Cloud Communications

GFI Simplifies Protection and Management for SMBs with GFI Cloud

By Mae Kowalke TMCnet Contributor

Not every small- to medium-sized business (SMB) can enjoy the luxury of IT expertise – or time to learn and manage the company’s IT, for that matter. Thankfully, there’s a Web service for that.

Cloud services provider GFI provides an offering aimed squarely at SMBs not graced with an IT whiz – GFI Cloud, which consists of the company’s well-respected VIPRE Business Online anti-malware suite and its Network Server Online Monitoring systems management service. GFI Cloud advertises that it is a turnkey protection and management system that can impressively be deployed in 10 minutes or less.

Deployment is simple enough that it just might be a 10-minute setup for many firms. To install the software, administrators need only log into the GFI Cloud Web portal to immediately begin protecting their computer by downloading an installation package. It is also a fully-automated process that installs an agent on the computer from which the Web service can then run the show.

The only remaining step is selecting the license applied to the system and tweaking the pre-defined network policies if desired. For large networks, GFI offers a portal for group policy and deployment on multiple computers simultaneously.

Pricing is also conveniently low and simple. It doesn’t get any more complicated than simply paying $12 a year per service per computer. Even better, bundled and multi-year discounts can further lower the price by more than 20 percent on larger orders.

Malware management is handled via policies that are predefined but customizable, and predefined policies exist for desktops, servers, laptops, SBS, SQL Server and Exchange systems. Things like deep and quick scans can be set for daily or weekly operation, for instance.

While malware scans run automatically, they also can be run on-demand. Through a Web control panel, administrators can activate an on-demand scan, remotely reboot the system, assign a new policy or enable/disable VIPRE for a given system.

In terms of management, GFI Cloud provides hardware and software inventory, which Computing Security magazine found to be quite detailed.

“It correctly identified all key hardware components, operating systems and applications on our test systems,” Computing Security raved in its review of the service.

The Network Server Monitor helps administrators keep track of disk space usage for specific volumes, Windows services and events posted in the Windows Event Logs. Backup jobs can be monitored as well, and alerts can be issued through the service to administrators via SMS and e-mail.

Furthermore, the company plans to add its LANGuard application as a cloud service soon, reports Computing Security in its review, and other services should follow.

The bottom line? IT just got (seriously) easier for SMBs.

To learn more about GFI’s offerings, visit www.gfi.com.

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