MANAGED SERVICES : Everyday Business, Made Easier

Enterprises spend a large chunk of their IT budget on managing, maintaining
and supporting the systems they invest in. Hence, by outsourcing some of these
activities, companies can make use of these resources for investments in
strategic projects and concentrate on building core competencies. It is here
that the role of a managed service provider (MSP) comes in. An MSP not only
ensures the smooth working of day-to-day applications on a recurring basis but
has the capability to offer the same in a more cost-effective manner.

Rajesh Itagi, Director-Client Services, EMC India said, “Managed services
(MS) provide customers with expertise, assistance and knowledge that they
require and, more, for the duration for which they need it. These services
accelerate customers' IT projects and improve overall information infrastructure
management, support and operations.”

Itagi further added that while the helpdesk orchestrates the backend IT
services functions like configuration, change, problem management, etc, managed
services provide technological, operational, architectural and support expertise
to the clients.

Girish Krishnamurthy, MD, Kaseya India said, “The approach has completely
changed from a break-fix model to proactive. MS is now being classified based on
the endpoint (server, printers, Blackberry among other devices). MS today is not
about managing people and software applications but managing the end points
too.”

Opportunities for SPs

In the MS model, the revenue driver is the end-point and thus, the solution
providers (SPs) should look at setting up a service level agreement (SLA) with
the customers.

Earlier the SPs or system integrators (SIs) had an annual maintenance
contract (AMC) with customers and followed the break-fix model, in which they
offered services on call or monthly basis. However, things have now changed and
customers are looking for SPs to ensure smooth functioning of applications at
all times. This is where the concept of service level agreement (SLA) has came
into play, which ensures services at all times.

Nitin Mishra, Head-Product Management, Netmagic Solutions elaborated “There
is a huge scope for SPs in data center management and they can also look in the
direction of managed hosted services and cloud computing to expand their
businesses.”

Emerging trends

Mark Petit, Executive Director, Xerox Global Services said, “The MS market
has evolved over the years, and today it has become a core business process in
every enterprise. Enterprises which have not yet leveraged MS, are looking at it
as a potential business enabler. Today, in the MS space, the optimization of
storage, bandwith, the readyness and accuracy of data are the

latest trends.”

Remote managed services is definitely gaining momentum these days. This
service provides an effective alternative to organizations that need everyday
assistance with managing their infrastructures but do not require comprehensive
on-site service delivery. Or for companies that want to combine remote
management capabilities with on-site services to achieve 24x7 coverage.

The managed services market has a high potential for growth in the current
economic scenario, where many organizations across the world are looking to cut
costs. While cost reduction seems to be the primary factor for these
organizations, customers are also looking at other benefits from this service.
This includes improved service reliability, better performance, higher and quick
return on IT infrastructure, the addressing of gaps in skill sets, data
protection, adherence to compliance and adherence to project timelines.

Challenges

The awareness level of SPs and customers about the benefits of MS have
become a challenge when it comes to the advantage of adopting this model. The MS
model has to be transformed from a reactionary model to an evolutionary one.

In addition, the non-availability of required expertise among small time SIs
is also a key challenge. Other than that, SIs lack in providing MS to their
clients, include:

• Best practices for executing specific functions like storage provisioning
  for specific application requirements. It is not a 'one size fits all'
  solution. SIs need to have detailed understanding of businesses and
  application requirements to ensure that the infrastructure is provisioned to
  meet the requirements.
• Proper escalation mechanisms to quickly troubleshoot and resolve complex
  problems encountered
• Pool of backend experts that can provide guidance to the managed services
  team
• Co-operative support agreements with the concerned application, database
  and hardware providers to quickly provide resolution to the inter-dependent
  problems encountered Sufficient backend resource pool.

Vendor offerings

Kaseya offers solutions whereby the SPs can manage 900 endpoints. The company
offers Kaseya VSA software, Kaseya endpoint security, Kaseya endpoint
management, Kaseya backup and disaster recovery software.

EMC managed services portfolio includes offerings such as Residency Service,
Remote Managed Services, Managed Availability Services, Storage Managed
Services.

Offerings from Netmagic include Infra Inside, which offers reactive
management; Infra Management, which takes care of endpoint devices and Infra
Secure Services among others.

Conclusion

The managed service model has undergone a drastic change and from a reactive
model it has now evolved into a proactive one. It has also changed from a
time-based model to a performance-based one and from a break-fix model, to one
which is service oriented.

Any customer environment, irrespective of the vertical or the industry, which
has large, heterogeneous and mission critical infrastructure, is a candidate for
managed services. Hence, the scope of remote managed services extends to all
verticals. Currently, banking and telecom verticals are contributing the most to
the growth of managed services.

Pooja Sharma

poojas@cybermedia.co.in