What is Fully Managed Service and Why is it Important?

Written by Layer One Networks Published May 26, 2022May 26, 2022

A fully managed IT service can be a great option for companies that don’t have the time or resources to manage their servers or are looking for experts to manage and maintain the infrastructure without any hiccups.

A fully managed service can provide everything from proactive IT operations and streamlined ticketing for all IT issues to remote monitoring and management software for key IT infrastructure. It frees up your time from managing the IT-related tasks so that you can focus on your core business.

In this blog, let’s look at how managed IT services can help you and everything that’s included in it.

How Can a Managed IT Service Provider Help?

Streamlined, Efficient Support

We can help you with everything from setting up your new computer, to upgrading your software and hardware, to fixing issues (if they do occur) daily. We’ll take care of all the technical support tasks, so you don’t have to.

One person will be assigned as your primary contact for all IT needs — from troubleshooting an issue in the office or fixing your home network connection at night when you get home from work. This means no more getting passed around between different teams and departments!

Proactive Reporting and Analysis

Fully Managed Service also includes proactive reporting and analysis. This is regularly monitoring your business to ensure that everything is running smoothly and efficiently and identifying any problems before they become more severe. In addition to checking key metrics, our team will conduct in-depth reviews of your business to make sure everything’s on track—or if there are any changes, we can optimize performance.

Vendor Coordination and Management

Vendor coordination is one of the critical foundations of IT managed services. This function ensures that your vendor partners work together to deliver consistent service quality across different areas, such as network operations, customer support, and billing. Your IT consulting firm offering managed IT services will operate as a central point of contact for all issues related to service delivery, including:

Vendor selection: Work with an expert in managing vendors to find the right partner for each component of your cloud infrastructure or application stack. This may include setting up contracts with third-party vendors like power companies or Internet service providers (ISPs).
Vendor evaluation: Get help from experts who can review your current vendors’ offerings against industry benchmarks and standards. They’ll identify opportunities where you might get better value by switching suppliers or renegotiating contracts on price or other terms of service.

High Availability

As a managed service provider, our goal is to deliver high availability, high security, and high performance.

High availability refers to the ability of a system to be available for use during a specific time period. In other words, it’s the amount of time your service will remain accessible before you have to start worrying about it being down.

We don’t want anything less than 100% uptime for all of our clients so we work hard every day towards making sure that their websites are live and serving customers around the clock without any interruptions whatsoever.

What is Included in a Fully Managed IT Service?

There are several functions included in fully managed IT services, but here are a top few:

Network security & risk mitigation: This service ensures that your network is safe from any kind of attack or intrusion. It also helps you to manage risks by identifying potential vulnerabilities in your network.

Endpoint detection & response (EDR): EDR helps you to detect malware on all of your devices so that you can remove it before it causes any damage or infection to your system.

Desktop virtualization: Desktop virtualization allows you to access your desktop remotely so that you can work from anywhere and everywhere. This also helps to improve productivity by reducing travel time and costs associated with having multiple locations for businesses.

Data backup & recovery: Data backup & recovery ensures that all of your important data is safe, even if something happens to the device on which it was stored or if someone accidentally deleted it accidentally or maliciously deletes it intentionally!

What are the Different Types of Fully Managed IT Services?

Managed Cloud Services: Some businesses prefer to outsource their IT support while others choose to manage it independently. With managed cloud services, your company gets full-service IT support with the flexibility of using a public cloud to have security and cost-effectiveness. You can consult with the provider to find the best plans.
Managed Hosting: A managed hosting solution combines web hosting, server management, and disaster recovery into one package. It provides all the necessary hardware and software to run your website or application in an environment where someone else monitors its performance, maintains backups, and patches any vulnerabilities as needed — all at a low cost per month compared to other options like hiring in-house personnel or purchasing expensive dedicated servers yourself.
Managed Security: We conduct regular security checks on your system and protect against malware, virus, and other online threats. Each device always has up-to-date protection against viruses, worms, and spyware—no matter where those threats originate.

Hire a Trusted Fully Managed IT Service Provider

As your needs grow, you will look for a reliable and trusted provider. You want to know your provider is dependable. You want a provider with the experience needed to take your business to the next level. An ideal IT service provider can help you through challenges and make sure everything runs smoothly in the background.

This is where our IT consultant service shines. We provide managed IT services for our clients in Corpus Christi, helping them maintain their IT infrastructure so that it doesn’t get in the way of their everyday operations.

Want to know more about how we can help you? Reach out to us now to discuss your need for IT services.

IT Consulting, Managed IT Services

Technical Support vs Managed Services: Which One is Best for Your Business?

