IT Infrastructure and
Operations Support

Managed services providers (MSP) are service companies who provide managed IT services to their clients. A managed service provider delivers services, such as network, application, infrastructure and security, via ongoing and regular support and active administration on customers’ premises, in their MSP’s data center (hosting), or in a third-party data center. Some of these offerings may include things like help desk services, disaster recovery, managed security services or various cybersecurity services as well as a wide range of cloud computing or cloud-based services.

Source: https://www.gartner.com/en/information-technology/glossary/msp-management-service-provider

MSPs may deliver their own native services in conjunction with other providers’ services (for example, a security MSP providing sys admin on top of a third-party cloud IaaS). Pure-play MSPs focus on one vendor or technology, usually their own core offerings. Many MSPs include services from other types of providers. The term MSP traditionally was applied to infrastructure or device-centric types of services but has expanded to include any continuous, regular management, maintenance and support.

For client businesses, managed service providers are simply an outsourced information technology department. The client organization outsources (through contractual agreement) their IT department functions (in part or in whole) to an outside company, a managed service provider (MSP).

The MSP is a proactive IT support company. The MSP will proactively handle client IT business processes, network infrastructure and security monitoring in combination with a desired level of strategic decision-making, according to the specifications of the contract. The key here for many organizations is to hire a trusted company to build their IT system the right way and proactively maintain it. This creates an environment which is easy to work with, and one that doesn’t break down often. A win for the client, and a win for the MSP.

If you’ve ever been in the position of managing a technical employee or staff member, you would understand that this responsibility can become a large burden. In certain cases more than others, computer technicians seem to have a habit of becoming unresponsive or undermotivated over time.

Often they don’t enjoy working underneath non-technically oriented people. Managed IT service companies have multiple staff-members onboard, and we notice this helps to create a more positive work-environment for the IT service engineers and tech-teams. Additionally, this also enables the MSP to send the technician best suited for the task at hand – increasing operational efficiency. Subsequently managed service businesses easily help mitigate these business process concerns.

Reactive support (break-fix) models usually fail for the following reasons:

• The number of hours required can change too rapidly. It can fluctuate from too high for the client one week, and the next week it might be too low for the service provider.
• Most break-fix tech shops are smaller shops. They don’t have the capacity that a more operationally mature organization has. This can result in scheduling problems and lack of availability to provide support.
• The goals of the service provider and the client are conflicting in nature (the service provider needs more hours; the client wants to continuously reduce hours).
• Business is relying on non-technical staff to manage an outside IT contractor—these types of relationships fail for a variety of reasons.
• These issues can be resolved with either on-demand support or managed services (both require management)