Vallum Support for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) Common Questions and Answers

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1 Vallum Support for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) Common Questions and Answers This document provides answers to common questions about Vallum Software's Managed Service Provider (MSP) Partnership Program and capabilities. Vallum Software is pleased to offer discounts and special services to managed service providers. The Vallum Halo Manager solution has many aspects that make it ideally suited for immediate use by MSPs and IT consultants, adding value to managed customers, and facilitating easy visibility into a remotely managed organization Vallum Software, recognizing the significance of the MSP as a significant technology trend, is pleased to support this initiative by making it as easy and cost-effective as possible for new and existing organizations to operate in this industry sector. Q: Exactly how do you define an "MSP" Managed Service Provider? Managed Service Providers are a special class of companies, who provide computer and software services to remote customers. This can include hardware, software, and IT consulting services. A typical managed service provider operates as a partial or complete IT department for an organization, providing services and components such as hardware, software, application troubleshooting, and maintenance. Q: What is your MSP Partnership Program? Vallum Software, as part of its suite of products and services, furnishes its software at a discount to Managed Service Providers (MSPs), who can use the software on a subscription basis to perform continuous monitoring of devices at remote sites. The partnership program includes: Ability to label and customize the "Halo Manager" solution web interface to the specific requirements of the MSP organization; Access to special support and development resources; Access to special Halo Applications that provide special functionality and utility to managed service providers. Q: How is the Vallum Halo Manager solution different from other Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) solutions? The Halo Manager solution has a revolutionary decentralized architectural design that eliminates the cumbersome and complex central server install that is the cornerstone of other RMM solutions on the market. The Halo Manager s functionality is decentralized to an intelligent multi-purpose agent called the Vallum General Management Interface 1

2 Agent or GMI Agent. The Vallum GMI Agent is open sourced and allows specialized applications call Halo Applications to be installed with it. Halo Applications can have a wide range of variations and capabilities that can go far beyond traditional RMM capabilities into security, database and application monitoring/management, and IT Asset Management to name a few. Halo Applications can be deployed remotely to specific remote customer sites and even specific servers, allowing MSPs to very specifically address each individual customer s needs in a far more detailed manner that what tradition RMM solutions are capable of. Q: How does your software operate? The Halo Manager solution provides real-time monitoring, reporting and alerts for a "managed site". The software continuously monitors the performance and availability of the remote infrastructure, cloud applications, and also the functions and data from any installed Halo Applications, through a single firewall port. Install a Halo Polling Agent at your remote customer's site. A Polling Agent is a special Halo Application installed with a GMI Agent. Install the GMI Agent on any server platforms that require deeper metrics beyond availability or need special functionality via a Halo Application. Remotely deploy any Halo Applications that you have selected. The Polling Agent continuously polls the remote network, and will automatically discover any new GMI Agent installs via the auto-discovery process. Alerts and any data from Halo Applications will be accessible through the Halo Manager web interface at your data center. Customers can optionally view their network status, and receive real-time alerts. This software includes a secure "multi-tenant" mode of operation, where customers can see only the managed devices at their site. The software additionally includes multiple integration points to assist with customized and automatic reporting. Q: What if I need functionality not currently provided by a Halo Application? Vallum Professional Services can develop new Halo Applications to your specific requirements at a very nominal cost, and in a few weeks depending on their complexity. You will not have to wait many months for the next release as you would with other RMM vendors. Q: What kind of special security to you offer? The trick to any MSP offering is really based on the ability to securely get data from the organization over the public Internet. The Halo Manager offers a tight security model that will guarantee the confidentiality of your customer data, even when sending it over the Internet. You need a single point-to-point connection between the Halo Manager (at your site) and the Halo Polling Agent (at your customer's site.) 2

