Tag Archives: HelpDesk

How Is Your Relationship With Your Managed Service Provider (MSP)

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Business woman at her desk, on speaker phone with her managed service provider

Having a trusted relationship with your MSP is key in having a solid relationship with your MSP Provider

Challenges in relationships can happen to any couple, and sometimes they can happen when you least expect it. Challenges in relationships can also happen between businesses. It can certainly be frustrating when a provider makes promises to solve your problems, but you eventually discover that the provider is not able to fulfill those promises.

As the owner or manager of a business, you will seek the services of a Managed Services Provider(MSP). You may not have enough time to tend the technology that is used to help you operate your business. IT has become the foundation of businesses all across the globe. If you do not have IT, then your business does not have a reliable foundation. Your business is basically operating on shaky ground.

A business that experiences consecutive periods of downtime will discover that the business will lose revenue as the days go by. Like the revenue you will lose when your business is down, you can drain your business’s resources each time you are waiting for your equipment and other technology resources to meet the expectations you have set.

You need a Managed Services Provider(MSP) that works hard to work with you, but if you are partnering with an MSP that is not helping you elevate your business, it will leave you wondering if it is worth it to continue with the relationship. Here are some questions you should ask yourself to help you determine if your MSP is providing any benefits in the relationship.

Can You Trust Your MSP?

If you do not have reliable IT services, you will find yourself on the outside looking in it comes to your competition. If your business uses programs and hardware on a daily basis, it is important that your programs and hardware are functioning at all times. Regardless of the type of system you are operating under, you will need to have reliable IT services.

If you begin to discover that recommendations are being made that do not fit your business system or if your services and other functions are being cut, you will discover that your situation will become worse. If your MSP is making decisions that you do not trust, this is not a good sign in your relationship.

Does Your MSP Communicate With You?

When you first partnered with your MSP, you believed that the MSP would be effective communicators. However, if your MSP is making mistakes and not acknowledging those mistakes, this could be another sign that there is trouble in the relationship. If you have problems that your MSP is not resolving because it is difficult to reach them at any point in the day, your MSP is not an effective or reliable communicator.

If you find yourself demanding that the provider come to your location and repair the services, it may be time to leave this relationship and enter a new one.

Is Your MSP Reliable?

If you are facing one or more technical difficulties, how long can you wait for your system to be repaired? If your MSP is not reliable, you will find out really quickly. A Managed Service Provider(MSP) can be seen as reliable if it offers quick delivery of services and if it provides you with high-quality system performance.

An MSP can also be seen as reliable if it is available around the clock. An MSP that offers around the clock services will ensure that your business sees as little downtime as possible. A reliable MSP also is responsive and effective when it comes to communication. If your MSP is not excelling in any of these areas, your relationship and your business can go downhill in a hurry.

We understand how challenging it can be to choose a Managed Service Provider that can fulfill your needs. There are so many things that you will need to consider, and this can make it a very frustrating process. It does not matter what route you device to take when you are searching for an MSP, but we encourage you to be aware of what you should look for in an MSP.

Is it time to leave your relationship with your current MSP? Contact us today for more information on how to reevaluate your relationship with your MSP.

10 Instances When Should You Call Your Managed IT Team?

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Mature business man at an office desk looking at a laptop while calling his managed IT team for help

Your managed service provider is here to handle all of these issues plus many more, let us handle it and you can get back to what you do best!

Working with a Managed IT service comes with a surprising number of perks. It’s like having an on-staff IT team, only instead of you taking care of them, they take care of you. A managed IT team makes it their business to keep an eye on your system and make sure your business tech performs exactly the way you want it to. They’ll help you build the perfect tech stack, select and setup the right hardware, and make sure all your software services work together. But they’re also there for the tough times when your team needs tech support.

So today, we’re featuring ten times when you should absolutely call your Managed IT team for assistance, guidance, or to make your other services shape up and act right.

When Your Computers Malfunction

If your computers stop functioning properly, in any way, then you can call your managed IT team for help. Sometimes, it’s as easy as turning the device or app off and back on again, but often technical problems are beyond the skills of your service teams. After all, there’s a big difference between being able to use software that’s working correctly and fix something that is not working the way it ought.

When Your Internet Stops working

One of the most common calls we get is when the internet for your office building goes out. Internet service providers are not always reliable, and worse, they don’t often put a rush on getting your service back online even when your entire business depends on availability to your customers and partners. A managed IT team will get on the phone and get to the bottom of your ISP outage.

