Smart Hands vs. Remote Hands

 There are a few things we need to know when we talk about remote hands and IT Smart Hands.

Remote hands

Remote hands can include things like securing wiring, checking port numbers, observing or reporting indicators on devices, basic environment monitoring, and restarting the server. These data center services are provided under a data center contract at no additional cost.

When talking about remote hands, keep in mind that these are all things that can be done without on-site data center technicians entering devices. When a technician really needs to join the team, we enter the smart hands area.

Smart hands

Smart hands involve more complex tasks than remote hands. These data center services include colocation device management, firewall configuration, media and supply management, complex cable configurations, device testing and troubleshooting, circuit and rack and stack testing. Smart hands are services that are generally billed hourly.

It is important for us to clarify which services are in remote hands and which are in smart hands when we speak to a data center. We do not want surprises on the first invoice. Unexpected costs are never fun.

Remote hands and smart hands in the data center come in handy when we don't have anyone available to manage the task. Or maybe the person who normally does this is out of town and needs someone if necessary. These are the two reasons why we want to use experienced data center technicians.

Ask in the data center what is included and what is not, so that we cannot experience surprises with the next invoice. If you have any questions about how RACK59 can support your placement project with our support services, please arrange a site visit or contact us using the button below.

Smart Hand Services: When Your Time is Worth Money

In your company's IT department, the point comes when a task must be performed and no one is available or cannot process it. Maybe it's after business hours. The task can be small or large: basic diagnosis; Plug in a cable. Add IP addresses to a firewall. Regardless, no one is available. And the task has to be done, otherwise there are serious consequences. So it makes sense to get a Managed IT Smart Hands Services from a company like Externetworks. Your time and that of your employees are best used for tasks that grow your business, and not for maintaining your IT infrastructure.

On-site assistance service

For many growing companies, maintaining an expensive and highly trained IT team onsite 24 hours a day may not be profitable. For some, this may never be a realistic part of their growth model or business plan. However, these companies continue to require certain services to be provided to meet their operational needs. This is where an intelligent hand service system comes into play. Smart Hands offers the highest level of service, offering remote management, facility customization, and device troubleshooting 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The cost of a Smart Hands service plan is often offset by minimizing downtime and service interruptions by freeing key people for other important tasks and automating daily maintenance tasks and services. With Smart Hands packages, companies don't have to give up control or adaptation of their infrastructure. Immediate responses to data breaches not only improve your company's productivity, but also reduce the risk of liability issues.

What Kind Of Tasks Can Smart Hands handle?

Smart hand packs vary according to your business requirements, as do the tasks involved. The best way to think in smart hands is as a concierge in a busy hotel. They always meet your requirements and can also react immediately to urgent circumstances or questions as soon as they arise. A concierge can also work with other clients, but information is not shared, so there are no security issues. A concierge provides you with the highest quality support in limited areas, rather than trying to act as your swimming guide and instructor. Smart Hands employees use their resources more efficiently to perform various functions towards their external staff. Smart Hands services may include:

•      Configure a firewall

• Complex cable configurations

• Placement device management.

• Test devices and fix error.

• Rack and stacking services

• Shipping and receiving

• Automated maintenance

• Backups

• Pack and unpack

• Inventory

• Detect and respond to threats.

• Moving equipment

• Operating system and server installation.

• Power cycle

• On-site / off-site technical support and troubleshooting

• The remote server restarts.

• Cloud cross-connect

Managed Service Provider

 Managed Services The provider (MSP) is a company that generally proactively manages a customer's IT infrastructure and / or systems for end users and remotely as part of a subscription model. Today, the terms "cloud service provider" and "managed IT service provider" are sometimes used interchangeably when the provider's service is supported by a service level agreement (SLA) and is provided over the Internet.

MSP development began in the 1990s with the advent of application service providers (ASPs) that offered remote application hosting services. ASPs paved the way for cloud computing and businesses that remotely support customers' IT infrastructure. Most MSPs initially focused on remote management and monitoring (RMM) of servers and networks. Over time, MSPs have expanded the scope of their services to differentiate themselves from other providers.

While some MSPs may specialize in certain information technology segments, such as data warehousing, others may focus on certain vertical markets such as law, finance, healthcare, and manufacturing. Managed security service providers (MSSPs) offer, for example, specialized services, such as remote firewall administration and other security solutions, such as service delivery. Managed Print Service Providers (MPS) are responsible for printer maintenance and supplies.

