Network Administration (NOC)

Network monitoring and alerting

Through our NOC managed service offering, customers can:

• Reduce operating expenses by up to 25% or more
• Accelerate time to revenue by 3+ months by driving new applications and services to end users faster
• Eliminate the investment to organically grow operations skills to manage new technologies
• Focus on their end users’ overall service experience and other core competencies.

Our NOC managed services provide customers with:

• Network surveillance operating 24x7x365
• Performance monitoring
• Trouble ticket management
• Event management
• Guaranteed service levels (service assurance)

NOC Managed Services identify network problems before they can impact business functions or productivity and seek to resolve issues remotely from the NOC or by dispatching technicians to customer sites.

Our services are conducted in a secure environment with 24-hour on-premises security, supported via a state-of-the-art Data Center and backed up by monitoring at other Northstar Technologies facilities. Our NOC engineers and domain experts use network monitoring tools and processes that are eTOM compliant, which meet standards for all telecommunications Service Providers.

Network Management Best Practices

• Security – In our era of high-profile, high-cost security breaches, network security is more crucial than ever. Purchasing security devices is the easy part. Knowing how and what to protect and what controls to put in place is a bit more difficult. It takes security management, including planning, policy development and the design of procedures. That’s where our decades of experience in providing security solutions to financial institutions comes into play.
• Patching – This is crucial to network security. An effective patch management system, or lack thereof, can make or break an enterprise’s ability to fend off malware and other attacks.
• Backup and Disaster Recovery – We offer remote and local data recovery solutions to support your disaster recovery (DR) strategy. The combination forms the backbone of your company’s business continuity. Backup and Disaster Recovery are integral processes and disaster recovery plans have to be tested periodically to make sure that they are going to work.

Virtual CIO

The following are included in our Virtual Chief Information Officer services:

• Technology Assessment – Help senior management choose compatible technology. Ensure data, infrastructure and practices are secure.
• Business Impact – Help the business measure the impact of decisions.
• Budgetary Planning – Partner with Finance to manage expenditures.
• Architecture and Design – Keep technologies current with business needs.
• Strategic Planning – Takes steps to re-mediate inefficient processes and partner with HR to integrate technology policies.
• Compliance – Ensures business is ready for compliance testing

What does a Virtual Chief Information Officer do?
Our Virtual CIOs help you choose which CIO competencies your company needs now — helping with overall Information Technology direction, governance, and planning to support strategic business initiatives. Meeting with management and staff on a monthly and as needed basis, a Virtual CIO brings deep Information Technology experience to bear, demystifying complex technology, adding clarity to projects, and helping management make prudent decisions. A Virtual CIO frees the executives from splitting their time between running the business and managing Information Technology issues.

Why can’t our IT manager do this?
Effective IT management is crucial for the day-to-day functions of any company. Today’s IT management is presented with managing complicated systems, and nearly 100% of their time is devoted to operational concerns. This leaves almost no time for long-term strategic planning, application architecture direction, integration planning, package software selection and more. This presents a gap between senior management and Information Technology. An analogy might go something like this: the IT manager controls the rudder on the boat to keep it going in a set direction. That’s fine until that manager has to navigate around something he or she can’t see yet. What’s needed is someone with a map, astrolabe and charts, and the knowledge to guide the boat to its destination while avoiding hazards. And, not unlike running your boat aground, hazards in an IT organization can spell disaster.

Our CFO controls the IT budget, so why would we need a CIO?
In a recent Gartner and Financial Executives Research Foundation (FERF) study, 42% of the organizations surveyed revealed that IT reported to the CFO. Why? Because Information Technology typically accounts for significant cost in the average organization. We find that having CIO’s and CFO’s work together is a powerful combination, because both share in some of the same root concepts of procedure and governance; and both can be operationally focused. However, the CIO adds deep Information Technology background, implementation experience and an understanding of architecture, data security, and technical strategic planning to the equation. We don’t think it makes sense to ask a CIO to produce the company’s financials anymore than we think it makes sense for the CFO to plan the virtualization and migration of a server farm.

How will a CIO help our business?
Through employing many, if not all of the competencies shown above, a CIO has to address two overarching issues: what people are doing, and who is doing the work. Aligning IT with the business is essential for managing delivery of services. Ensuring that the proper resources are dedicated to delivering those services keeps costs in check and projects on plan.

