Understanding, Hiring, and Using Managed Services Providers (MSPs) for Information Technology Outsourcing

This is the practical advice about IT outsourcing you would normally get from a friend over lunch. It does not require the reader possess an MBA or a doctorate in computer science to understand, and it isn't trying to sell any vendor's services. It is not a checklist or a to-do list, but rather a brief exploration of the Managed Services Provider (MSP) as a technology support vendor, pros and cons, warts and daisies. This book is for anyone who wants to understand what an MSP is and does, whether and how to hire one, and how get the most value for your money if you do. An MSP is a technology company which sells its expertise, technology, and processes as services to non-technology companies on a contractual engagement, almost always with a service level agreement (SLA) to define appropriate actions and response times. MSPs like to say that they are your IT department. If you already have an IT department, the MSP can act in concert with your staff to fill advisory or operational gaps that might exist in your organization. MSPs can also be your gateway to the cloud. Cloud-based services have been maturing over the past 10 years. Initially, the cloud was a great place to backup data. Then, the cloud became a great place from which to run and store your corporate e-mail. Now, a multitude of cloud-based solutions are blossoming everywhere, with designations such as SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, and others. To understand these service offerings and get to the cloud, businesses will need to partner with one or multiple technology companies. Requirements analyses, network assessments, project management, vendor selection and management, and industry knowledge are all key to finding the perfect solution. Providing they have a local presence to deal with your physical infrastructure, the right solution for your business is probably an MSP. If your company is not interested in moving services to the cloud, the MSP can support your network and computer infrastructu

My career in information systems began in 1992, when MS-DOS was the operating system on most business PCs. Programs like Word, VisiCalc, and Lotus 1-2-3 launched from menus; few people used Microsoft Windows. E-Mail and the Internet were fairly new to the business world, and not everyone had access to them. Novell Netware was the consumer network operating system of choice, and Microsoft was still years away from releasing Active Directory. Through the ensuing years, I have been a Systems Analyst, Network Administrator, acting Director of Information Systems, Vice President of Information Systems, and a consultant and senior engineer at a Washington, DC based MSP. I went from using MSPs as a Director and Vice President, to working for one as a consultant. Now I’m here to tell you how to avoid the mistakes I made when hiring IT vendors, and what they need from you in order to do the best job they can.