Managed IT services can range from general to specific, depending on your needs. Common services may include equipment monitoring and maintenance, IT system administration, remote server monitoring and administration, network monitoring and other support services. The types of managed service providers may vary depending on the criteria chosen to classify them. Today, the terms cloud service provider and managed service provider are sometimes used synonymously when the provider's service is backed by a service level agreement (SLA) and is provided over the Internet.
Organizations can leverage managed IT to reduce internal IT workload or fill the gaps left by existing IT roles and skills. Outsourcing the management of these systems through “managed services”, also known as managed IT services, means receiving more comprehensive supervision and support 24 hours a day, without the cost of an internal contract with a similar dedication. While it's easy for a single person to overlook certain aspects of IT security and oversight, a managed services company is specifically structured to oversee all aspects of its robust systems, monitor potential or imminent threats or malfunctions, and mitigate potential risks as quickly as possible, often before the risk becomes a real problem. There's no one-size-fits-all IT solution for every small business, so MSPs offer a menu of service options to meet your IT needs and help your business grow.
While it may be cheaper to hire IT management and maintenance at first, as your organization grows, it may make more sense to invest in acquiring and training an internal team. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), nonprofit organizations, and government agencies hire MSPs to provide a defined set of daily management services. The definitive answer is that MSPs take responsibility for one or more of their company's IT services, such as email, support, cybersecurity, networks, data storage, cloud integration, backup and restore, patching, and more. The MSP remotely monitors, updates and manages the service while reporting on the quality, performance and availability of the service.
A managed service provider (MSP) provides services, such as networks, applications, infrastructure and security, through continuous and regular support and active administration at the customer's premises, in their MSP's data center (hosting) or in a third-party data center. MSPs can reduce barriers to technology adoption by providing infrastructure as a service (OpEx, not CapEx), managing their licensing agreements, hiring experts for migrations, training their employees, and providing business intelligence through reports to help you make informed decisions about what solutions are right for your business objectives. Managed services help improve operations and reduce expenses by delegating overall management and oversight tasks from an internal team to a better-equipped external team. Many smaller companies have limited internal IT capabilities, so they may consider offering services from an MSP as a way to gain IT experience.
