When looking for the right infrastructure managed service, you need to determine which aspects of your infrastructure need managing. Managed service providers (MSPs) may be experts in their field, but overpaying for services when you already have the expertise in-house undermines the perceived value of a managed service to your business.
Understanding what you are already capable of prevents you from double-billing yourself, and ensures you can maximize the return on investment from using a managed service.
Potential Infrastructure Managed Services Overview
You should look for a managed service provider that offers diverse coverage of your present and future operational needs.
The most popular infrastructure managed service offerings are as follows.
IT Service Desk Coverage
This could be internal IT support or the remediation of end-user service requests.
When moving to a new infrastructure, your employees and end-users may encounter unforeseen problems. If you’ve opted for brand new software packages, you will have little choice but to enlist the assistance of a third party, at least until your internal staff can get up to speed.
For smaller enterprises, they may be enticed by the idea of completely outsourcing their IT team. With the 24/7 availability of infrastructure managed service providers, it is entirely possible to outsource your entire IT department. This may seem extreme, but the remote nature of cloud computing makes this a realistic strategy.
Management of the Data Center
There are numerous aspects to a data center management strategy, which can all be included with your infrastructure managed service:
- Backup & Recovery – MSPs can implement automatic backup scheduling on your network by using cheaper archive storage with your cloud provider. Handing the management of disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) to a third party ensures proper configuration and minimization of costs.
- Cloud-Agnostic Management Expertise – Any established MSP will have a dedicated team for each hosting platform, ensuring that you have AWS-certified engineers working on your AWS infrastructure. Mismatched expertise can result in misconfiguration, causing downtime and risking network security.
Virtualization Implementation Support
Proper infrastructure virtualization allows you to maximize the capabilities of the private cloud. Instead of dedicating an entire machine to your website hosting, MSPs can manage the virtualization of individual services and run them in tandem, to maximize hardware utilization and drive down costs.
Advantages of the Cloud
One of the most powerful features of analytics on the cloud is its agility. Cloud computing enables the addition of storage and analytics as needed—enabling businesses to ask new questions of their data on demand. These capabilities make it possible for organizations to respond in real time to changing conditions, traffic spikes, and major market events.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Delivery
Thanks to the decentralized nature of cloud data centers, you are likely to have access to low-latency server hardware in your locality. MSPs can provision and manage industry-leading virtual desktop infrastructures, so you can move away from providing employees with fat clients, opting for more energy-efficient and cost-effective thin clients.
Cloud-Native IP Telephony for Customer Service Teams
Voice-over IP (VoIP) telephony is the latest method of facilitating contact between end-users and customer service departments. Entirely run using your existing internet connection, you can eliminate the need for costly, outdated landline services. Capacity is determined by your internet bandwidth, rather than the number of lines you purchase. This comes with the added benefit of enabling telecommuting, as any location with an internet connection will facilitate VoIP communication.
Software Update Management
With your numerous software packages, managing updates can be a chore. MSP’s can replicate and update your software in the background, before seamlessly re-integrating with your live services. This maintains a consistently high level of security across your network, with minimal effect on your overall service delivery and uptimes.
Comprehensive Infrastructure Management With Trianz
Trianz is a leading infrastructure managed service provider, with years of experience building sustainable IT foundations for our clients. This new era of cloud-native computing is evolving at an exponential pace, which is why our clients turn to us for assistance. Through collaborative management of your IT infrastructure deployment, we help you sustain a competitive advantage, to maximize your return on investment in the long-term.
Get in touch with Trianz, and start offloading your complex IT processes to our infrastructure managed service team today!