Written by Layer One Networks Published April 30, 2022April 30, 2022

You may not give it much thought, but the IT providers you choose to support your business can significantly affect your bottom line. You’re losing money if you’re experiencing downtime due to poor support. Even worse, if you’re being overcharged for services you don’t need, that’s money that could be put to better use elsewhere in your business.

So how do you know which type of IT services provider is right for your business? Let’s examine the differences between technical support and IT-managed services.

What is Technical Support?

Technical support is a service that provides help with technology-related problems or questions. This may include troubleshooting issues, providing information, or fixing hardware issues like replacing broken parts on computers or other devices.

Technical support is a reactive model and can fix problems after they’ve already caused damage to your company. Technical support is like the traditional firefighter role for computers. When something goes wrong with your system, you call tech support and they run in to put out the flames.

It is offered to help businesses on a case-by-case basis. For example, if a computer or device malfunctions or stops working, technical support will be provided to help fix the problem. If a virus infects an entire system or individual machine, technical IT support will be offered so that the infected computer can be cleaned up and restored to its original state.

What is Managed Support?

Managed services refer to a service delivery model in which the service provider takes on full responsibility for monitoring and maintaining the customer’s infrastructure. This includes applying patches, updating software, installing new versions, and more. In most cases, this also provides access to a help desk that handles simple requests and escalates issues to more complex levels as required.

Managed services is a method of outsourcing day-to-day IT management as a strategic method for improving operations and cutting expenses. Through an IT consulting service, businesses can access resources they wouldn’t normally have access to due to budgetary or skill limitations. The company’s employees will be able to focus their attention on running the business while their provider takes care of the IT needs.

Technical Support vs Managed Services: Which One to Choose?

Technical support and managed services are two of the most common types of IT support, but they’re very different. Choosing one over the other can have a major impact on your company’s future success.

Technical support is a reactive service that responds to issues as they arise. IT managed services, on the other hand, are proactive. It anticipates possible problems and takes measures to prevent them from arising.

But which is the best for your business? Let’s find out.

When Do You Need Technical Support?

Technical support is a more generic way of describing IT services. The term can be applied to almost any aspect of IT services – from software installation and application maintenance to general troubleshooting and ongoing system management (including installing patches, updates, etc.). It can also involve other elements such as providing strategic guidance for decision-making or helping train employees on how to use new tools.

When you need regular support: Your business needs regular technical support to keep your IT infrastructure running smoothly.
When you require a highly experienced team to solve issues quickly: There are times when you encounter a particularly hard IT issue for which you need experts to handle. This is when a technical IT support team can step in and solve it for you with minimal downtime.
When you handle tech that requires specific expertise, several technologies are pretty narrow and something that many IT technicians may not be exposed to. In such times, having access to a tech support team that’s expert in your tech is useful.

When Do You Need Managed Services?

On the other hand, managed services are usually provided by a third-party company that specializes in IT solutions for businesses. If a business has a problem, they simply call on the managed services provider (MSP) to fix it rather than trying to troubleshoot it themselves or calling a technical IT support specialist.

Since IT managed services are an ongoing partnership with your IT consulting firm, they can help you in numerous ways. Let’s look at some situations when you need managed services:

If your systems aren’t properly maintained: Your IT infrastructure and systems require regular maintenance to ensure they’re running efficiently and securely. If they aren’t properly maintained, they can become slow, prone to crashing, or vulnerable to hacks and malware. A managed service provider will maintain all your systems so that you don’t have to worry about them crashing or getting hacked.
When you have outdated technology: If you are still using legacy hardware and software, you may need to consider IT managed services. With the rapid pace of technological change, you need help keeping up so that your business can stay relevant and competitive.
When you have plans for future growth: The right IT partner will help you plan for future growth. They will ensure that your current systems can handle the additional pressure of an expanding team or client base.
When you want to save on costs: While managed services do come with a monthly fee, businesses often save money in the long run because their technology is performing optimally at all times. By regularly maintaining your systems and infrastructure, small issues are fixed before they escalate into bigger problems that cost more to fix.

When Do You Need Managed Services?

Since IT managed services are an ongoing partnership with your IT consulting firm, they can help you in numerous ways. Let’s look at some situations when you need managed services:

If your systems aren’t properly maintained: Your IT infrastructure and systems require regular maintenance to ensure they’re running efficiently and securely. If they aren’t properly maintained, they can become slow, prone to crashing, or vulnerable to hacks and malware. A managed service provider will maintain all your systems so that you don’t have to worry about them crashing or getting hacked.
When you have outdated technology: If you are still using legacy hardware and software, you may need to consider IT managed services. With the rapid pace of technological change, you need help keeping up so that your business can stay relevant and competitive.
When you have plans for future growth: The right IT partner will help you plan for future growth. They will ensure that your current systems can handle the additional pressure of an expanding team or client base.
When you want to save on costs: While managed services do come with a monthly fee, businesses often save money in the long run because their technology is performing optimally at all times. By regularly maintaining your systems and infrastructure, small issues are fixed before they escalate into bigger problems that cost more to fix.

