Managed IT Services

Managed IT Services based in Keswick Georgina Ontario, Canada

What is Managed IT Services?

Managed IT is basically monthly preventive computer maintenance. Now commonly known as RMM (Remote Management and Monitoring) Although some tasks are done daily, some weekly and alerts are received within a matter of minutes to your IT provider who is managing and monitoring your IT.

Are you running a business that needs reliable computers and don’t have an in-house I.T. department? We’re sure you recognize the fact that your computers are actually tools you use in your business and that you need to have up to date properly tuned tools to do your job effectively. We can help with monthly preventive computer maintenance and monitoring of critical services.

Why should I care about computer maintenance?

Security: Growing concern of hackers and cyber security. Virus protection isn’t enough anymore. Ensuring you are fully patched is critical including Windows updates and software updates.
Stability: Have you checked the health of your hard drive lately? Do you recognize signs of potential problems? We can detect corruption and take remediation steps to fix the corruption, usually avoiding having to physically replace a drive.
Performance: Do you know if your computer is performing as best as it can? You’ve gotten used to your computer as it gradually degrades over time. Time is money and if your computer isn’t performing well, you are not performing well. We can detect high memory usage and other issues that may cause performance degradation.

Hackers are constantly looking for vulnerabilities in software you are running so they can exploit those vulnerabilities. Once they get in, they can attack the rest of your network (computers and other devices that use Internet). We ensure critical updates are done ASAP, non-critical updates are delayed, known bad updates and damaging driver updates are blocked. Here are two websites for resources where you can type in what software you use and see what vulnerabilities it has.

Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures list http://cve.mitre.org/cve/search_cve_list.html
Vulnerability and Exploit database https://www.rapid7.com/db/

The EC Counsel has developed a course for technicians to become Certified Ethical Hackers (CEH) as a result of all this hacking. CEH’s or Penetration Testers find vulnerabilities so you can patch them. In the past, only large financial organizations can afford this, but we can maintain your network without running any penetration tests first. Considering the results of a penetration test normally suggest patching at minimum in addition to other things that small businesses usually want to pass on to save money. If you want to look at various areas to improve, you can upgrade your modem, router, switch, all computers, and any other physical device that connects to your network either wireless or cabled.

Why hackers hack?

To steal information from you. Maybe a totally random hit.
To turn your computer into a robot or zombie so they can use your computer in their attacks. DDOS attacks specifically like you’ve likely heard in the news. It’s usually completely random hits, compromising as many computers as they can as fast as they can. You are not the target of attack, they are recruiting you to attack others, and you don’t have a say in the mater.
Hacker on a mission: Like the Anonymous hackers group going after terrorist groups and other groups, you do not want to be a target of hackers. They will never stop until you are out of business and stay out of business.

Keeping your computers maintained can lower risks of the first two points, but if you are dealing with the third point; it doesn’t matter how much time and money you invest, they will not stop. You can only keep on top of the never ending battle of patching, securing and adding new tools and firewalls to protect you better.

If you rely on technology to keep your business running, you need to at least ensure a series of basic maintenance is done to keep your computers secure from virus and hackers, stable and reliable so it’s not crashing when you need it most, and keep the performance optimal so you’re not losing productivity. We do all this for you without bogging down your computer with a bunch of “crapware” which many people do and they blindly assume it’s working as it should. We also do this remotely and behind the scenes so it doesn’t disrupt your work.

What’s involved in maintenance?

We manage and monitor several things including but not limited to:

We ensure critical updates are done ASAP. We have non-critical updates done with a delay so you are not the guinea pig. We block known bad updates, driver updates and product trials than cause problems for many people.
Software patches (Like Adobe reader, Google Chrome, Zoom, etc)
Checking unusual CPU and RAM usage that affect performance
Checking unusually high temperatures
Ensuring virus protection is working
Make suggestions for software that has expired support. Although still runs it is a vulnerability that can be exploited by a hacker.
Hard drive running out of space affects performance
Hard drive health can be detected in advance if needs to be replaced.
We detect system corruption and run repairs to avoid having to replace the entire drive after being neglected.
Ensure backups are being done successfully.

The scary truth about Public Wifi (Video by CNN Money)

The major problem is once you’ve been hacked, if by a professional, it is virtually impossible to detect by the average person; and if you think for a second your anti-virus will detect anything, think again. It’s not a virus! It’s a hacker! The only way to know for sure your system is 100% clean is format the hard drive and reinstall everything. Prevention is key!

What does RMM (Remote Management & Monitoring) cost?

Prices range greatly and it’s important to know what you get for that price as there are various levels of service. Some small business can’t justify the cost to get started as the entry level prices are too high. Here’s a a few things we learned after doing an email inquiry in the first half of 2025 after checking 22 Managed I.T. companies in York Region area.

Only 4 out of 22 companies have their prices listed. (not counting TwinBytes)
Only 4 out of 18 companies replied to an email asking for a quote for a small business. The other 4 we couldn’t contact, they were too difficult to reach via email.
1 website required filling out a form and wouldn’t accept it coming from a Gmail address (which many people use Gmail for their business, so they’d be forced to call which many people like to avoid)
The costs range from $50-$125/month per device. Servers range from $75-$400/month per server.
Remember it also depending if they are including anti-virus, backups, or other special monitoring and resolution services within that price.
One business actually starts from $3,500/month. So there are some companies that just don’t want to deal with the smaller companies. Nothing wrong with that, but who can provide this kind of service to small companies?

TwinBytes helps very small business, from 1 person working from home on a laptop, to a small business running upto several dozen computers. We are one of the lowest priced Managed I.T. companies around because we focus on very small business and we don’t force you to take packages including several things as some people like to keep their existing anti-virus, Office 365, backup services, etc.

TwinBytes starts from only $25/month for a single computer, whether it’s a workstation or a server. We also offer a few options for anti-virus/firewall, online backups, and Office 365 subscriptions which can be added to your monthly subscription. We suggest a free phone consult to determine your needs. Also, you can take this survey as a great starting point for the discussion to see how we can best be of assistance. Not everyone is a great fit, so let’s talk and see what we can recommend.

What’s next?

Ask us for a Security Assessment and information package. You can take our survey here to see how you currently rank and how important certain areas of IT maybe to you from backups and anti-virus to full managed service.

Protect your business computers with preventative maintenance. Although you may have anti-virus software running on your computer and automated backups, they may not be running and you wouldn’t know there was an issue in some cases. However, there is allot more to maintenance than just virus protection and Windows updates.

Learn how our monthly preventive computer maintenance services and managed IT services can help protect your business with RMM (Remote Management and Monitoring). Call us at (855) 777-TWIN.