Pricing model for managed service providers

At the price per device, MSP charges the customer's fixed costs for each device managed. As part of the user price, MSP charges a flat fee for each user, which is tailored to users who use multiple devices. As part of an all-inclusive price, also known as an unlimited model, MSP charges fixed fees for all support and management of the IT infrastructure you want to offer.

With each of these pricing approaches, the customer pays the flat rate regularly, often monthly. These pricing methods allow MSPs to sell services as part of a subscription model. This approach provides MSP with a recurring revenue stream (MRR), unlike IT projects, which are generally one-time transactions.

MRR is an aspect of Managed IT Services that differs from other business models for space IT solution providers and channel partners. For example, solution providers using the break / fix model typically rate their services based on time and material (T&M) by charging an hourly fee to repair a customer's IT equipment and for replacement parts or equipment. .

Companies that implement IT projects such as the installation and integration of IT systems can charge a fixed price for products and services. In both cases, these solution providers generate unique income with each project. Large projects with multiple phases and associated payments would be an exception. In general, however, the business of a traditional solution provider is primarily transactions. In contrast, an MSP's recurring sources of income may offer a more stable and predictable business base.

Service Level Agreements

An MSP often offers its service offering as part of a service level agreement, a contractual agreement between MSP and its client that sets the performance and quality standards that govern the relationship.

An SLA can be linked to the price formula of an MSP. For example, an MSP customer may offer a variety of SLAs, with the customer paying higher fees for higher levels of service in a multi-tier pricing structure.

Challenges for managed service providers

Regardless of the pricing model, one of the biggest challenges for MSP management is setting prices low enough to entice clients to buy its services, but high enough to maintain a reasonable profit margin.

In addition to prices, the MSP pays special attention to specialists' operation and maintenance costs. The job is usually the largest edition of an MSP. To control labor costs and improve efficiency, most MSPs use Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) software to track customers' IT capabilities. With RMM software, MSPs can remotely troubleshoot problems with servers and terminals. With RMM, MSPs can simultaneously manage the IT systems of many clients. MSPs can also use automated scripts to manage normal system administration functions, such as hard drive troubleshooting without human intervention.

Another challenge for MSPs is the widespread adoption of cloud computing. As more and more components of their customers' IT infrastructure migrate to the cloud, MSPs had to find ways to manage hybrid cloud environments. MSPs also want to provide their own cloud services or resell the capabilities of other cloud providers, with Backup and Disaster Recovery (DR) being a common access point.

It can also be difficult to become an MSP. The MRR perspective has taken many companies from traditional solution providers like VAR to the MSP business model. However, potential MSPs struggled to establish themselves in the market. The MSP division invites companies to adopt several key performance indicators, technology infrastructure components, and sales compensation programs, to name just a few challenges. As a result, many MSPs earn in sectors other than Managed IT Services, p. B. when working on IT projects, during business interruptions / repairs, and during onsite support. Pure gaming MSPs are relatively rare in the IT services industry.

What are MSPs for?

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are typical customers of the PSM. Many small businesses have limited internal IT capabilities, so they may want to consider implementing MSP services to gain IT skills. However, large companies can also sign contracts with MSP. For example, government agencies facing budget pressures and recruitment constraints can hire an MSP to integrate internal IT staff.

Seven Steps in Deploying SD-WAN Architecture

 Network architecture is now seen as the hub of digital transformation. Implementing the SD-WAN architecture can lead to cost savings, performance benefits, and easy administration.

Most companies are experiencing massive changes in the technology and processes they use.

This is because most companies have traditionally used manual and analog processes. Technologies such as cloud and edge computing, mobility, artificial intelligence and devices that are capable of the Internet of Things have disrupted these long-standing processes.

The digital transformation captures the massive changes that companies are experiencing in the digitization and automation of processes. Digital transformation integrates technology to solve traditional business problems with automation, digitized processes, and artificial intelligence. Digital transformation can optimize the way companies work, while creating competitive advantage and business differentiation.

According to Gartner Research, one of the first steps towards this automation is virtualization of IT infrastructure, especially with network virtualization, about the role of network virtualization in digital transformation. For most corporate IT departments, the WAN (Wide Area Network) edge is the easiest place to start virtualizing a network. Software-defined WANs provide relatively quick cost savings and performance benefits. Virtualization eliminates hardware, enables more flexible management, and more.