Want to hire an expert team to provide technical support or ongoing managed services? Reach out to our firm offering managed IT services in Corpus Christi to discuss your IT-related needs.

Managed IT Services

Reason to Use of Managed IT Services & Boost Business in 2021

Written by Layer One Networks Published May 8, 2021May 12, 2023

2020 threw us a curveball and many of us were left scrambling to sustain our business in the new face of uncertainty.

2021 brought in a lot of hope and opportunities with learnings from 2020. We’re presently at this crucial point in the industry where adapting to new technology and finding better ways to manage our IT systems can make a whole lot of difference.

This is when we need to make a decision — the best way for managed IT services to position for business growth.

In this blog, we’ll look at various reasons and ways to hire managed IT services to survive in the new normal in 2021 and accelerate your business development.

4 Reasons Says You Need Managed IT Services

The need for managed IT services is steadily increasing. In 2019, the global market size of managed IT services was $185 billion, while in 2020, it hit $207 billion. In five years, it’s expected to grow to over $356 billion.

This increase in the market size of managed IT services shows the demand it has.

There are so many reasons why companies look for managed IT services from external firms. As a top IT consulting firm, LayerOne Networks has worked with several businesses providing custom IT services to manage their business and remove bottlenecks.

So, are there any specific reasons or situations when you need an IT service provider’s help? Yes, there is.

Reason 1: When You’re Risking Overrunning Your IT Costs

It’s a good thing when your business grows. But your IT system should also be capable of growing and accommodating that development.

When you don’t have a large budget for IT system management or when you’re registering unprecedented growth and you’re quickly overrunning your IT budget, then it’s a sign that you’re headed for some serious damages.

There are only two ways to go from here. One is to update your IT system quickly and invest loads of money in resources, technology, and workforce to compensate for the new needs. Or, you can hire an IT consulting firm that already can supply you with the workforce and technology to handle your current and future needs.

The latter can be achieved with less budget and less accountability, while the former needs a heavy budget and lots of time to create such a system.

This is when many companies go for managed IT service providers to make the work simpler and better with the best resources.

Reason 2: When You Want Your IT Infrastructure to Be in Its Best Shape

Installing a hi-tech IT system is only the start of the job. You need to constantly update it, maintain it and modify it to adapt to the changing business needs.

And when your system is becoming outdated or not maintained adequately, it can run into several technical issues, all of which would deter your business operations.

Hiring an IT service provider to manage your IT infrastructure will make sure that your systems are always healthy and ready to manage your rising volume of IT operations. You wouldn’t ever have to worry about the capacity of your IT system when you’re planning a new business move. The IT consulting firm will take care of the expansions on the IT side while taking care of the rest.

Reason 3: When You Want to Stay Ahead of Your Competitors

There’s barely any industry right now that’s not influenced by technology. From agriculture to teaching, technologies have taken over the progress and innovation.

So one of the best ways for companies to be at the top of their market is to be technologically advanced. And this is only possible with intelligent IT systems that can propel your business forward and implement new initiatives to stay ahead.

Having a reliable and experienced firm offering managed IT services would mean that you’ll always be kept informed of the new tech trends in your industry and how you can implement them fast before your competitors do.

Reason 4: When You Want to Minimize the Hassles of IT Management

As we discussed earlier, when your business grows, you need to keep hiring a bigger team to manage your IT needs. This would mean constant changes to the IT department in terms of employees, tools and technology. All of this takes a lot of money and, most importantly, your time.

If you want to focus on your core business objectives, you can do away with all of this work and just outsource to a local firm that can manage your IT needs as and when that happens. So, all you need to do is communicate your plans and your idea and the team can help you come up with the right technologies needed.

How to Choose the Right Provider for Managed IT Services in 2021?

Since the landscape of IT services are changing, you need a team that is:

Experienced enough to handle any complications.
Updated enough to keep you abreast of the industry tech changes.
Certified enough to provide you with IT services that are tangential to the current needs.
Resourceful enough to help you create backups and store your data securely .
Flexible enough to change with your business dynamics.
Skilled enough to manage any complications in the IT system and resolve them swiftly.
Reliable enough to take charge and pitch in during emergencies.

Conclusion

Getting the help of IT managed services for your business is the best way to handle your IT needs, prepare your business for future growth and position yourself at the top of the industry. Make sure to be aware of when you require the support of managed IT services and hire them before the critical point arises.

LayerOne Networks offers managed IT services in Corpus Christi. Reach out to us if you want to grow your IT system to support your business ideas.