How to Find Out if You Need Managed Network Services

In today’s modern business landscape, IT is the lifeblood that makes everything possible. And this is where managed network services come into play—essential for managing the infrastructure and software that keeps your network running.

No matter what type of business you run, chances are everything that you do, in some way, depends on IT. Whether it’s ordering and the delivery of supplies, or the very core of your entire business model, information technology and consistent network operations is something that simply needs to work effectively all the time.

But what happens when your network experiences frequent disruptions, errors or complete crashes? Suddenly, the productivity of your entire operation grinds to a halt, and you’re spending all your time trying to solve IT issues when you ought to be focusing on business as usual.

And when you consider that the average cost of IT downtime for businesses is $5,600 per minute (according to Gartner), the realities of maintaining network uptime suddenly become very clear.

If these are the types of situations you would like to avoid for your business, then chances are you would benefit from Managed Network Services.

To help you make an informed decision, in this blog we’re going to explore what managed network services are, what they do, their advantages and disadvantages, and how they can provide a clear value to your bottom line.

What are Managed Network Services?

Managed network services are, more or less, exactly what the title implies.

It is an outsourced service provided by a firm of IT industry experts who ensure that your business’ network is monitored and maintained, protected and who can also provide technical support for a range of network-related issues.

In essence, they ensure the continuity of your network performance at all times, helping it to operate at peak (or at least near-peak) performance with close to 100% uptime.

What are the Primary Benefits to Having Managed Network Services?

In order to achieve a level of network uptime that coincides with your business’ requirements, most managed network service providers provide the following benefits:

1. Monitoring and Management of Data Centers

Making sure that your data centers are performing to optimal standards is a full-time job, to say the least.

It’s a task that involves managing the flow of information in and out of the data centers, maintaining the physical hardware itself and monitoring the entire stack for bugs, unauthorized users, data breaches, and so much more.

Having these items handled by an expert managed network service provider takes it all off your plate so you can focus on running your business.

2. Managed Security Services

One of the largest threats to any network (including yours) is the threat of a data breach or cyber attack.

These attacks or breaches can occur in any number of ways (from both in and outside of your organization) and preventing them from doing irreparable harm requires nothing short of a team of IT experts working in concert with one another, ideally working out of one of their network operation centers.

Using their in-depth knowledge and experience they monitor traffic in and out of the network, logging data and keeping a sharp eye out for any suspicious activity.

If a breach or an attack is detected, they put their expertise to use by isolating the threat, restoring any lost or corrupted data, then getting to the bottom of how the attack was able to occur in the first place.

3. Wireless Area Network (WAN) Services

Managing an organization’s worth of Wi-Fi is no small feat, especially when you consider that wireless networks are a favored way for hackers to gain unauthorized access to your company’s data.

Hiring a managed network services provider is the best option you have for ensuring the continued reliability and security of your wireless networks.

Whether yours is a typical wireless network, or you require something more exotic such as managed SD WAN services, it’s a good idea to outsource it to experts who can handle everything from A to Z.

Are there any Disadvantages to Having Managed Network Services?

The short answer is no, not really.

For the most part, choosing managed network services is all upside.You get a huge, essential component of your business fully managed by top experts in the field, more reliability out of your network, and far fewer slowdowns and impediments to productivity.

The only downside to speak of is that you do tend to have less direct control over the day-to-day operation of your network. Which, depending on your personal level of expertise, may actually be a good thing.

How Do You Know if Managed Network Services are Right for Your Business?

In summation, choosing managed network services for your business provides you with better security, more IT reliability and higher productivity and, often, fewer costs associated with IT slowdowns.

But, just like individuals, every business is different and has different needs.

If you’re interested in finding out if managed network services are right for your organization, please talk to us today for a free consultation where we can assess your needs together.