In my previous post, I discussed some of the most common types of services offered by managed service providers (MSPs). This brings us to what organizations need to do to prepare to work with an MSP. Here are some considerations to keep in mind.

Have an Idea What You Need

Organizations could land themselves in trouble if they end up wasting money on services they don’t need. The same goes for those that might go with an MSP that doesn’t provide the desired types of protection. Hence, organizations need to know the following:

  • What’s on the network? Do organizations want an MSP to support all their assets? Can all their assets even be managed? By understanding their environment, organizations can choose an arrangement that supports their mission-critical needs.
  • What are the biggest challenges? Organizations must understand the biggest challenges facing them and be able to verbalize how an MSP will help them to tackle those issues.
  • What’s needed from an MSP? Some organizations may have local or global hosting requirements to consider, while others may need to choose vendors with engineers who are FedRAMP-certified or who hold other certifications. Organizations need to know what exactly they need from an MSP, as this will help them to narrow down their search. Having a list of must-haves will aid you in your search process.

With that information, organizations can start looking for an MSP and evaluating their options. This requires that they look at four key factors of any provider’s managed solution.

Factor #1: Cost

Organizations need to know what it will cost them to work with a particular MSP. That projected cost will vary based upon the term length that they’re interested in as well as the type and tier of service they’re examining. It’s then up to them (Read more...)