Be it on-premises or cloud-based, your hosted data (e.g., applications, websites, data, etc.) are vital assets to your business. However, the underlying infrastructure and platforms aren’t easy to manage, especially from a cyber security standpoint.
Thus, your MSP should offer around-the-clock monitoring and incident-response services. As we noted earlier, data security ties into a number of compliance frameworks. Gaps in securing your data could sting you in the future through fines, penalties, and potential breaches.
Finally, cloud services aren’t easy to configure, deploy, or maintain. By supporting infrastructure on your own, you might be at risk of overusing your internal IT resources on dealing with downtime instead of revenue-generating tasks, such as development.
Your MSP should offer an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) management that will handle the day-to-day operation of your cloud infrastructure (e.g., responding to downtime, monitoring, security, etc.).
You can also leverage the cloud to back-up your data and restore it in response to a critical error or cyber breach. However, for this to work, you need secure and redundant data hosting assets.
Your MSP should host your data in secure data centers. Besides adhering to standard security best practices, your industry may require your MSP to follow additional compliance frameworks.
The MSP should also have a failover mechanism wherein if one data center fails (e.g., due to a natural disaster), your data will rollover to another data center in a different location.
In terms of business continuity, your MSP should help restore your daily operations (following a disaster) as quickly as possible. This support can involve planning and implementation support.
Your MSP shouldn’t lock you into long-term contracts nor force you into signing onto additional services you don’t need. Your MSP should be flexible enough to cater to your specific needs.
For example, if you need patching services but don’t want to commit to a 3-year contract, your MSP can provide the service as a project. This project could be a timed engagement built on a project methodology (e.g., PMI) with a scope of work and milestones.
The benefit of this approach is that you don’t need to sign onto every MSP service to improve your IT. If you require only specific improvements or support, you can buy select services on an a la carte-like basis.
Be it the service desk agents, developers, or IT professionals, your MSP should have a deep roster of certified IT experts, especially in technologies and issues relevant to your business.
For example, businesses are having difficulty hiring experienced cyber security professionals (Deloitte). However, hiring challenges won’t change the fact that businesses must comply with rigorous cyber security regulations or protect their assets from increasingly complex threats.
The Challenges Businesses are Having with Hiring Cyber Security Staff
(Source: Deloitte)
MSPs with strong rosters in cyber security and other IT fields enable business leaders to remove or avoid bottlenecks in quickly implementing their IT programs.
Your MSP should have familiarity with your business’ applications, IT infrastructure, and other IT assets so that it can properly manage your day-to-day operations.
In many situations, you need the MSP to serve as an expert on those systems, especially when it comes to configuration and working through breaches or errors.
The second aspect of compatibility is whether your MSP has the tools and systems that allow it to operate in your IT environment. For example, if the MSP offers automation services, is it able to run those services through your systems, or will it have to operate in a separate environment?
Your MSP should provide uptime and issue response time guarantees in your service level agreement (SLA). The SLA will enable you to measure your MSP’s performance and hold it accountable. Some MSPs will also provide reports showing you how they’ve complied with the SLA, e.g., number of tickets closed, time to solving tickets, etc.
Need More Support on Cutting Your Business’ IT Costs?
To help with your search for an MSP, we’ve compiled a list of questions to ask when assessing your options.
At Buchanan Technologies, we remove IT bottlenecks from your workflow through end-to-end IT services, freeing you to devote more resources to generating revenue. Contact us today to get started.