Yes that's always a real possibility in any organization with outsourcing. Smaller organizations this is a real issue for, but mid and large companies not so much.
However, we do a lot of work for organizations that frees up the internal IT resources to work on managing specific workflows, applications, development, IT Strategy. When we do that they usually don't let anyone go, they just are not hiring as many people as they would have. Its becomes much more skills focused for specific jobs and the day to day maintenance stuff, backups, reboots, patches, etc come to us. Special project work tens to flow to us as well. I am not going to apologize for business decisions, but I don't go out looking for ways to get my fellow IT guys fired if that's what you are insinuating. Greg Sweers CEO ACTS360.com<http://www.acts360.com/> P.O. Box 1193 Brandon, FL 33509 813-657-0849 Office 813-758-6850 Cell From: pdw1...@hotmail.com [mailto:pdw1...@hotmail.com] Sent: Monday, December 17, 2012 9:29 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Managed service "...frees local IT up to focus..." And to stand in the unemployment line. You forgot to add that little line which is a fact of life in IT. ________________________________ From: gswe...@acts360.com<mailto:gswe...@acts360.com> To: ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com<mailto:ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com> Subject: Re: Managed service Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2012 02:49:50 +0000 I run what is a considered a Managed Services Organization. So I can speak to this pretty well. This is not a solicitation or pitch, its just what we do and answering the thread. The growing trend among IT business owners is to bid a monthly service for various levels of support. Our most common is AYCE (All You Can Eat), we charge a fee per device. Server/Workstation/Network Device(Switch, Wireless, Firewall) and Backup. Based on volume pricing is varied. Everything is covered within support of the servers/desktops/equipment. Dealing with vendors, identifying issues, optimizing performance, replacing equipment, and managing all aspects of covered equipment. Backup is completely image based with Log truncation and database mount verification with local full/incrementals for scoped length of terms and Warm Standby. Data is also replicated to a Top level datacenter where we can spin up the entire environment within a few minutes. Project work is a seperate scope unless built into the monthly, usually for a given # of hours each month. Goes towards VCIO/Consulting/Project work. In a typical managed environment you will pay to not worry about the maintenance, realtime monitoring, automated remediation with manual if thresholds do not rectify in short order. Patching, antivirus, performance tuning, application installations, image building, backups and offsite replication all included, verified, tested 24x7, software updates, and help desk support for a single monthly fee. When you factor the costs into managing this and ENSURING its 100% 24x7 for organizations the cost of labor, software, and servers to perform these tasks usually outstrips the cost of the monthly. We also offer Tier 2 services to support local IT guys who just need outsourced help for projects or to offload, or backup services so they never worry about it. Just get reports and confirmations of backups/work performed. Then we move this and apply it to our Cloud services with a different twist. This is the growing trend and what more and more providers are doing in terms of flat fees. Guarantees revenues, and we have built systems and processes that performs excellently with a minimal amount of manual intervention thereby lowering costs. When you build it to scale, you can do much more work with less people, which frees local IT up to focus the IT strategy to be in line with the business goals and not worry about keeping IT up. Greg Sweers CEO ACTS360.com<http://www.acts360.com/> P.O. Box 1193 Brandon, FL 33509 813-657-0849 Office 813-758-6850 Cell From: Tigran K <tigr...@gmail.com<mailto:tigr...@gmail.com>> Reply-To: "ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com<mailto:ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com>" <ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com<mailto:ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com>> Date: Friday, December 14, 2012 5:01 PM To: "ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com<mailto:ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com>" <ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com<mailto:ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com>> Subject: Re: Managed service No, if they have an issue it covers, if not I sit at home and relax. --T On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 1:53 PM, David Lum <david....@nwea.org<mailto:david....@nwea.org>> wrote: Searchable: http://www.mail-archive.com/ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com/<http://www.mail-archive.com/ntsysadmin%40lyris.sunbelt-software.com/> Search for "consulting" Monthly fee? Tough call. Is the fee supposed to cover x hours of work? From: Tigran K [mailto:tigr...@gmail.com<mailto:tigr...@gmail.com>] Sent: Friday, December 14, 2012 1:16 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Managed service Thanks for the reply David. Two questions. Where is the archive? The company I'm working with wants to do a monthly fee type of a thing. For general support. Is this common? Do you know how much is reasonable for a monthly deal? We have a hourly rate set for projects. Thanks --T On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 6:39 AM, David Lum <david....@nwea.org<mailto:david....@nwea.org>> wrote: There are many threads on this if you search the archives, but I love this topic, so... Rate: It depends where you are. Portland, OR Metro IT consultants charge between $80-$125/hr. In fact I'm the only one I know below $100/hr, granted I don't know that many others, like three. Check the local competition and be aware of your differentiation from Geek squad, etc. will be the server side of things, so keep in mind they might consider that type of service and pricing as a barometer. Write up an SLA / expectations. Know what you're willing to take on and emphasize quality to your clients vs. number of clients - it's OK to say no to potential clients, as well as let this client know what you support and what you don't. If possible, set them up with Log Mein or equivalent (I have Log Mein on a system per client, then remote to their other systems from there) so you can do timely remote work. I also charge less for remote work vs. onsite ($55/hr. vs. $80/hr. onsite), and have it identified up front that emergency calls/work is additional rate. Agree on how often they can expect you onsite (once/mo. for patching maybe, and one other time/mo. perhaps). I also managed to work in a fixed monthly fee in agreement to respond to Help Desk tickets in-between my onsite days - previously I would only work on them the once day/week I was onsite, the fee is for me to work on them within 24hrs of being submitted. That fee offsets some work done that I wouldn't otherwise bill them for, like 5-10 min remote fixes that would take as much time to write up the invoice for as it does to perform the fix. Set expectations first, saves a lot of frustration later. From: Tigran K [mailto:tigr...@gmail.com<mailto:tigr...@gmail.com>] Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2012 11:35 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Managed service I'm starting an IT service side gig. The place has about 10 workstations and one server. The server is used for Exchange, AD, and fileshare. One of my tasks will be to migrate exchange to a provider. My tasks will be to provide general IT services. Help desk kind of stuff and server management. What's a going rate for this kind of service? Thanks ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com<mailto:listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com<mailto:listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com<mailto:listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com<mailto:listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com<mailto:listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com<mailto:listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com<mailto:listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
