Managed Services

Managed Services refers to the outsourcing of some or all of a company’s IT to a third party for an agreed flat monthly rate.

Managed Services is becoming increasingly popular due to the inefficiencies of the traditional break-fix method.  Break-free refers to when a company only calls in an IT Provider when part of their infrastructure breaks. The break-free method is reactive whilst using a managed service is pre-emptive.

Advantages of using a managed service solution

• With a break-fix policy an IT provider makes money out of breaks, faults, outages etc. With a managed service policy the MSP (Managed Service Provider) makes money by minimalising breaks. It is in the MSP’s best interest to use best of breed solutions and equipment, and to maintain your infrastructure to avoid breaks and downtime.
• A managed service solution takes your IT pain away. It allows you to run your business and let someone else worry about your IT infrastructure.
• If your alternative is to have in-house IT staff, a managed service solution allows you to not worry about managing those extra staff.

Advantages of providing Managed Services to your clients

• Managed Services allows you to do the job properly using the best technologies and solutions. You aren’t just there to find the quickest and most cost effective short term fix. You are there to make sure your customer’s IT infrastructure is continuous, easy to maintain, and cost effective in the short, mid, and long term.
• As an MSP you know your client’s IT Infrastructure intimately. Because you are running it in an efficient pre-emptive manner, breaks will be rare. By choosing a good remote management tool you will be alerted to any potential problems and be able to fix them rapidly. Managed Services allows you work smart, not hard.
• Allows you to build better relationships with your clients
• Revenues, costs, profits are much easier to predict and forecast as you have monthly contracts with your clients

Managed Services is a no-brainer for businesses yet so many IT providers find it so hard to switch their existing or new customers from break-fix to managed. If you are an MSP or would like to be an MSP and would like ideas how to better position managed services please use the Request a Quote button on the left to make an enquiry. If you are an end user and would like us to get an MSP to contact you please use the Request a Quote button on the left to make an enquiry.

As a distributor much of SoftGen’s customer base are MSPs. We partner with a number of vendors who provide solutions that facilitate managed or hosted service offerings. Some of our most popular managed service solutions:

GFI MAX Remote Management  

The competitive essence of GFI MAX RM is we only code the most frequent tasks an IT Guy needs, and even then, we only charge for these tasks if you use them, and we only charge for these tasks on the customers you use them for ALWAYS GIVING YOU THE BEST VALUE SOFTWARE matched to your operational requirements.

• 10 minutes to set up
• Easy and intuitive to use
• No upfront costs or contracts
• No expensive training
• Not overloaded with functionality that most people don’t use. The development for niche functionality drives up the cost for everyone
• You only pay for what you use. If you have 500 users you pay for 500 users, not 999 because you fit in the 500-999 user band.
• Try before you buy program

What GFI MAX RM does:

• Monitor clients’ systems 24/7
• Deliver daily health checks
• Provide proactive, best-of-breed service
• Spot emerging problems
• Perform workstation monitoring
• Perform effective hardware and software asset tracking
• Fix problems remotely
• Send email and SMS/text alerts

To visit our GFI page click here

Astaro ASG + RED10

As there are many ways an MSP can structure their managed service model, the resulting variables mean it is near impossible to find a cookie-cutter managed service method using a UTM. Astaro are very flexible in how they can provide security across a network depending what model the MSP uses. One area Astaro holds a firm advantage over its competitors is with businesses that have remote offices. This could be chain stores or franchises.  Astaro’s unique ability to place a RED10 (Remote Ethernet Device) at each remote location cuts costs considerably and increase ROI considerably. Our feedback from customers who have been deploying solutions using Astaro is that they chose Astaro over the competition mainly because:

• Ease of use. Plug and play at each remote store. All configuration was done at the base units in the head office
• Cost. By using a Remote Ethernet Device at each location our solution was far cheaper than the competitors

To visit our GFI page click here

Email Archiving

SoftGen carries email archiving solutions from GFI, Astaro, and Sunbelt. Whether your requirement is a simple compliance issue or you are after a high end solution, we can offer a solution that caters to your need.

To go to our Mail Archiving page please click here.

VIPRE

As a managed service provider you will need to either renew existing antivirus contracts or change your clients to a new solution. Many MSPs and systems integrators are swapping their clients over to newer and better designed antivirus solutions because some of the bigger brands have become resource hogs. The last thing you want as an MSP or IT provider is constant phone calls regarding antivirus related performance issues. When systems slow down the first thing many users blame is the antivirus (because it’s often the problem). You want to install a fast performing antivirus suite that has top-end detection rates, and rapid local support.

To visit our VIPRE page click here.