What are IT Managed Services?
Posted by Sean Houghton on Sun, Nov 29, 2009
You may hear the phrase "IT Managed Services" discussed on a regular basis, but what does it mean for you and your business?
Managed Services are typically delivered to your company by a third party IT Company. A Managed Service Provider (MSP) will provide outsourced IT support and management and become your trusted IT Partner not just a supplier.
A differentiator between a standard IT Support company and an MSP is that they are proactive in responding to issues and problems (often fixing them before you even know there is an issue) instead of a standard reactive service where they sit around waiting for you to ring them with an issue.
Typically services include:
- 24/7 Proactive Server & Network Monitoring
- Remote & On-site Server and Computer support
- Network Security
- Managed Anti-Virus & Spam protection.
- Help Desk Ticketing
- Guaranteed response times through SLA's
- Data Backup & Disaster Recovery
Server and Computer Support
An IT managed Service Provider should provide proactive and regular maintenance to Servers and PC's to ensure that they are running at optimal levels whilst also protected against the latest threats. They should be monitoring and applying security patches and updates as required.
An MSPs highly skilled IT consultants will support your business when there are IT issues, and will look to resolve IT problems as quickly as possible. They will often do this remotely without having to come to the customer's office in order to minimise the disruption and downtime to users.
IT managed service providers will also be monitoring your systems 24/7 to detect issues early and check trends to minimise the risk of any downtime and data loss and then advising you of the potential risks and solutions available to you.
Network Security
Small and Medium businesses are often targeted by hackers as they often believe it easier to hack small business networks than that of a larger businesses infrastructure. IT Security should be taken seriously by all businesses. Your chosen MSP should recommend and implement best practices and utilise tools to manage your firewall and protect against threats such as viruses, spam and hacking. The threats against IT don't stand still so your MSP should be continually monitoring your security procedures and solutions and updating them where necessary.
Remote Network Monitoring
Proactive monitoring is critical to detecting and preventing IT issues as well as data loss. A proactive MSP will have tools implemented to alert their technicians (via Email, SMS, automated ticketing systems) to issues often before you are even aware of them.
Data Backup & Disaster Recovery
Business critical data is integral to a company's success, your chosen IT Company should take full responsibility for backing up your data and ensuring it is available for restore should the worse happen.
Many MSPs will offer Off-Site backup solutions (including Online Backups and tape collection services), an online backup solution will replicate your data overnight to a secure Data Centre. This gives your business the ability to recover data from the replicated server should a file or your server become unavailable for whatever reason.
An MSP should also be able to offer you the following services:
- Managed Anti Virus & Anti-Spam
- Guaranteed response times through Service Level Agreements (SLA's)
- IT Strategy Planning
Why should you consider Managed Services?
Businesses should consider Managed IT services as it provides an affordable solution to complex problems allowing small and medium business to focus on their core objectives instead of being distracted from IT problems
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