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  • 1.  Managed Service Providers (MSP)- What are the must haves?

    Posted 10-19-2023 08:24 AM

    We are considering moving to a managed service provider (MSP) for our network-based services. Our managed services (wired, wireless, DHCP, DNS, RADIUS, & firewall) have been on-premise. We are evaluating new cloud-based wired and wireless infrastructure options from Aruba, Meraki/CISCO, and Ruckus from three vendors.

    Our support for these services has been handled by internal staff in conjunction with various vendors on an as-needed basis. Support time and projects have been handled on a time and materials basis or contracted project scope.

    Our current vendors have come on-site when needed or when performing work requiring them to do so. We ARE NOT looking to outsource all of our IT services to the MSP and have someone on-site during school hours.

    We don't know what we don't know to ask moving forward. As we consider the options from each MSP vendor, what are the things you consider as MUST-HAVES or non-negotiables within the contract and service level agreement?

    Some of the things swirling around in my head are... What is a standard response time? Is there active monitoring of systems? What and when would someone come on-site? 

     


    #ITSystemsandSupport

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    William Stites
    Montclair Kimberley Academy
    Montclair NJ
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  • 2.  RE: Managed Service Providers (MSP)- What are the must haves?

    Posted 10-20-2023 02:37 PM

    Hi Bill,

    We moved to an MSP two years ago to help us with network monitoring (first and foremost), server updates, etc.  We ended up adding backup management to their responsibilities.  We've learned a lot over the last two years and I developed a matrix that we use to identify who does what.  The vendor actually adopted it to use with other clients!  It is essential to share with your vendors the expertise you will retain in-house and what you will rely upon the vendor to do.  That's been the murkiest part of this.  It's tricky to have a mixed environment as most MSPs are all-in (at least in my research.)  Happy to get together on a call and share my matrix with you and what we've learned.  

    Here's what is covered in our contract:

    • Managed network device monitoring and maintenance
    • Managed AP monitoring and maintenance
    • Managed server maintenance and monitoring including end point protection and resolution
    • Managed SAN - maintenance monitoring and issue resolution
    • Backup system and management
    • Vulnerability assessment & budgetary planning (added in the 2nd year; 2x year)
    • Backup Recovery testing with trial restores (2x year) - in addition to regular monitoring; we added this because our backup system works and had been monitored and we tested failing over to the backups which worked perfectly in an emergency we had.  We ran into trouble with failing back to production...took some time to figure out and I want to make sure that never happens again.  It's a happy ending story - our backup system SAVED us, we had NO downtime, and we ran on our Datto backup appliance until our server issue was resolved.

    Let me know if you'd like to discuss further.

    Susan



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    Susan Fuhs, Director of IT Services
    Norfolk Academy
    Norfolk VA
    swfuhs@norfolkacademy.org
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    Original Message


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