GNS is one of the premier and most respected private cloud and managed service companies for investment management firms in the country. We offer unparalleled expertise in network design and application support. Since our inception in 2001, GNS has become a model for providing system administration and hosting services to financial firms, ensuring their business-critical systems run seamlessly and effortlessly.
The heart of our business is rooted in customer service, and we treat every client as a premier account. We are proud to boast a client retention rate that is second to none. GNS guarantees to provide the absolute best service attainable, and we backup this claim by including a 60 day, no questions asked, cancellation clause in all our agreements.
Every member of our technical team is considered an expert in IT administration, and we can easily manage any issue your systems may experience. When service is required, clients can be certain they are receiving the very best guidance and support. We take full responsibility for the upkeep of all equipment under our management.
One particular core value that makes our service unique is in the implementation of preventive measures. We believe in engineering problems out of a system before they ever become an issue for our clients. We achieve this by conducting an extremely comprehensive set-up and configuration of the systems and applications we manage. We couple this effort with a best-of-breed monitoring system that oversees every aspect of a client's environment. This allows our technical staff to be on top of any issue that may arise.
Because GNS has a direct connection to every server under our management, we can diagnose and correct any issue immediately. We're often aware of any difficulties a client may be experiencing before they are, and these are usually corrected in short order. Typically, an engineer who responds to a call from a client will handle the entire issue from start to finish, quickly and efficiently.
GNS utilizes extensive automation to achieve the very best support available, ensuring that our service is a fraction of the cost of utilizing in-house personnel or an on-site consultant, and these efforts allow us to consistently exceed that of the competition.
GNS serves hundreds of clients worldwide and provides 24/7 service, 365 day a year. The GNS private cloud is comprised of seven colocation centers spanning the Americas, Europe, and Asia. All GNS services, as well as the GNS private cloud, are SSAE 16 SOC 1 type 2 certified.
Without question, information technology is an essential component of every business today. All but the smallest of firms have a critical dependence on their computer infrastructure operating properly, yet the high cost of employing a quality technical support staff can be prohibitive for most organizations.
At GNS, we have solved this issue for our customers by establishing a strong technical team that has implemented a supporting infrastructure to manage thousands of pieces of IT equipment without requiring an on-site presence. We've invested heavily in automated management, monitoring tools, and sophisticated internal client inventory databases.
We still do provide on-site service as necessary, but we've found that we can often provide quicker service to our clients remotely. We start by ensuring that all the servers we maintain are properly setup according to industry standard best practices. We then establish VPN connections from our primary and disaster recovery sites to every server under management. Then we install a set of custom tools on every server and integrate our client's machines into our proactive monitoring system. Using both the system network connection and the integrated lights-out management port on our client's servers, we can remotely diagnose and correct any issue promptly and effectively.
Our drive for efficiency leads not only to better service, but also much lower cost for our customers. We typically offer a fixed price contract for most of our services. This includes all system administration, monitoring, and application support. In short, we assume all responsibility for the equipment and service under contract.
Unlike our competitors, GNS is not a company that simply possesses two or three different technological solutions, and we certainly don't employ a one-size-fits-all approach to designing and managing systems. We have many years of experience working with clients who require quite diverse solutions, and we've learned that what might work well for one organization can be a poor choice for another. Having a limited range of solutions at your disposal indicates a certain complacency, and this is definitely not the approach in which GNS addresses our business. At GNS, we strive to identify and deliver the best-of-breed solutions for your company's specific needs.
Our approach is to focus on the actual requirements of our clients, and then tailor the technology to meet their needs. We work with our clients to determine their priorities, helping them develop a plan that will serve them best over the next several years. Whether your company needs someone to develop and implement solutions that help speed up the processes you already have in place, or you need to focus on cutting the costs of your current services without experiencing a reduction in quality or reliability, GNS can help provide you with the solution.
All of our clients are reliant on technological efficacy for their continued operation. They require solutions that are well thought out, solidly implemented, and managed by experts who take pride in the work they provide. GNS assumes full responsibility for assuring the systems under our watch operate effectively and efficiently.
GNS possesses a depth and breadth of technical skills that makes us unique. We emphasize the continued development of our staff by identifying areas of interest that challenge and motivate. This approach has served in building a team with an impressive amount of experience and talent, which in turn has driven the exploration and transformation of new technologies into the robust platforms that best serve our customers.
Most of the GNS technical staff are UNIX or Windows system administrators at their core. On the UNIX side, we make use of FreeBSD, Red Hat Linux, and Solaris. Our Windows team works with every variety of Windows server and desktop technology available. We also have extensive experience with web hosting and a multitude of web technologies. Over time, we've become experts in a large variety of databases, including Oracle, Sybase, MySQL, Postgres, SQL Server, and Mongo DB. Of particular note, we have more Advent Geneva servers under contract than any other service provider in the world, making us the unquestioned experts in this arena.
It's understood that networks are as important a part of our client's infrastructure as the servers they connect to, and our team has extensive experience in networking as well. We have been designing, building, and maintaining LAN and WAN networks throughout the world for many years.
The fastest growing segment of our business is systems hosting in the GNS private cloud. Our clients realize that security is most important aspect of server hosting, and they've relied on GNS to provide the proper protection by helping them migrate their systems to our secure cloud. Some clients leverage the GNS private cloud exclusively, while others opt for a private/public cloud hybrid. Regardless of a company's needs, GNS can provide a safe and dependable solution.