Access to this data remains solely in your control.

Virtualization of  a Failed Server

In the event of a server failure, our NAS Device allows us to create a virtual image of that server that can operate in place of the failed server until the hardware is repaired or replaced. Once the original hardware is repaired or replaced, you can restore the system from the virtual server, even on to different hardware.

Monitoring & Managed Services.

Managed Services is the one thing everyone seems to be hyping these days. However, we have found that a lot of Managed Service Providers charge a high monthly fee for backup and may provide some limited management but not much service. Our management and monitoring is superior in many ways but our service really makes our product unique.

In addition to the backup, the software agents monitor the server’s health and report issues 24X7 to a fully staffed NOC (Network Operations Center). Tickets are automatically generated into out Management Software for any issues that your systems may experience. Also, the NOC notifies our engineers directly by telephone for any issue that is considered of critical importance. The service also controls patch management of the OS and only installs patches that have been fully tested by our NOC. This monitoring service is also available for you desktop systems.

Best of all -- we keep no secrets. If there is one thing that clients have commented on over the years it is our honesty about what we know and our willingness to share our knowledge. Many IT companies do not want to train their clients for fear of no longer being needed. We train any client willing to learn so we can move on to new technology more quickly. Empowered clients are happy clients.