3 Q: I am a Managed Service Provider. What benefits do my customers receive? In addition to all the traditional benefits that an organization receives by using an MSP (instead of trying to monitor their network and equipment themselves), the Halo Manager solution allows for the deployment of specialized applications called Halo Applications. Halo Applications can have many capabilities and variations, and allow MSPs to not only expand their services into many other areas besides equipment availability and monitoring, but also be much more specific in their service offerings to their customers. Also, the Halo Manager permits your customers, at your discretion, to view their data and alerts on demand, and can be ed detailed reports on their network and equipment performance. Your customers have the satisfaction of knowing they are being continuously monitored, without compromising their sensitive data and privacy. You can provide your customers customized services through the deployment of Halo Applications. You, as their MSP, achieve the visibility into their networks that is necessary for a high reliability and productive network. Specifically, your customers receive near real-time alerting of network outages and performance issues, daily, weekly and / or monthly reports on their infrastructure and cloud applications, and the ability to view the status of their managed devices at your support portal. You, as an MSP, are given substantial visibility into your customer's network necessary to proactively manage their infrastructure and applications. Q: What hardware and software do I need to supply? Not much is required to get started. As an MSP, you need the following: You need an Internet accessible Windows platform (Window 2008 or 2012 recommended) facing the Internet with a static IP address. This platform runs your labeled and customized version of the Halo Manager solution. The computer should be hardened and firewalled off except for the specific required ports. At your customer site, you install the Halo Polling Agent at a static IP address or published DHCP hostname, and adjust the customer's firewall to permit communication between your Halo Manager and Halo Polling Agent at TCP port Optionally, you install the Vallum GMI Agent program on servers and workstations, to provide deeper metrics such as disk space, CPU, and processes and services. GMI Agent(s) communicate with the Halo Polling Agent, and also provides the capability to install Halo Applications for additional specialized functionality. There is no extra cost for deploying GMI Agents on each computer, and usually the critical servers and infrastructure components should have a GMI Agent installed. 3

4 Multiple architectures are possible. The above technique is the most basic, provides a high degree of security for you and your customer, and can easily be adapted to other types of system architectures. Q: My customer does not have a static IP address. Can I still use your software? Yes. While a static IP address for your customer makes things pretty trivial, it is also very easy to configure port forwarding, NAT, and just have your customer's site publish its IP address to your Halo Manager when its address changes. Requiring your customer to have at least one static IP address is not necessary. However, it makes things simple, especially when getting started. Q: As an MSP, I don't have a static IP address. Can I still use your software? Yes. However, you will need to have a hostname somewhere on the web that your customer's can reliably access to view their data. For example, if you can't collocate with an ISP, and are using a service provider for your own MSP business, you will need to have some simple PHP scripts or CGI executables installed at your site, necessary to keep track of your Halo Manager's current IP address. Contact Vallum support for a strategy. Q: I am not an MSP. Can I still get your discounts? If you are not an MSP, and not in the business of managing remote client networks and systems, you can use the standard Vallum Software products, which furnish a highly cost-effective solution for your personal network or organization. (Visit Vallum Software's website at for details on the standard Halo Manager.) Generally, you have to be interested in managing remote sites from a central location in order to join our MSP program. Q: How is your software licensed? Unlike the standard Halo Manager (which can be purchased with a non-expiring permanent license), the MSP version of this product uses a timed licensing system that is specific for a customer site. You can lease and license MSP software (for a specific customer) for an interval of time such as six months, one year, five years, etc. A oneyear license is typical, revocable by you if your customer discontinues your service. We provide the most aggressive pricing and cost-effective software we can. Many of our components (such as the Vallum GMI Agent, and Halo Manager Web interface) are provided at no charge. The actual Halo Polling Agent / remote probe software is leased and licensed for each customer. 4

5 Q: How do I rebrand and relabel my customer's view of Halo Manager program? This activity is simple. The Halo Manager solution is written in plain open source PHP. You can modify these scripts quite easily. No license is required to modify these PHP scripts, and additional help is available via the Halo-SDK package. Vallum has templates and assistance available, and we can work with you via or other methods to configure a beautiful looking interface that you present the data through your wholly owned "support portal". Q: I have a lot of special things I want to monitor. How do you handle that? The Halo Manager solution has a decentralized architecture that allows the installation of specialized applications called Halo Applications. Halo Applications can have many variations and capabilities, such as database and application monitoring, security and IT Asset Monitoring to name a few. The applications are very modular, easy to create, and can be remotely installed or uninstalled without disruption to other existing functions. They are signed and secured and can be deployed to specific customers or even specific servers. Q: How do I get started? Give us a call or drop us some . See our contact page at: The above website contains multiple links, the ability to download and test the Halo Manager solution (for a 30 day evaluation), as well as links to the Halo SDK, GMI Agents and Halo Applications, and application notes. Vallum Software, Inc Toll-free USA: (877) Int l: +1 (813) Copyright 2014, All Rights Reserved. 5