When your business is ready to use software defined wide area network (SD-WAN) technology, the next logical question is "How?"

No two SD-WAN Deployment Services are designed, created, and managed identically. Several factors change deployment decisions, including the composition of a remote site, end-user requirements, and budget constraints. SD-WAN implementation involves seven steps to help you ask the right questions. These steps are the following:

• Calculate the maximum number of remote locations

• The correct deployment size is based on the number of users and the expected use of WAN

• Analyze applications / services / workloads.

• Determine what WAN connectivity options are available

• Choose an implementation model

• Plan to capture the WAN data stream after deployment

• Continuous improvement based on analysis

Let's take a closer look at each of these steps.

1. Calculate the maximum number of remote locations: The number of SD-WAN deployment options that can be deployed increases relative to the number of remote locations in a company. Smaller SD-WAN use cases generally keep the overall architecture simple by using ready-to-use configurations. For simplicity, these types of implementations generally use a star topology that brings all traffic back to one place. Most companies choose design complexity because they lack the budget, manpower, or need for a more robust design.

Large deployments offer more flexibility when it comes to how complicated they can be. Much of this depends on the importance of remote locations in terms of business continuity. The more critical remote locations become for business performance, the more sophisticated the SD-WAN implementation will be.

2. Align the size of the deployment based on the number of users and the expected use of WAN: The number of end users and the location of your applications and data play an important role in determining the design and size of an SD-WAN. For example, if a remote site has hundreds or thousands of users, but applications and data are managed locally, WAN optimization and intelligence may not be as important as a 10-user site that uses business-critical applications that they are further a WAN From a performance point of view, the number of employees is important. However, be sure to measure the needs per user and the business importance of a WAN.

3. Analyze applications / services / workloads: Then assess the number, type, and importance of all the expected applications, services, and workloads that will go through the WAN. Investigate to identify each application, how this application interacts with resources distributed over the WAN, and what network requirements exist. For real-time streaming protocols such as voice, video, and high-performance database access, these application data streams must be identified, flagged, and prioritized over a WAN.

The secret to the success of a successful SD-WAN deployment comes from this analysis of the application. Only through this analysis can IT departments determine if applications are using SD-WAN resources or if they require faster speeds. Only if you know these application requirements can you configure your SD-WAN correctly. Without going through a thorough review and prioritizing applications by importance and requirements, the intelligence of an SD-WAN implementation lacks the information to make appropriate routing decisions.

4. Determine what WAN connectivity options are available: After calculating the latency and performance requirements based on the information collected in the previous three steps, examine what WAN connection options are available at each location. Don't forget: SD-WAN technologies must have two or more WAN connections for SD-WAN AI to have a choice of routes to use. If all of your offices are in modern urban areas, there may be a large number of private WAN and / or broadband providers. In this situation, the choice of WAN connectivity types comes down to answering the following questions:

• What performance, what latency, and what reliability are required today?

• What options best allow for the expected type of scale and / or reduction?

• What options are best suited to your budget?

However, if your remote locations are in rural areas, you should also consider the limitations of WAN's restricted options. In this situation, no stone should be flipped. Fortunately, the underlying information in SD-WANs can continue to use low bandwidth connections and higher latency while taking full advantage of it. As a result, options that are often initially ignored (for example, LTE and satellite broadband) may be viable connectivity options in some places.

5. Choose an implementation model: All the previous steps in this process deal with the framework in which SD-WAN is running. When this is complete, the fifth step is to examine the SD-WAN deployment options and find out which model best fits. There are three basic implementation models to choose from.

First, in-house IT staff could negotiate prices and enter into WAN connection contracts directly with the provider. Once complete, the company's IT department can select, fully implement and manage an SD-WAN. Alternatively, many IT decision makers have chosen a SD-WAN managed service provider (MSP) to handle all aspects of the WAN, including relationships with WAN line providers, SD-WAN provisioning, and all continuous maintenance.

Finally, it is becoming increasingly popular to provide a hybrid solution that divides tasks between internal IT staff and an MSP. In this scenario, an MSP manages the underlying WAN infrastructure by monitoring the performance of WAN connections and by opening preventive trouble tickets with WAN line providers on behalf of the customer. The entire WAN guidelines creation, management, and security situation is left to internal IT staff, who better understand user needs. As Gartner noted, many IT departments are now responsible for managing service delivery, not managing traditional IT infrastructure.

