Tips for Choosing a Managed Service Provider
There’s no getting around the fact that there has been a technology boom and that we are relying heavily on information technology for just about everything —from communication to medical to industries. With reliance on IT growing, the resources to support an increasingly complex IT environment may not be. This is especially true for small businesses, where IT resources are scarce and they can be quickly inundated with the day-to-day responsibilities of keeping the IT infrastructure up and running. This explosion of e-business across industry verticals has made enterprises realize the importance of outsourcing network management to managed service providers.
Managed services let you divest specific IT operations and services to a managed service provider who assumes the responsibility for monitoring, managing and/or problem resolution for selected IT systems and functions on your behalf. Managed services providers also offer services such as alerts, security, data backup and data recovery for different client devices, including desktops, notebooks, servers, storage systems, networks and applications.
If you fall behind in your backups, patches and security, the odds are that you will face an IT outage down the road that will negatively impact your business. Thus outsourcing routine services to experienced managed services providers lets you concentrate on your core competence, i.e. running your business, with fewer interruptions due to IT issues.
The Indian market presents a huge opportunity for managed services. According to recent research by Forrester, the opportunity for managed services in India will be worth $8.7 billion by 2013, growing at a CAGR of 19%.
The question that is often asked is how to choose a managed service provider. The security needs of all organizations vary so it becomes very important to choose a service provider who can manage all their security needs. Before engaging a managed services provider and gaining maximum benefit from outsourcing services, enterprises need to keep the following points in mind:
- Flexibility – Depending on your business needs, partner with a service provider who will work closely with you to customize a flexible solution with a fixed monthly cost that is in synch with your budget. The service should be scalable enough to grow with you and should be able to react fast to outages and data crashes. Getting your service up and running should be painless. Check out about their process.
- Security – Enterprise security is one of the most important factors and must be handled in the best possible way. So when you are choosing a provider it is important that they secure your web browser and also your e-commerce website. Data security should be tackled well and data duplication should be avoided. With the security and efficiency of operations of an enterprise’s network at stake, and with typical service-level agreements (SLAs) lasting for two to five years, it is extremely important for enterprises to evaluate security in service level agreements properly with the vendor.
- Performance Reliability – With remote server management, you should expect your managed service provider to react quickly and efficiently to problems and increase service reliability and customer satisfaction associated with monitoring and troubleshooting managed services. In the event of a business disruption, your servers, applications, email and website should still be accessible from any remote computer. The strength of your provider’s infrastructure and support systems guarantees that your server and network will operate uninterrupted.
- Guaranteed Compliance – Check the vendor’s compliance component to make sure it satisfies all industry and governmental regulations, i.e. they provide PCI, SOX, and other critical audit and compliance reporting. A managed service should be seamlessly monitored and administered.
A good IT infrastructure management ensures that your IT investments are protected and that applications are delivered on a solid platform. Managed service providers provide important IT services at a competitive cost and many times at significantly improved service levels.
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