Why couldn’t we hire a project manager to do this?
While it is true a project manager keeps track of projects and manages resource allocations during the course of a given project, a project manager does not address the overall alignment of IT-to-business strategy nor does the project manager set policy, select architecture, enforce enterprise-wide security standards or directly address the other competencies of a CIO. Conversely, the CIO is not a project manager. Rather, the CIO manages the overall portfolio of projects for the organization to ensure they remain in alignment with business strategy.

Support

Help Desk
The help desk is the heart of effective IT service management and a main component of your business. We understand that every minute of downtime impacts business productivity. We provide technical support to your population of computer users and help you maintain control of your user support. This gives you the freedom to have your employees focus on their core competencies while we maintain consistently high levels of support for your business. The level of support we provide ranges from simple software and hardware application management for callers to complex network operating system and hardware support that requires higher levels of expertise, With our expertise we can “remote access” your users’ computers to fix problems on the spot, drastically reducing downtime. We are a cost effective solution for your help desk needs, and our solutions are customized for financial institutions of every size.

Help Desk Outsourcing Benefits:
• Cost Effective, Guaranteed service: 24X7, 365 days a year
• Customized ticketing system
• Customized to your needs: from basic software applications to complex hardware and network operating systems software
• Single Point of Contact Support
• Remote Access Support, Issues can be resolved off-site quickly by our staff

• Integration

Take the hassle out of setting up and maintaining your staff’s computers, voice and networking hardware. Northstar Technologies will ship your pre-configured computers to your locations or visit you onsite for an installation if needed to keep you connected.

Our Onsite IT Support includes:

• Setup of broadband and internet hardware
• Configuring switching and routing equipment
• Establishing your internet connection
• Installation and support
• Windows desktop and server support
• Fileserver and storage setup

Our Offsite IT Support includes:

• Configuring of requested software
• Installation of anti-virus software
• Installation of remote management software
• Shipping to your location to plug and play

Compliance

Regulatory compliance has become a significant burden for many organizations. While ensuring a minimum standard for best practices, keeping up with regulations and implementing them can be a significant strain on IT, compliance personnel and management. Financial institutions continue to feel the pressure of increasing regulatory compliance and financial services companies are now beginning to feel that same pressure as new regulatory requirements are being enforced in the entire financial market.

Whether it be around business continuity preparation or solutions, policy and procedural review, GLBA assurance, vulnerability or IT risk assessments, Northstar Technologies can ensure you are ready for your next examination. We provide OEM warranty and support renewal management by either sourcing the renewals for our managed services clients or bringing it to their attention.

Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Planning
Northstar Technologies delivers Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Plans. Our plans are tailored for each financial services company we are engaged with, and addresses all functional areas, ensuring compliance with all applicable regulatory requirements.

The Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Plan specifically covers the following topics:

• Risk Assessment and Business Impact Analysis
• Evaluate Critical Needs
• Establish Recovery Priorities
• Determine and Document Strategies and Procedures to Recover: facilities, hardware, software, communications, data files, customer services, critical systems, and other processing operations
• Determine types of Teams and Team Responsibilities for Crisis Management Information Systems, Core Business and Reconstruction
• Designation of Key Responsibilities
• Define Responsibilities for: Staff Members, Key Personnel, Department Leaders, Coordinators, Chairpersons
• Identify Backup Locations
• Identify Available Workspace at other Locations
• Emergency Notification Procedures
• Determine and Document Individual Plans for the Crisis Management Team, the IS Team, Core Business Team and Reconstruction Team
• Network Backup Plan
• Voice Communications Backup Plan

Operational policies and procedures
Northstar Technologies can assist with the development of “customized” standard Operational Policies and Procedures. Operational procedures can be customized to reflect simple “how to” documentation.

IT Security Risk Assessment
Northstar Technologies has worked with many clients to assist with the development of their IT Security Risk Assessment to comply with FFIEC and GLBA requirements. The IT Security Risk Assessment is a documented process to identify the client’s information and technology assets, threats to those assets, vulnerabilities, existing security controls and processes, and the current security standards and requirements. The IT Security Risk Assessment also analyzes the probability and impact associated with the known threats and vulnerabilities to the assets, and prioritizes the risks present due to threats and vulnerabilities to determine the appropriate level of training,controls, and assurance necessary for effective mitigation.