6. Schedule capture of the WAN data stream after deployment: It is important to note that even after the SD-WAN architecture has been implemented, the technology requires ongoing maintenance to function efficiently. While artificial intelligence eliminates numerous manual processes within an SD-WAN platform, relevant information about changes in user requirements, growth, or business requirements has yet to be provided. This information must be collected and selected so that the intelligence embedded in the SD-WAN architecture can understand the changes and make the necessary adjustments to the data flow policy.

7. Continuous improvement based on analysis: When an IT department implements an SD-WAN architecture, it generally behaves according to the information that was originally provided. It is up to a network administrator to determine when to enter new policy information (based on business requirements) that changes the behavior of an SD-WAN. The collected data should be analyzed and then imported back to the SD-WAN platform at regular intervals.

Changes in connectivity type should also be re-evaluated on a specific timeline. New WAN connection options may be available to enhance the experience of WAN end users. Additionally, the number of users, the types of applications, and the critical importance of applications / data are likely to change over time, increasing or decreasing performance, speed, and fluctuations at each location. It is important that continuous improvement is planned and planned properly to ensure that the intelligence of an SD-WAN is effective.

Deploying an SD-WAN

When implementing an SD-WAN Deployment, don't forget how the technology is used in your particular environment. Although each described step does not have to be carried out in succession, the steps can be divided into pre-planning, architecture and ongoing administration phases.

When planning ahead, consider the connectivity types of individual branches. Also calculate the number of end users and their specific application requirements. The architecture phase includes considering geographic location, user requirements, and the deployment model to optimally achieve your goals.

After all, you need data acquisition and analysis in the continuous management phase to continually optimize your SD-WAN architecture. Then, based on the results of the analysis, review the network guidelines to adapt them to the business requirements. If these steps can be followed in the phases described, you are on the right track for an enterprise SD-WAN that will work for years to come.

The Top 10 Benefits Of Outsourcing IT Through Managed Services

 Outsourcing of IT services through managed IT services can bring immediate benefits.

1. Control IT costs

Outsourcing converts IT fixed costs into variable costs and allows you to have an effective budget. In other words, you only pay for what you use when you need it.

2. Reduce labor costs

Hiring and training IT staff can be very expensive, and temporary workers don't always meet your expectations. Outsourcing allows you to focus your employees where you need them most.

3. Trained, experienced, qualified, certified.

How do you ensure that an employee is qualified if they are not IT trained? Certifications like Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) are important, but they are also experienced.

4. Qualified has no immediate experience

Few problems are new to top IT service companies experiencing multiple related issues. An internal IT employee leads an isolated existence, no matter how much he trains. We would all prefer to be an experienced doctor; The same applies to IT.

5. Increase efficiency and competitiveness.

Businesses that attempt to do all IT services in-house may have much more time to research, develop, and implement, increasing costs and ultimately passing it on to customers.

6. Deploy new technology quickly

A high-quality outsourced IT services organization has the resources to start new projects right away. Working internally on the same project can take weeks or months to hire the right people, train them, and provide the necessary support. For most deployments, high-quality IT companies initially have years of experience to save time and money.

7. Focus on your core business

Organizations have limited resources and each manager has limited time and attention. Outsourcing can help your company focus on its core business and not be distracted by complex IT decisions.

8. Reduce risk

Every business investment carries a certain risk. Markets, competition, government regulations, financial conditions, and technologies are changing very rapidly. Outsourcing providers assume and control a large portion of this risk for you with industry-specific knowledge, in particular security and compliance issues. In general, they can make much better decisions about how to avoid risks in their areas of expertise.

9. Level the playing field

Most small companies cannot afford to use the internal support services of large companies. Outsourcing can help small companies act "big" by giving them access to similar technologies and expertise that large companies have. An independent cost structure and economies of scale managed by third parties can give your business a competitive advantage.

10. Compliance and security

Is your firewall up to date? Do you have a DMZ installed? Check your workstations and servers? Has your company implemented PCI security standards and is working to maintain them? For example, companies have more options than ever to be successful with many payment methods, such as credit and debit cards, gift vouchers, electronic checks, and bank transfers, to name just a few. However, these forms of transaction also require due diligence. By outsourcing a qualified Managed Services company that is familiar with PCI compliance standards, you can be assured that your company will minimize the risks associated with maintaining customer information, credit card numbers, confidential competitive information, and more.