When Your Software Won’t Work Together

Every modern business has a tech stack that is supposed to work synergistically. Each piece of software supplies data or infrastructure for the next. And when they stop working together, everything can come to a crashing halt. When your system stops working together, it’s time to call your managed IT team who will get your software all neatly stacked once more.

When It’s Time to Upgrade Your Software

Upgrades are a delicate part of any business’ lifecycle. When one piece of software in your tech stack is about to change its code, you need the rest of the stack to stay put and to ensure that the changes won’t wreck your current system. Your managed IT team can handle that for you.

When You Want to Rebuild Your Tech Stack

Likewise, you need to add new software to the stack or replace an older piece of the stack with the latest best variation, call your managed IT team to make sure everything integrates just the way you need it to.

When You Need Your Current Software to Do Something New

Interestingly, your managed IT team can also help when you’re not changing a thing, except how you use the software you have. When your business evolves, expands, or adopts a new practice, it can be necessary to find new ways to use your current technology. You can trust your team’s expertise to know how to put the features of your business software to new and creative use.

When You’re Worried That a Hacker Might Have Infiltrated

If everything is going well except that you’ve seen signs that perhaps a hacker or malware has infiltrated the system, your managed IT team is where you turn to for advice. They can help check for defense breaches and get rid of any lingering scripts or malicious software that may have taken root. As well as knowing what to do when there’s risk of a data breach.

When You Have New Regulations to Meet

Speaking of data breaches, the latest wave of data security regulations is ever-more strict and your managed IT team can help you get compliant. When there are new regulations released or your business starts doing something that requires new regulations, we can help make sure your standard operating procedure is within the new parameters.

When You’ve Lost Data to a Common Data Disaster

When fire, flood, or human error causes your business to lose a chunk of important data or access to data-handling devices, your managed IT team can help you restore everything from backups and sometimes even recover the latest data from a damaged source.

When You Need to Set Up a New Location

Finally, if your business is moving or expanding into a new location, your managed IT team can help you get everything set up in the new place exactly the way you need it, from the hardware and workstations to integration with your cloud services.

Contact us today to find out more about what managed IT can do for your business and how to get the most from your managed IT services!

When Should Your Employees Contact the IT Help Desk ASAP?

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Employee contacting the IT help desk for a computer emergency

Engaging your help desk immediately can save you time and loss of data

An intuitive modern employee who’s contacted the help desk a few times knows that most technicians are happy to help, but generally there are a few troubleshooting steps they’d prefer team members go through before clocking a ticket. When the solution is as simple as rebooting, there’s hardly a need to call IT.

However, sometimes there are situations that team members might not realize are reasons to contact IT without any delay. No troubleshooting, no delay, no need to wait. Sometimes, it’s important to get the attention of your technical staff ASAP before a problem has a chance to get any worse. Today, we’re here to highlight the most important of those situations that apply to every business in every industry.

Here’s when you should contact the IT help desk without a moment of delay:

When There are Signs or Suspicion of a Hacker Attack

Hackers are an epidemic in the modern business world, and they come from every possible angle. Like insects out of the woodwork in a horror movie, there’s nowhere a hacker won’t try to invade your company data and the faster you smash them, the better. If an employee sees warning signs that a hacker or malware might be at work, they need to contact the IT help desk right away.

This way, your most expert technical support team can scramble and engage the highest possible data defenses. Network monitoring tools can be used to seek and destroy a lurking hacker in the network or their hidden malware. Virus scanning can be turned up to eleven to detect and eradicate anything suspicious. They may even be able to catch and report the hacker red-handed.

So it’s vital that any signs or suspicion of hacking is reported immediately, before the hacker has a chance to grab their stolen data and run.

When Something’s Sparking or Overheating

Hardware problems are often far more urgent than misbehaving software. When a computer dies, keeps crashing, or starts making a suspicious clicking sound, that’s when IT needs to be called. But some hardware problems can wait until after lunch and some should absolutely not wait.

The most urgent hardware problems involve heat and electricity, which are of course linked inside any computer or device. If you see exposed sparking or wire exposed outside of a computer case, it’s time to call your IT help desk immediately. If a computer or device is so hot that it’s uncomfortable to touch or be near, call IT. And if you smell anything remotely like smoke, smoldering, or that special hot-copper smell you might recognize from certain cooking pans, call IT without a moment to spare.

Any time there is sparking, overheating, or smoldering, then IT needs to know ASAP. If possible, very carefully pull the plug or ask maintenance to pull the plug with one of their rubber cleaning gloves.

