Most organizations, in any sector, rely heavily on their server infrastructure to host applications, store essential data, and facilitate communication. Effective server management is essential for optimal IT performance. This can best be accomplished with a unified endpoint management and a security solution like ManageEngine Endpoint Central that enables Infrastructure and Operations (I&O) teams to efficiently oversee management responsibilities while ensuring optimal server infrastructure security and reliability.

Manage the server lifecycle

Proper setup of server devices is crucial for establishing a stable foundation for IT operations and enabling businesses to deliver reliable services. Endpoint Central enables sysadmins to provision new servers by installing necessary operating systems, configuring hardware and software components, and allocating resources such as CPU, memory, and storage. This process ensures that the servers are ready to handle various workloads efficiently.

Since different servers often run different operating systems, I&O teams generally maintain separate caches for each OS to ensure compatibility and proper management. This adds to the organizations' administrative burden and requires more resources and effort from their I&O teams. Endpoint Central simplifies this process and streamlines operations by providing a unified caching server that supports multiple operating systems, and centralizes the storage and distribution of OS updates, patches, and software packages.

Patch management tailored for servers

Remote monitoring and maintenance

Regularly monitoring the health of server infrastructure is crucial for early identification and remediation of potential issues, ensuring the availability of critical IT services. Endpoint Central helps server admins monitor metrics like CPU usage, memory utilization, and app performance, thereby identifying potential bottlenecks or issues. Server admins can respond promptly and perform diagnostic tasks, such as checking logs or restarting services. They can further use Endpoint Central's remote troubleshooting toolkit and execute remote remediation actions like modifying server configurations or applying patches to address the underlying issue.

IT automation

Automation is the key to improve IT efficiency and enable organizations to focus their resources where they are needed rather than on mundane, repetitive tasks. Server admins can choose from over 350 out-of-the-box script templates within Endpoint Central to automate everyday processes and workflows. For unique business-specific scenarios, server admins can customize scripts to meet their needs. For automating redundant tasks associated with patching servers, Endpoint Central enables I&O teams to define their deployment policies before and after the patch deployment with settings and scripts. For example, system admins can check if the backup server is ready before shutting down the primary server for patch deployment.

Cybersecurity

Securing servers against evolving cyberthreats is crucial to ensure business continuity and data protection. By implementing robust endpoint security measures, organizations can mitigate risks and safeguard their server infrastructure.

• Vulnerability detection and remediation

  Endpoint Central provides panoramic visibility across apps, web servers, database servers, OSs, and browsers for comprehensive vulnerability detection. Going beyond the detection of missing patches, Endpoint Central also detects the presence of risky software (like peer-to-peer, end-of-life, and RDP-enabled software), the presence of unauthorized local admin rights, applications running with elevated privileges and the usage of unintended ports that may be activated by malware or unknown applications.

  Similarly, Endpoint Central enables system admins to continuously monitor their servers for misconfigurations, another form of a vulnerability. For instance, servers whose communications are not secured via Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate for data encryption and decryption could lead to an unauthorized interception. Web servers, being the internet-facing bridge between the business' target audience and their content, need dedicated attention to ensure data protection and sustained service availability. Endpoint Central provides single-click resolutions for misconfigurations, and an exclusive view for web server misconfigurations for focused visibility and control.

  According to CVE details, only 11% of vulnerabilities detected in the last year were found to be critical. Endpoint Central enables system admins to wade through the sea of threats, identifying and prioritizing those requiring immediate attention. Endpoint Central also features an exclusive dashboard that highlights zero-day vulnerabilities (along with work-arounds until the vendor makes patches available) and possible ransomware threats, for which a quick response time is crucial to minimizing risks.

• Incident detection and response

  No matter how robust the prevention mechanisms are, incorporating a fail-safe is indispensable for a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy. With the threat landscape constantly evolving, emerging strains of malware easily bypass traditional, signature-based antivirus and anti-malware. Endpoint Central provides Next-Gen Antivirus (NGAV) capability that leverages deep learning and edge-AI based, real-time behavioral detection to anticipate and prevent known threats and unknown threats. Once detected, Endpoint Central supplies crucial incident details about how an attack occurred, including the specific pathways used by the attacker and the stages of the attack process. This information is essential for understanding the nature of the security incident. It also helps efficiently respond to incidents by taking measures that further bolster the security strategy. Endpoint Central's wide range of remediation measures include applying necessary patches, quarantining affected devices from the internet and intranet, forcing login credential resets, reverting devices to their IT-approved baseline versions, and removing vulnerable applications.

• Ensure continuous compliance

  Security is not a one-time set-and-forget activity and requires ongoing efforts for maximum benefits. Frameworks and best-practices offered by compliance standards are tools that help simplify this process in a systematic manner.

  The CIS Benchmarks is one such standard, developed by the Center for Internet Security, that provides prescriptive guidance for establishing a secure baseline configuration for assets including server OS and app servers. Manually assessing all the servers against these benchmarks is no easy feat. Endpoint Central simplifies the process of adhering to and maintaining compliance to CIS benchmarks through out-of-the-box compliance policies. These policies helps monitor the servers to identify applicable CIS benchmarks and detect violations along with detailed corrective actions for remediation.