9 Benefits of Managed IT Services

 One of the most important investments your company can make is the security, functionality and effectiveness of its technology. An internal team can support your company. However, outsourcing often brings more long-term benefits. A managed IT service provider who takes the time to understand your business goals and work with you can be incredibly valuable, even beyond the 9 benefits of managed IT services below.

1. High return on investment

For the same cost as a small in-house team, a managed IT service provider (MSP) offers many more resources that will benefit your business. An MSP offers a much larger team of IT professionals, as well as access to the latest technology solutions to strengthen your business. They often protect your business more effectively against cyber threats. MSPs offer far more resources and therefore a higher value than conventional in-house IT equipment at the same price.

2. Efficiency

By outsourcing your IT management, your business can focus on its core offering. The time spent training new IT staff is transferred to the MSP. The MSP also ensures that your business complies with your industry standards and regulations, saving you time and resources again. In addition, outsourcing to an MSP ensures that its technology is properly maintained, reducing downtime and increasing staff uptime.

3. Increased productivity.

You may have employees with IT experience who have been in charge of developing programs or training employees. However, it is easy for them to be distracted by various requests from employees, eg. B. Asking for help with login issues, leading to lost productivity.

Outsourcing to a managed IT services company provides your employees with a special hotline that they can use to solve IT problems. This allows your IT staff to focus on the tasks for which they were hired.

4. Avoid security breaches

Cybercrime is constantly evolving, but you can keep your business as safe as possible by outsourcing your cybersecurity to a specialist who is up to date on the latest safeguards. Your advisor will also help your employees identify and avoid the latest threats, further reducing the risk of a security breach. Although cybersecurity is technically outside of typical MSP offerings, most add cybersecurity offerings to their services.

(Learn the top questions to ask a cybersecurity consultant.)

5. Unlimited experience

Employees of a managed IT service provider likely have experience and knowledge of various industries. Employees also frequently continue their training and receive new certifications while working at an MSP, thereby offering a growing experience. Since your company is outsourced to an MSP, the MSP bears the costs of training and higher education, in contrast to an internal team (where costs would remain internal).

6. Cloud-based services

Fear of a security breach is a major hurdle for most companies considering moving to cloud-based platforms. However, cloud-based access is essential for users who need to access websites and accounts from their mobile devices. Through the cloud, your employees can also work remotely while traveling and access your network. An MSP can not only help you to safely switch to a cloud-based platform, but also manage maintenance in the future.

7. Better management of uptime.

All IT systems need to be updated regularly to increase efficiency and avoid downtime. To maximize uptime during the regular business day, system updates should generally be done in hours. With an in-house team, this can often lead to overtime costs.

By outsourcing information technology, a team of qualified professionals updates remotely when it is least disruptive to their employees. Availability is maintained or even increased without incurring additional overtime costs.

8. Use your company against the competition

By outsourcing your IT, you can focus on other aspects of your business to gain a competitive advantage and increase your value proposition.

Also, cyber security is often a key concern for your company's potential customers. A secure company that you can trust with your sensitive data is certainly more attractive than an unreliable one. Often, MSPs extend their services to cybersecurity and can use the latest cybersecurity technology to defend you and your clients.

9. Reinvest in your company

Budget constraints often limit opportunities that could help expand your business. By outsourcing to an MSP, you can reallocate any excess funds previously spent to an internal IT department to drive your business development.

Are you ready to choose a managed IT company?

Switching to a managed IT service provider can be an extremely cost-effective and efficient solution to problems that occur with typical internal IT teams. With increasing daily knowledge, MSPs provide companies with technology solutions that allow them to focus on achieving their business goals rather than worrying about their IT.

 It is full of jargon. It can be difficult to keep track of all the relevant processes, frameworks, tools and acronyms. With all the obscure IT terms floating around the world, there are three important terms related to IT support that we often see confused, confused, or misused:

• Service desk (or "IT service desk")

• Help Desk (or "IT Help Desk")

• ITSM ("IT Service Management")

Does it matter if you use the term help desk, service desk or ITSM to describe IT support? This is the case, because you may be sub-selling or over-selling capabilities (to yourself or others), including your IT support technology.

What is a Help Desk?

As defined by Merriam-Webster, a help desk is "a group of people who provide general help and information for electronic or computer problems." Given this definition, it may seem at first glance that there is little difference between helpdesk and helpdesk, but the missing keyword here is "customer". While the primary goal of a help desk is simply to solve problems, the primary goal of a help desk is to provide services to its customers or users. There is a certain emphasis on service delivery and customer centralization on missing services in support services.

