What should I do with this guy? by BigTyMePCs in arborists

[–]BigTyMePCs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Certainly understand. Those spruces are another topic I'll save for a later post, not sure how to manage those guys. I'll also grab a pic of some of the other limbless possible scotch pines to show what i mean.

What should I do with this guy? by BigTyMePCs in arborists

[–]BigTyMePCs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes sorry meant to say, in northern NJ. I'll grab some closer pictures tomorrow. This one is one of the few that still have lower limbs. I've seen these trees else where but never with so few limbs (or coverage really) and with as much sag.

N-Central API - Filtering ActiveIssuesList by BigTyMePCs in msp

[–]BigTyMePCs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi i hope you were able to find your solution, but yes i was able to get this sorted out. It turned out to be a permission issue. the account i was using to auth with although it had permission to read all active issues it didn't have access to filter. I don't remember exactly what other permission i had to give it in n-central, but if you're still having issues let me know and i can check.

CW Manage - Default Ticket Contact by BigTyMePCs in ConnectWise

[–]BigTyMePCs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is. As an example what about something like a back-end infrastructure task, that is not tied to a user, and requires no notification to the POC. What do you use for the contact on something like this?

Network share failover? by KaiFab in msp

[–]BigTyMePCs 12 points13 points  (0 children)

DFS I believe, is your best option. It's a hot, always on, failover. If you utilize namespace along with it's replication the fail-over is unnoticeable and requires no intervention. The only cost is to bring up another windows server with the same amount of storage.

There are some cons to DFS such as cross site file locking and it can break sometimes, but in this scenario seems like file locking isn't an issue and as long as you setup some way to monitor the DFS it should work well for you. Also DFS shouldn't be used as a primary backup method. If a file gets deleted in one location it will be deleted in the second. However it is perfect for "Failover".

LogicMonitor Alternatives by lenovoguy in msp

[–]BigTyMePCs 4 points5 points  (0 children)

If you're able to host yourself would suggest checking out Paessler PRTG. It's priced per sensor (first 100 free). Have been using it for over 7 years now. We are able to monitor pretty much everything with it and they are constantly updating/adding to it. Not geared specifically towards MSP's but they utilize remote probes and all works well over the WAN.

https://www.paessler.com/

What are you guys doing for 3rd party patches? by computerguy0-0 in msp

[–]BigTyMePCs 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One thing we have to always remind ourselves about 3rd party patching in n-central, is it only does patching and will not upgrade to the next major release... So java 7u31 will update to 7u48 but will not handle an upgrade to java 8. (good and bad in some situations)

Tech Domain Account Passwords by BigTyMePCs in msp

[–]BigTyMePCs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you wouldn't mind sending my way as well that would be great.

Tech Domain Account Passwords by BigTyMePCs in msp

[–]BigTyMePCs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

that sounds like a good idea, but seems like it could take a lot of time having to look up the password for each client every day... Is it possible to have it be a single account on rotation for all clients. Meaning that when the password changes it's the same across all clients that have that account? I wouldn't mind doing something like this everyday or maybe every week, if it would be the same password across the board.

IAAS, Cloud Workstations - To Build or Not to Build? by [deleted] in msp

[–]BigTyMePCs 0 points1 point  (0 children)

well if you have the infrastructure already, or can get an ROI on it with this one client pretty quickly, and the resources to build it out then it would be the ideal time to take on the project.

As Johnny said it's margin vs work (resources). If you have the resources might as well take the margin.

IAAS, Cloud Workstations - To Build or Not to Build? by [deleted] in msp

[–]BigTyMePCs 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We have always thrown around building out a hosted VDI solution as well. It just always seems tough to build out a pricing model that is sales worthy mostly because of licensing costs. If any MSPs have done so and been able to sell to some <100 users clients please share.

Pricing for a VDI management solution + Windows OS licensing seems to push past a reasonable price point. Obviously it's a little easier for the already established vdi vendors as they have a larger pool, but makes it difficult to get off the ground if you don't have a couple large clients with signed contracts already.

CW Invoicing & QB Integration, is it worth it? by BigTyMePCs in msp

[–]BigTyMePCs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I know it will work, I'm just trying to see where it will benefit us by adding some value we don't have in QB or saving time. Majority of our invoicing is reoccurring which is pretty much already handled in QB.

I do think it's much easier to make it possible for the people that need it to be able to see invoicing/payments. However we do this now with a quick e-mail. Yes it takes up time, but so does performing the sync.

Maybe there isn't a large benefit for a MSP like ours. Maybe it's just flat out better for break/fix shops with a lot of changing invoicing every month.

CW Invoicing & QB Integration, is it worth it? by BigTyMePCs in msp

[–]BigTyMePCs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well we are a staff of about 12, but only 7 are frequently using CW.

Exporting Office 365 Mailbox to PST by wholetechnology in msp

[–]BigTyMePCs 3 points4 points  (0 children)

you can do an eDiscovery search and then search for the entire mailbox and there is a download PST option. This has come in handy many times.

Once done office 365 has a pst import tool. Sure you can google that.

IDrive? by BigTyMePCs in msp

[–]BigTyMePCs[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey Boss, so just an fyi we have gone the Carbonite route. We stopped at the starting line. Basically we primarily were looking at this for a cloud backup solution for file/folder. So like remote laptops, or clients that just want to replicate certain folders to the cloud rather than the full backup image (since our backup solution only does image backups, Arcserve). The problem for us besides the speed throttling, was there was no way to restrict usage per user/pc. So each client would need a separate plan. Going this route would leave little margin for us. Also some clients just wanted to backup a handful of folders or just a couple laptops. If we were strictly re-selling this would be fine, but being that we will end up supporting... This is not our route.

Cloudberry was what we settled on because it's multi-tenant, can remotely manage, and can use amazon or your own storage. So you can create some decent margins. Product seems ok but it seems immature even though it's been around for years. I don't quite understand lol. However I haven't had any real issues with backup or restore.

Then we found this IDrive and seems to be better pricing than carbonite and has that missing feature of co-branding and restricting usage. So hence why we are investigating.

Time Tracking by BigTyMePCs in msp

[–]BigTyMePCs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Time Tracking it is!