What are Managed Services?

Agent—a small program used by MSPs to remotely gather information about the status of machines and devices. Once installed, it allows MSPs to manage systems, update programs, and resolve issues.

Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR)—a combination of data backup and disaster-recovery solutions that works cohesively to ensure an organization’s critical business functions will continue to operate despite serious incidents or disasters that might otherwise have interrupted them, or will be recovered to an operational state within a reasonably short period.

Break/Fix—an older style for delivering IT services and repairs to organizations in a fee-for-service framework. Essentially, a client contacts a break/fix technician to request upgrades, maintenance, or to resolve issues, and the technician bills the customer upon completion of the work.

Fully Managed IT Services—Managed IT services that are coupled with a Network Operations Center to proactively monitor systems, resolve issues and perform work with a level of expertise and efficiency unparalleled to other solutions.

Help Desk—a managed IT service offering that provides information and technical support to end users. Some MSPs white label their Help Desk services for the client SMB.

Information Technology (IT)—an enterprise solution for storing, transmitting, creating, and using data through computing devices, networks and telecommunications.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)—an MSP offering to SMBs; virtualized hardware over a cloud computing environment such as server space, network connections, IP addresses, load balancers, and other computer infrastructure with which clients can build their own platforms.

Internet of Things—the emergent network of tangible objects and products that contain software, sensors, and connectivity to the Internet and/or private networks and can exchange information based on standards set forth by the International Telecommunication Union’s Global Standards Initiative.

In House—the process where an organization hires its own IT service providers and pays their salary, benefits, and further training, as well as the infrastructure they oversee. This is typically an extremely costly endeavor, and often businesses that try to procure in-house IT lack the capabilities to fully service their system as well as an inability to grow.

IT Channel—an industry-exclusive marketplace where VARs, MSPs, and OEMs provide platforms, products and services to end users by partnering with hardware and software vendors.

Labor Arbitrage—the phenomenon of decreasing end costs by utilizing the abundant labor forces, education, and training of untapped global workforces.

Managed IT Services—IT tasks and processes that are fulfilled by a third-party organization.

Managed Services Provider (MSP)—An IT professional (or IT organization) that offers managed IT services.

Mobile Device Management (MDM)—a security platform used to monitor, manage, and secure employees’ mobile devices (laptops, smartphones, tablets, etc.) that are deployed across multiple mobile service providers and across multiple mobile operating systems being used in an organization.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)—a virtualized platform within a cloud environment that allows end users to develop and manage Internet applications that would otherwise require a complex infrastructure to launch apps.

Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)—a platform utilizing a collection of services and tools that can monitor, manage and deploy solutions to servers and endpoint devices utilizing agent software installed on endpoint systems.

Service-level agreement (SLA)—Essentially, a contract between a vendor and a client that specifies what the vendor will furnish, the timeframe in which it will be furnished, and the criteria for measuring vendor success.

Small and Medium-Sized Business (SMB)—On average, a business or organization that has 100 or fewer employees is considered small; 100-999 employees is medium sized. IT channel partners often seeks SMB organizations as clients.

Software as a Service (SaaS)—sometimes referred to as “software on demand,” SaaS is a licensing and distribution model that utilizes a subscription basis for access to software that is centrally hosted by its provider and accessed by end users via a client.

Value-Added Reseller (VAR)—an organization that adds services or features to a product, then resells it as a new product or solution.