And although support services are often limited to a single ITSM activity (in particular, incident management or problem solving process), support services cover the widest range of activities mentioned above. In a sense, support services are therefore a subset of services.

If you are still confused about the differences between a help desk and a help desk, don't worry. It is true that the distinction may seem a bit difficult, so we have tried to clarify it by analyzing all the differences between them below.

What is Service Desk?

The ITIL definition of a service center is as follows: “The single point of contact between the service provider and users. A typical service center handles incidents and service requests, and also manages communication with users. "

This definition may seem a bit formal and vague, so here is an easier way to express it: a service center is a communication center where customers (for example, employees or other interested parties) can find help from their suppliers. IT services. As indicated by the ITIL service center definition, this assistance can take the form of incident resolution or service request processing, but whatever the type of assistance provided, the goal of a service is to provide a high-quality service to customers in a timely manner.

Service offices often also include various ITSM activities. For example, a service center generally includes ITSM activities that include service request management, incident management, knowledge management, self-service, and reporting. In general, there are also strong links to the problem and change management processes.

An IT service center helps customers resolve incidents or manage service requests, creates and manages service knowledge, provides self-service to customers who want to resolve incidents quickly and independently, and provides measurements on equipment and tool effectiveness. Service desks may include more or less than that, but the point is that they are a robust, service-oriented, customer-centric way of providing IT support to customers.

What is ITSM?

IT service management, often called ITSM, is simply how IT teams manage end-to-end service delivery to customers. This includes all IT service design, creation, delivery and support processes and activities. The core concept of ITSM is the belief that IT must be delivered as a service.

Due to their daily interactions with IT, people often interpret ITSM as basic IT support. Rather, ITSM teams monitor all kinds of technologies in the workplace, from laptops to servers and critical software applications.

ITSM generally consists of several basic processes, as defined by ITIL, the most widely accepted framework or approach for ITSM. These are some of these processes:

• Service request management

• Administrative knowledge

• IT asset management

• Incident management

• Problem management

• Change management

You will notice that some of these processes, such as IT asset management, problem management, and change management, are outside the scope of basic IT support. This is because the ITSM covers all the activities involved in providing IT to the company. Although the scope of ITSM is broad, help desks and help desks are defined in a much more limited way and represent only smaller parts of ITSM.

Service Desk vs help Desk: What’s the Difference?

• The service desk is an evolution of the help desk, born out of the ITIL framework of ITSM best practices (formerly known as the IT infrastructure library), and based on the underlying concept of "managing IT as that service".

• A help desk is born out of IT-centric computing (mainframe), while a service desk is born out of service-centric computing (the aforementioned approach taken by ITIL to provide IT as a service)

• This may sound insignificant, but many argue that a helpdesk provides help, while a helpdesk provides a service, that is, that with a helpdesk, the goal is to provide service to end users with an appearance of customer service.

• A helpdesk is considered to be troubleshooting (what ITIL calls incident management), while a helpdesk is there to help not only with troubleshooting but also with service requests (requests for new services ) and requests for information (such as "how to do X?"). Although there is no reason why a help desk cannot offer these additional features (aside from IT terminology trends).

• A help desk was an addition to existing IT operations, while the help desk is part of an ecosystem of IT service delivery and IT support based on something called "the service life cycle". This is probably a great reason why the term helpdesk was used in ITIL helpdesk.

• Those familiar with ITIL will state that a help desk is tactical, while a help desk is strategic. Of course, this will vary from one organization to another.

• A help desk may be viewed by some as offering a subset of help desk capabilities, or may be described as limited in scope by statements such as "the evolution of help desk service 'support".

The Importance of Service Desk and Help Desk Tools

 

If your team takes the service desk approach, choosing the right service desk software for your organization is critical, as it is a foundation of ITSM. The service desk serves as the interface between customers and the IT team. Of course, features like knowledge management and reporting are critical in a service desk solution, but you’ll also want a service desk that's easy to use and set up, enables collaboration, and adapts to your needs. That way, your IT team can deliver excellent support - and value to the business - quickly.

And even if your team takes the help desk approach, having a tool that helps you keep track of what issues come up and who is solving them is crucial. With a dedicated help desk tool, your IT team can be more transparent, collaborative, and efficient.

