IT Consulting

More on Managed Services

So I’m starting to see more and more companies coming up with Managed Services divisions in their IT consulting business as of late. Looks to me like some people see dollar signs and figure they can just jump on the band wagon and provide great service. This bothers me for a variety of reasons.

People new to the Managed Services game better know what they’re getting into, because if you’re not prepared you can easily make a bad name for your business in a hurry. If you quickly get the reputation for providing sub par service then other aspects of your business can suffer. Also if the service is not provided properly it can help sour the market for other businesses by inadvertently giving the name “Managed Services” a bad name based on just one company providing bad service.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there are many people out there that can provide this service adequately. But I have seen (and they shall remain unnamed) some companies pick up the “Managed Services” mantle when they really have no business doing so. Instead they’re probably going to make a little money up front, and then cause their clients grief further down the road at the expense of their clients.

Managed services done properly should be a win-win situation for both parties (consulting company and the client). The consulting company reasonably makes some money off of the consulting and in turn the client receives a valuable service that is worth their hard earned dollars and helps their everyday business.

I hope the wannabes in this field are quickly identified and thrown out by the market. My 2 cents!

-RP

Bare Metal Hypervisors

With Hyper-V out now, the virtualization marketing machine from all the different virtualization companies is in full swing. The battle is on and it looks like it’s going to be an ugly one. With virtualization pros on either side spouting the virtues of their product and claiming why one is better than the other.

Within the past few days I have read about a ton of cost comparisons between all the different offerings out there between Hyper-V, XenServer, and VMWare. I think at the end of the day, you need to delve a little deeper and look at the differences between the technologies that make up these products and what they mean to you and your business.

 One of the core differences that is important to me (and might not be important to you, depending on your needs) is the level/classification of hypervisor that is employed by the various companies. VMWare and Citrix both offer what are called level 1 or type 1 classification hypervisors. These are hypervisors that install on bare metal without an underlying OS. Whereas Microsoft offers Hyper-V only installed as a role on Windows 2008. This is what is called a level 2 hypervisor or type 2 classification hypervisor.

This is important because anytime you have a virtual product using a level 2 hypervisor, the hosting OS gives a larger footprint to attack and can compromise the security or stability of the box more than a level 1 hypervisor would. Now for non mission critical servers this wouldn’t be much of an issue, but for mission critical virtual machines this could be the difference between choosing which virtualization product is right for you.

However, it is said that Microsoft will be developing a level 1 hypervisor. We will have to wait and see how this progresses, because once this comes out, the lines will be even further blurred between the different competitors.

-RP

The Perception of Managed Services

Being in the consulting field as long as I have, I have encountered pretty much every reaction to Managed Services offerings. Some people openly embrace it and love the idea of a consulting company completely taking care of everything for them, and other people get quite scared fearing for their jobs and don’t want anything to do with it.

 Managed Services (in the IT world), if you haven’t heard of it before, is basically a company providing a service to your business to take care of all your IT needs and concerns for a flat monthly fee. The service isn’t time based typically, instead it’s based on how many users, machines, sites etc. you might have. The company providing this service will usually provide to you a set of service levels for different urgency levels of service required and will provide regular maintenance and support to your company. They will also act as trusted advisor to your company, using their experience to consult with you on which IT direction you should take your company based on your IT needs.

 The Managed Services company not only acts as your “tech”, but also acts as your “CIO” and everything in between. Doing this can allow you to focus on your core business instead of having to worry about IT. Managed Services typically works well for SMB companies and more and more people are starting to discover it. Whether you have an IT team or not, there is no need to fear. Managed Services companies work great with or without IT teams; it just changes the roles a little bit. If a company already has an existing IT team they can use the Managed Services company to provide support where they would otherwise not want to focus their valuable time and effort and instead be freed up to work on more “important” things.

 Managed Services isn’t about taking away IT jobs from hard working individuals; it’s about working with these individuals towards the common goals and success of your core business.

 -RP