When Vital Files are Obviously Missing or Corrupted

Sometimes, it doesn’t take a hacker or a smoking computer to cause an immediate-solution catastrophe. Sometimes, all it takes is a human error or a failed automated software update to put your entire company’s file system at risk. Employees working up in the company software have the best chance to spot when vital company files are missing or somehow corrupted and therefore are in the best position to let IT know that backup recovery procedures are needed right away.

If you run across a file, database, or server that isn’t providing data the way it should, submit that ticket without delay. A good IT team who is already on the ball will have backups ready and can get that file, database, or server back online within the day if you give them fast enough notice.

When a Distressed Customer is On the Line

Finally, it is always OK to contact your IT help desk ASAP if you have a customer on the phone (or chat) who needs technical assistance fast. Distressed customers have always been an aspect of IT assistance, even if you’re calling the internal IT help desk to to solve a problem that is technical beyond your depth but still officially a customer service issue. Your IT help desk will be happy to get you out of the hot water by guiding you to the customer’s needed solution or sometimes even taking over the call to help the customer conquer the technical troubles on their end.

If you or anyone on your team run into one of these problems, don’t stop to troubleshoot. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Just call your IT help desk and let them know what’s up so the experts can be on the job as fast as humanly possible. For more IT help desk insights or to design the perfect IT support structure for your business, contact us today!

The Secret Capabilities of Managed Network Monitoring – Pt 1

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IT Engineer Using Laptopf for Network Monitoring and Analysis of Network Servers in Server Room

Network Monitoring is your first line of defense in securing the network

In the ongoing battle to maintain business information security, the tools we use are our most important defenses. Firewalls, anti-virus, encryption. But the best tool we have to defend against hackers is something you may have barely even heard of, Network Monitoring.

Network Monitoring is Cybersecurity’s Secret Weapon

Network monitoring, summarized, is keeping track of every single detail of your physical computers and devices, digital files and servers, and your internal network activity. But the reason it’s so obscure is that explaining network monitoring is incredibly technical. It triggers most people’s ‘Techno-Babel’ filters. Network monitoring is cybersecurity’s secret weapon is because it gathers -all- the data.

Network monitoring allows you to build a fortress with data. Not the precious personal and financial data the hackers want to steal. Just cold hard facts about your computers. You can zoom in as tight as the motherboard temperature or as wide as watching data flow through your network. And network monitoring can create a record of data over time, no matter what you are tracking, which allows patterns to be spotted and, therefore, deviations from normal patterns to raise alarms.

But to put it simply, it’s like placing security cameras on the data itself. Right inside the server, looking at the files you’re protecting and the network hackers are -required- to come through to access your internally stored data. Now let’s take a look at some of the highly useful practical applications for network-monitored defenses.

Unauthorized Network or Data Access

The problem with hackers is that they access your data without permission, or slip onto your internal network and start infecting endpoint devices. But to do this, they need a way in. They will need to, at some point, access your network through a stolen or unauthorized channel. Or they will try to access your data with a malware program instead of using the secured software access built for employees. In fact, hackers like to break the rules. They enjoy slipping around your normal protocols to steal your data or ruin your network.

But here’s the thing: Your ‘normal protocols’ create a certain pattern of data. Like watching waves on a shore, network monitoring set to watch specific files or network access knows what an authorized employee access looks like. And if anything else happens to those files or enters your network without following known employee protocols, network monitoring can trigger its hacker alarm and start messaging admins.

Signs of Stolen Login Credentials

You might be thinking “What if a hacker steals an employee’s password”. Stolen credentials are a very serious concern in business security because there are so few real solutions to the problem. Employees need to be able to log in from anywhere and to use their logins to do their normal work tasks. But what you can do is set up network monitoring to alert for suspicious authorized login behavior.

When an employee logs in from a mobile device or home computer, it is possible to record the IP address and get the general location of the login. There is also usually a date, timestamp, and sometimes the name of the device used. Your employees are going to have a normal set of devices and locations they log in from. Each login can then be pattern-matched to a certain set of devices and a geographical region that network monitoring can learn to recognize.

This means that network monitoring will also notice if that login is suddenly used on a new device in an unusual location, or suddenly in a new state or halfway across the world. Or at a time in which that login has never logged in before.

Checking in when patterns change is also the best and only way to consistently catch hackers who steal authorized logins. And if it’s something normal like a business trip or device upgrade, then no harm was done simply by touching base with the person who’s login was flagged.

Managed network monitoring is an incredibly powerful tool and these capabilities are only the beginning. Join us next time for the second half of this article where we’ll talk about misconduct, corporate espionage, compromised software, and detecting hidden malware programs. Contact us today for more information about network security, managed network service, or to set up managed network monitoring for your business needs.

See you next time!