Managed IT Services (sometimes referred to as Managed Services or MSP) is a business model where a company outsources specific IT operations/duties to a 3rd party team of support technicians and engineers. There are various benefits to leveraging managed services, the following entry will discuss several of these benefits.
A Managed Service provider will work with the client to define specific responsibilities that will be regularly scheduled and supported. These duties can range from simple solutions such as managing scheduled backups to delivering security monitoring all through a completely outsourced IT operation. The relationship must be clearly defined, and expectations must be specifically set in order to develop a positive culture.
Managed Service Providers support their clients with a team of experienced IT professionals. The engineers will have specific talents and experiences so that they can collectively address any problem as a team. This works out much better for the client as they do not have to spend time developing their own teams for small jobs.
Support, responsiveness, and experience are the main drivers that define a Managed Service Provider’s value. MSPs will create an automated, proactive management system to make sure that the do the most effective job possible. In order to do so, they will include valuable software to compliment the service; delivering enterprise tools and support. Examples of integrated technology include: Monitoring Software, Back-Up Software, Security Software, Cloud Infrastructure, and a ticketing system. The Network Operations Center is staffed with engineers that watch the systems and provide level 1-3 support for the client. – often 24x7x365.
Businesses that partner with Managed Service Providers can enjoy the benefit of full coverage for a fixed fee. This allows them the freedom to focus on their jobs, whether it is running financials for a business or developing software. We refer to this notion as the Core vs Chore system. In this model, the MSP takes care of the day to day minutia and delivers a fully streamlined IT operation.
Types of Managed Services
Businesses that seek out Managed Service Providers are generally looking to fill a hole within their current operation. Usually, the client will be looking to add more responsibilities to their operation, so they would have to hire someone that understood how to implement a solution. By leveraging an MSP, they could get the service moving much quicker and more affordably. The following details some of the roles and system management that an MSP can assume.
System Monitoring
Managed IT Companies will include management software that can provide granular reporting on system health. Although this is more valuable on server/virtual machine infrastructure, it can also report on the local PC performance. Remote access is also tied into the system so the MSP’s Network Operation Center (NOC) can dial into user machines remotely.
Backups and Disaster Recovery
A disaster recovery project can range from a simple backup job to much more specific recovery objectives with defined Service Level Agreements (SLAs). MSPs will work with the client and put together a plan where expectations match the budget. The more availability built into the solution, the greater the cost.
Security Management and Compliance Auditing
With today’s threat landscape, managing security goes beyond a firewall and antivirus. Today, software and experience must be merged to deliver advanced solutions that will consolidate multiple features into a complete solution. For example, they can include machine learning for zero-day threats/signatures, encryption for exploits, centralized logging to address issues faster and ongoing scans to hack for vulnerabilities. All these components can produce data to develop reports for compliance auditors.
Desktop Support and Management
The most commonly deployed use case for Managed Services is Desktop Support. This is when the IT Management company provides a help-desk/ticketing solution that helps support the users’ needs daily. Part of this service incorporated provisioning/decommissioning access or applications for employees that are coming or going.
Cloud/Infrastructure Management
Managing servers and/or Cloud infrastructure requires specific skill sets and things get even more complex with multiple cloud platforms and SaaS applications. A modern Managed Service Provider needs to understand that everything is changing, and that the next generation of businesses will use technology differently than they do today.
With the IT landscape changing so rapidly, there are new services and solutions that Managed IT companies are going to need to incorporate into their portfolios in order to differentiate themselves. With a expanding Cloud portfolio, IT companies must start integrating technology solutions with their management.
Application Monitoring
Managing desktops is one thing but enterprise monitoring was built for servers and applications because they require critical uptime. A Managed IT company that has done most of their work with desktops might struggle with advanced monitoring on server and application layers.
Synchronized Security
Synchronized Security is a term that describes the management of multiple security components and devices with a unified, intelligent platform. Sometimes referred to as Unified Threat Management, administrators can use their centralized portal to give full control and visibility through a single interface. Layers of tools enable more protection, visibility and response.
Virtual Desktop/Applications
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) or Desktop as a Service (DaaS) are gaining more momentum in the industry. More and more business owners are starting to see the value of a centralized, Cloud based solution that incorporates everything into a single monthly service. Today’s modern Managed Service Provider must be able to provide a solution like this or else they will lose out on opportunities.
DevOps
DevOps is the Marriage between IT operations and Development. If a Managed IT Company plans to do business with companies that have internal development teams, they must understand how to architect a scalable system that’s automated while leveraging tools that interact and compliment dev. This is a specialty that is required if an MSP is expected to add value to a software development team.
Benefits of Managed IT
A Managed Service Provider can deliver tremendous value to a business of any size. The benefit to an organization is that they don’t need to hire specialists, develop a team, and deal with turnover. Instead, they can simply partner with an MSP and let them handle the responsibilities.
Costs
When a company hires a Managed IT Company, they are already getting a team that is up to speed on the practice. Plus, they don’t have to worry about all the overhead that comes with hiring high priced engineers (salary, benefits, insurance, overtime, tools, software, mistakes, redundancy etc).
Scalability
Without the burden of hiring an internal team, the operations become more scalable with the help us the MSP. This is a measure of efficiency and experience. A Small team of professionals can optimize the administration and use tools to automate many of the chores.
Reduce Risk
Risk is also reduced as mistakes, poor investments, and downtime are all mitigated when they put their trust into a professional team. Finding the right talent is not easy and many employers have experienced long standing issues because of the wrong hire.
Compliance/Security
Maintaining full security and compliance requires skills, software, and a lot of time. Sophisticated Managed Service Providers have experience with multiple regulatory requirements and have the means to audit the systems from a security perspective. Compliant services and documentation can be layered on top of traditional services if companies have needs.
Budget
It is true that Managed IT services can lower the costs of running an IT operation, but it can also make budgeting more predictable. Since MSPs deliver the solutions as a service, they often include all the enterprise software required to manage the operation. This enables budgets to b static and based on an operational expense (OpEx) methodology.
Managed IT in Healthcare
One industry that can particularly benefit from managed IT is healthcare. Healthcare is not known to be a technical line of work; doctors do not have the time to focus on the ins and outs of IT. Plus, healthcare practices must comply with specific measures to protect their patient’s data. Healthcare is highly regulated, and compliance is going to continue to get more demanding.
Healthcare in general is hesitant to adapt because it is a complicated landscape. They have very busy schedules and need to work long hours. For this reason, they need systems to be highly available and support must be on call 24/7. It is no wonder that hospital execs expect managed services to be used more widely in 2019 than ever before.
We are also seeing the rise in Telehealth, were physicians can visit with their clients virtually. The adoption of this virtual technology is up more than 340 percent from 2015. The interesting part of this from a managed IT perspective is that doctors, hospitals, and healthcare businesses are adopting cloud-based technology to drive more efficient business.
Conclusion
With trends moving more towards technology, an increase in regulation, and a shortage of IT technicians, Managed Services seems to have a bright future. Mindcentric is a Managed Service Provider with offices in San Diego, Nevada and NYC. With 20 years in the business, we have built a complete portfolio of management and Cloud services that cater to all industries.