It’s the computer age, and the average business nowadays has at the very least, a foothold in the online world. Or, perhaps, it has some internal communications networking done on a system of computers, whether on or offline. Therefore a necessary information tech (or IT) department is established to manage and maintain electronic communications.
Please visit this page for more on IT itself. But for those businesses centered on the Internet, how is one’s own IT department to manage all the risks and conflations that come with opening up to the World Wide Web?
That’s why since the late 1990s, Managed Service Providers (MSPs) have taken the Internet age by force!
The Origin of Managed Services
Well, not actually. MSPs actually emerged as the natural solution to all the tiny problems faced by individual IT departments. But rather than offering to outsource all their IT needs, MSPs actually replaced the model of wholesale outsourcing by providing an array of specialists to work with customers on a task-by-task basis.
MSPs also evolved out of computer retail. The thing is, wholesale sellers of computers and computer parts will always make money on their manufactured products.
But back in the day, there was only so much money to be made reselling computers to consumers once every prospective customer had one. So computer resellers eventually became value-added resellers (VARs) whose main profits came from consultancy.
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How MSPs evolved from VARs
The difference between the MSPs of today and the VARs of yesterday is a further developed notion of what the typical clients’ needs are and the fact that a higher frequency of such services are in such high demand that customer-MSP relations are now contracting or subscription-based.
A typical managed IT support company like this now has on-board engineers, programmers, analysts, and consultants, whereas in the past VARs had not yet taken to such diversity of specialization.
Still, as with the VAR model, managed services will keep you up to date on all the latest hardware and software options, all while making sure that your existing IT setup is helping you cut costs rather than create them. However, modern managed IT services also provide a new array of services that previous consulting could not match.
Remote IT Support
The best-managed IT support services should have 24/7/365 on-call support. Should any business encounter an error with its networking on the holidays, for example, they should be able to contact trained technicians; NOT simply call agents, to make sure they don’t lose business during potentially precious hours. The virtue of the Internet age is, after all, its literally continuous operability.
For remote help, the service desk should direct a client’s call to a specialist that has the right tools access to their systems and network. These days, advanced troubleshooting can demand a fully interactive experience. Your ideal MSP should be able to provide this.
On-Site Help
With cloud-based services on the rise, the bulk of IT support is done remotely. Check out the following site https://www.webopedia.com/definitions/cloud-based/ if you are fuzzy on the meaning of cloud-based. Then there are issues that may arise where no matter what, a customer may prefer or require on-site help.
These may include advanced hardware repair, complications with installation, or on-site instruction and training. Therefore the MSP you choose should have a team of agents local to your area that are available for these tasks, and even larger ones too, like server and workstation management.
If your company has a room full of servers driving your base of operations but not the IT team to tackle installing upgrades or security mods, then you’re managed IT provider should be able to send in the raw manpower with the right experience.
Incident Protection and Management
There are several ways that managed IT services assist a client in making sure that their business is protected from any sort of potential threat, be it natural or man-made. The first is with round-the-clock network monitoring, where all devices such as routers, servers, and computers are monitored, as well as their connections to make sure business can run without hang-ups.
Then any equipment failures or problems with related connections can then be detected and reported. 24/7 surveillance is not just for ensuring the day-to-day performance of infrastructure, either.
Nowadays every MSP has a managed security service division equipped with a Security Operating Center (SOC) where cyber threats like hacking and malware are tracked, contained, and reported.
The typical SOC is outfitted with SIEM technology; a customizable platform that is fine-tuned to your online business activity in order to alert SOC engineers whenever they must spring into action.
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Forces of Nature
As mentioned above, most cyber threats are man-made and are therefore designed not for mass destruction of networks and information but for selfish, opportunistic activity. That is to say that most cybercriminals want something, whether money or top-secret information.
But say, for instance, that someone or something is bent on destroying everything you’ve made available and vulnerable online- it could be a solar flare, for heaven’s sake- rest assured, if you’ve chosen the right MSP then the solution is available.
Back-up and disaster recovery are a service that has become popular among managed IT services ever since the world started to become so dependent on the Internet sometimes even storing data online.
What your business needs is therefore not just terabytes and terabytes of storage space, but also a strategy for restoring your data back into the system’s network once the calamity, whatever it may be, has passed.