IT Functions Delivered By Managed IT Services
With business evolving almost daily, many owners are searching for ways to offload some of their company responsibilities. Since the IT department is such a big part of most businesses, getting those chores off your plate would be a huge benefit, right? So what types of IT functions can you obtain with Managed IT Services? Let’s dig in and see.
What Can We Outsource To A Managed Services Provider?
Actually, there are quite a few routine IT services that you could offload to a managed services company. Although each provider is different, most of them offer the everyday things you might think of, such as Help Desk Support or remote monitoring and management of your network. It all depends on what you’re looking for and what will fit into your budget.
Let’s take a closer look at seven other IT functions you can get through a managed service provider:
- Network & IT Infrastructure Management: Managed Networks and Infrastructure includes IP Virtual Private Networks, which are widely used for secure, high performance, cost-effective networking. You can eliminate the cost of maintaining a data center at your physical location. This will free up lots of space on your premises – plus, you won’t have to hire IT employees.
- Business Intelligence & Data Analytics: Managed Business Intelligence (BI) is a comprehensive term encompassing data analytics and other reporting tools that help in decision making using historical data. Data Analytics uses algorithms to find trends, patterns, customer behavior and additional information that can help business owners fine-tune their marketing programs.
- Communications: Managed Communications is a merging of data, voice, and video on the same IP Network. Along with this comes a managed contact center. This includes the traditional call center features, plus the intelligent IP call routing, email, phone, web, IM, and fax.
- Security Services: Managed Security Services (MSS) are network security services that include “defense-in-depth” functions like 24/7 monitoring and management of firewalls and intrusion detection systems. Your provider can respond to emergencies, perform security assessments and security audits, and oversee patch management and upgrades. Plus, they can provide Security Awareness Training for your employees.
- Help Desk Support Services: Managed Support Services take care of your traditional Help Desk needs. Anytime a computer crashes, you’ll have someone to contact for help. You can also include help desk services for servers, printers, communications solutions and just about any and all IT equipment.
- Software as a Service: Software as a Service (SaaS) can be very beneficial to business owners. You can eliminate the high cost of purchasing software programs like Microsoft Office 365. Your managed service provider will install, configure, host, and provide help desk service for all of your software applications. They’re responsible for making sure that all updates and patches are completed in a timely manner.
- Wireless & Mobile Computing: Managed Wireless and Mobile Computing give you wireless capabilities without incurring the capital expense (CapEx) generally associated with it. With mobile computing, there’s an increase in productivity and collaboration and a decrease in deployment effort and complexity. Your employees can get more done in a day’s time.
Are There Other IT Functions That a Managed Services Provider Can Deliver?
There’s quite a bit more that most managed service providers can handle when it comes to your IT infrastructure, including:
- Managed Hosting and Storage: These managed IT functions eliminate costs that can skyrocket when purchasing and maintaining onsite equipment. On top of this, there’s the floor space, personnel, and ongoing IT training for employees that you can eliminate. Tapping into the service provider’s expertise, facilities, and guaranteed Service Level Agreement will reduce your organization’s expenses.
- Managed IP VPNs: Virtual Private Networks are widely used in business today for cost-effective, high-performance, and secure networking. A VPN permits users to connect over a public internet connection to access their main company network remotely and safely. This allows each employee to work from home or when traveling while giving them access to shared network files.
- Managed LAN Services: Managed Service Providers can control a company’s Local Area Network over their system, helping to reduce total cost of ownership. Without managed services, the cost to maintain and update a network increases proportionally with network usage.
- Managed WAN Services: Managed Service Providers offer a broad range of managed Wide Area Network connectivity services. A short list includes ATM (asynchronous transfer mode), frame relay, metro ethernet, multiprotocol label switching, and private lines.
The field of Managed IT Services was developed to help companies manage their IT infrastructure. The reason for this is simple: you may be a great business owner with lots of experience in your field, but the chances are that you don’t know a thing about Oracle servers. You may not even know the difference between a proxy server and an email server.
This is a very specialized field that takes years of training and education, and most business owners would prefer to focus on running their company. With Managed IT Services, you can leave the technology headaches to the tech professionals.
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