Now that we've covered what a Managed Service Provider is, let's take a deeper look into how an MSP protects your company.
Let's start with some of the simple things first, like how your hardware and software is protected.
Updates and Patches
Okay, this one is boring but absolutely critical. If you ignore all those little boxes in the corner that ask you to update software, you are in big trouble. The reason they pop up isn't to annoy you (shocker, I know) but because there was a vulnerability identified and the software team made changes to address that issue. Sometimes the updates are frequent, and sometimes they don't come around for a while. Regardless, you HAVE TO update your software as often as possible. You leave yourself open to attackers if you don't.
How an MSP protects you: By partnering with an MSP, you'll always stay up-to-date. Because of the proactive monitoring, your technology will be updated when needed, usually during off hours to prevent loss of productivity. If there are any issues, you have a full support team to help. You won't ever have to stress about that update again. Additionally if there is a know issue with an update, the MSP can delay deployment until the software provider resolves the issue.
New Equipment
You may think that 8-year-old computer is perfectly fine to use, but old equipment can clog networks like hair clogs a drain. We all know that technology advances like the speed of light (hello new iPhone every 6 months) so think about that the next time you look at that 8-year-old piece of machinery.
And as much as we may love our workstation that we've become comfortable with over the years, it's probably struggling under the weight of running newer and newer programs with its old hardware and operating system. It's just the nature of the beast. So, identifying those pieces of equipment that don't make sense anymore really helps streamline your efficiency.
How an MSP protects you: When you partner with an MSP, you'll get a very thorough audit of your current equipment, it hardware managed services, and network. Pieces that are causing challenges will be identified, along with solutions to make sure those challenges disappear forever. And, by partnering with an MSP like AJTC, you get equipment refreshes every three - five years. With system monitoring your MSP can alert you of the need to upgrade equipment, often with greater lead time than the waiting for it to fail method. Slow 8-year-old computers, with performance issues and a high component failure rate, become a thing of the past.
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