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Premier One transforms patch management with Managed Workplace | Avast Business

The Company

Headquartered in Topeka, Kansas, Premier One provides managed IT and security services, as well as IT consulting, to small businesses. The company’s clients include service-based industries, such as title insurance, accounting, legal, and non-profit, with branch offices in multiple locations. Explains Chris Hamm, Director of Technology, “We deliver a fully managed service, handling everything from the keyboard to the cloud. What sets us apart is our quick response time, continual communication with clients, and ability to dig a bit deeper into IT and security issues than other service providers.

The Challenge

As Premier One’s client base grew, Chris needed a solution for scaling the business and profitably delivering comprehensive security. One immediate challenge was to find a more efficient system for patch management.  

“We’re a small business, and patch management was always a labor-intensive effort for us. We had approached it in different ways in the past, but never found an ideal delivery model. We found we couldn’t double the systems we could patch without burning labor hours,” says Chris. “We needed the ability to adapt our business to better serve our customers, and the immediate question became how can we effectively automate something as critical as patching?”

The Solution

Premier One has used the Managed Workplace remote monitoring and management (RMM) platform for the past ten years. “We have upgraded to every new version since 2007,” shares Chris, “and have become very advanced in how we use the RMM. We continue to see tremendous innovation.”With the MW patch management capabilities, Chris recently put a more efficient patching process in place. “Simple changes in the RMM have continued to make the patching process easier, enabling us to enhance our patch management. For example, the addition of the “Last Check for Updates” field, has improved our ability to discover systems having difficulty receiving patches and manually remediate them if necessary,” he explains.

“We can also audit a new client’s patch status across all servers and workstations and use this data to deploy a minimum level of patching, or baseline, to support systems going forward and then ensure the systems remain up-to-date and compliant in the future,” he adds. “We can deliver patches consistently, as well as look at uptime history and usage for all devices, and see any trends that are concerning. This hasn’t been possible with other solutions. ”Managed Workplace has also helped Chris solve patch issues on his clients’ laptops. “Users were taking their laptops home, and there wasn’t an easy way to deliver updates. Because Managed Workplace can monitor Windows with either an agent-based or agentless design, we can put a device manager on each laptop and deliver patch updates regardless of whether the device is on or off the network. ”Says Chris, “We now have an efficient, consistent patching process that we put in place every month that delivers a high-quality level of patching. Managed Workplace has proven to be the key tool for this.”

The Results

Using Managed Workplace, Premier One has continued to realize new savings and advantages, including:

  • The deployment of patches 3x faster to twice as many endpoints

  • The reduction of patch management labor hours across entire client base by 45%

  • A trajectory to double the number of Managed Workplace deployments to new customers in 2018 (compared to 2017)

“We are constantly re-evaluating our tools and processes,” says Chris. “We find that the decision to stay with Managed Workplace continues to make the most sense for our business model and service needs. In addition to its comprehensive monitoring, agentless design and features, the licensing model is simple and the price point is very fair.”

If you’d like to upgrade the way your IT company delivers managed security, and enjoy the same advantages and benefits as Chris’ team, including the streamlined patch management system, download a free demo of Managed Workplace. Automate service delivery, reduce operational cost, and grow your business — we’re here to help you succeed.

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*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Blog | Avast EN authored by Avast Blog. Read the original post at: https://blog.avast.com/premier-one-transforms-with-managed-workplace