 

6 Reasons To Outsource Your Cybersecurity Operations

 Cybersecurity has become increasingly important to businesses of all sizes, but so has the burden and responsibility to protect access to sensitive data in the wrong hands.

The complexity of cyber crime is due to rapid advances in the technologies we use, from smartphones to laptops to the Internet of Things. Bad actors are now using more sophisticated methods to take advantage of networks. To counter these threats, highly skilled and committed professionals must now respond effectively to incidents before damage occurs.

Businesses can start to improve cybersecurity by improving their IT infrastructure, such as: B. Integrate cloud-based IT services, outsource to a managed DNS provider, and use a professional VPN service. Reading the Surfshark manual gives you a more complete overview of how VPNs can be used as an additional layer of protection. While building and maintaining an IT infrastructure can be accomplished with in-house IT staff, managing all network security at the same time can be daunting and even risky.

What are the benefits of outsourcing to a managed cybersecurity provider? 

1. Dedicated security specialists at hand

Having a dedicated security team is a great advantage for any business, but it is especially beneficial for small businesses that would otherwise abandon themselves if their IT staff lacked security knowledge.

Cybersecurity specialists can help monitor cybercriminal tactics and behavior, identify network vulnerabilities, and most importantly, quickly identify and respond to incidents. Rapid problem resolution can prevent an attack from escalating, reducing the impact on a company's trust and reputation with customers.

2. Less expensive

Cybersecurity experts are in high demand and therefore demand higher wages. Therefore, it is not possible for many medium-sized companies, much less for smaller companies, to use an internal security team

Even existing IT teams can be overwhelmed by cyber security challenges and take the time to easily manage IT networks and create new solutions for the business. Cybersecurity is therefore a full-time function in itself.

Reaction to threats, adequate staff training, and the cost of investigating and patching issues can increase corporate spending over time.

Fortunately, managed cybersecurity companies can provide small and midsize businesses with an experienced team of online security experts, an affordable, tiered solution.

3. Stay updated as technology evolves

This may be one of the best reasons for companies to outsource cybersecurity operations, as technology advances, so too are the skills and knowledge necessary to deal with cyber threats that are new devices for networks. YOU.

Computers, laptops, and smartphones are not only connected to corporate networks, but home or office devices, the Internet of Things (IoT), create more endpoints that need to be examined for vulnerabilities and continuous monitoring . However, with such sophisticated network facilities, it is difficult for human analysts to keep up with such developments. Many cyber security companies are now turning to artificial intelligence and machine learning to scan vulnerabilities and identify threats that are faster and more efficient than manual inspections.

By outsourcing to cybersecurity specialists, you benefit from their ability to continually evolve with technologies that can identify malicious activities and detect vulnerabilities.

4. Make sure your company meets the requirements

Regardless of whether it is the GDPR in Europe or different government regulations in the United States, companies must ensure that they comply with the regulations or that they can be fined in the event of a serious data breach. Therefore, businesses of all sizes must recognize the importance of protecting their data.

No company is considered a low risk target for cyber attacks. Hackers are equally interested in infiltrating systems with malware or ransomware, as small business owners may think they are immune. The consequences of a data breach can range from loss of trust between clients or customers, damage to reputation and legal measures.

Outsourcing a dedicated team can build more confidence in today's IT infrastructure and protect personally identifiable information about customers from prying eyes.

5. 24/7 support

You get a higher level of service with a team that can respond to threats around the clock. In the case of a cyber attack, the longer an incident goes unnoticed and the longer the recovery time, the more damage IT systems can suffer. A dedicated team can ensure less downtime occurs during an incident, reducing the impact on other business operations.

6. Helps train internal IT staff

If you have an in-house IT team but intend to outsource much of the heavier security work to an outside company, it can be a great benefit to your employees when they acquire new knowledge and skills.

Dedicated security specialists can help identify vulnerabilities in networks, operating systems, and web applications that many IT staff members may be unaware of. By working with external managed service providers, you can reduce the risk of human error data breaches by discovering blind spots on your own computer.

When it comes to cyber security, being alone can be a costly mistake for most companies. The level of knowledge and skills required to identify and respond to threats can go far beyond what many companies have in their internal IT team. Outsourcing a dedicated security provider will greatly reduce the burden of protecting corporate data and ensure you have a strong team of professionals who are ready to protect themselves from bad actors.