Small businesses are usually operated by their owner, who makes every possible effort to make it running. He/she has many important cores to take care of, managing almost every department. Business owners may not have efficient time, knowledge and money to invest in the IT department. Resulting in disrupted networks and inefficient systems. Many companies have put themselves into serious issues due to inadequate IT infrastructure, from losing valuable information to wastage of time. Server issues have the potential to make or break the business. This is when managed services come into the picture, MSP is an ideal solution for small businesses.
Managed Services for Small Businesses
A provisioning model of IT, where a service provider, provides managed services to their clients based on their needs is known as managed services. You pay a fixed monthly fee in exchange for their services. It is like, instead of purchasing and maintaining of in-house server you rent their services and enjoy updated expert service for the company’s IT.
The equipment is situated and monitored at the managed provider’s facility, by their own team of experts. The service provider is responsible for managing and administering operating systems, networks, software and IT infrastructure. The client may have access to the systems through the web-based interface. The managed service provider manages typically the installation and configuration of software, configuring hardware, maintaining systems, technical support patch management, monitoring and managing updates.
The service may vary on the choice of your package, other services of an MSP may include load balancing, backups, vulnerability scans, disaster recovery, ID (intrusion detection) and DDoS (distributed denial of service) and mitigation.
Types of Managed Services
For some organizations, the execution of managed hosting is a decision based on expenses and trust. The managed service providers must be capable to understand the company’s needs, having sufficient experience and being reliable to manage their systems and servers competently. An MSP with years of experiences, gained through serving different organizations and various industries, know well how to well operate your systems effectively. Small businesses can choose the extent of managed services they want for your company. Here are the types of managed services, from which you can choose the best solution for your business.
Fully-Managed Managed Services
Fully-managed services refer to the services, where the service provider is completely engaged with your company. An MSP is responsible for the management of security, monitoring, maintenance and performance optimization of networks and IT systems. The entire IT system is outsourced to the service provider.
Partially Managed Services
A type of managed service in which you can select the services that are best suitable for your needs. You choose and pay for only those services, from the managed service provider’s suite of services. They manage and are responsible for the decided areas, whereas, your in-house IT department is responsible for the rest.
Colocation Managed Services
Colocation managed services mean that the organization’s servers are kept at the managed service company’s location and its monitoring, maintenance and security is the responsibility of a managed service provider.
Benefits of Managed Services to Small Businesses
Small organizations want their companies to be on budget, overspending of time, money can be counterproductive and stressful for them. Likely, hiring a managed service provider can give many benefits, such as;
Time-Saving
Time and money are most valuable for the small business owners, enabling an MSP with your organization give you professional services to manage your networks and servers. They handle complicated IT aspects while allowing small organizations to invest their time on more important core issues and be productive for the business.
Managed Storage
Storage requirements for small businesses change as they grow. Space they may need today, may not be the same they may require soon. To stay at the top requires a specific skill set, availability, and commitment to dedicate to it. Outsourcing your storage needs to a managed service provider, will help your small business in storing sensitive information. Whereas, it will reduce the costs of administering and purchasing storage devices.
Reduced Operational Costs
Maintenance and management of in-house IT networks and systems are very expensive and time taking. You may need highly trained professionals with updated servers and systems. The more reliable and practical solution is to invest in hiring an MSP. As they own all the required specialization along with the latest tools to handle any technical issues or problems.
Secured Systems
The data is more at risk for small organizations than large enterprises. Security of your crucial data and systems should be your priority. This may involve spam filtering, scanning viruses, security audits, OS updates and configuration of a software firewall. Managed service providers are equipped with the appropriate experience and tools, they may require to deal with security problems. They constantly monitor networks and systems to find any vulnerabilities, which they proactively fix to prevent any attacks.
Backup Solutions
Losing valuable company and customer data cannot only be expensive but can cause many other problems for small businesses. This is why small organizations must have quality secured data backup systems. Managed service provider backups your data for you, so you can have peace of mind that your information is safe and stored.
Customizations of Business Plans
Managed service provider, through understanding your organization’s unique needs provides you with a customized solution. They by communicating with you gives you different specific packages, from which you can select the best one that fulfils your business needs and is budget-friendly.
Managed services can provide a definite advantage for small businesses. Reduced costs, increased security, less hassle, worry and data backups are only some of the features of a managed service plan. If you are looking for an ultimate solution for your small business, that may improvise as your business grows, consider using AA NetConsult managed services. We offer a single platform with diverse services that will fulfil your business needs.