I don't know if you're eligible for the MS Certified Partner program, but you get a 5 pack of PSS incidents per year with your membership. In my experience they were always super-fast and never charged the incident if it was even a close call.
If you're a consultant doing work for MS shops, the Certified Partner program is a great value IMHO. RS ________________________________ From: David Lum [david....@nwea.org] Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 10:33 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Managed Services And then there's us SMB consultants who do the same thing for shops that can't afford their own IT employee, we're cheaper than a FTE. Shawn I like your comments as well. Sometimes as a SMB consultant, *I* would like to be able to instantaneously contact some expertise w/out paying Microsoft $250 and waiting more than a month to get it back when they've deem the fee wasn't necessary (not that I've had this happen *twice* in the last month or anything....). David Lum // SYSTEMS ENGINEER NORTHWEST EVALUATION ASSOCIATION (Desk) 971.222.1025 // (Cell) 503.267.9764 -----Original Message----- From: Adam Greene [mailto:maill...@webjogger.net] Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 6:26 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Managed Services Hey Shawn, Getting in here a bit late ... as a managed services provider, I concur that there's quite a market for these. So many companies don't have the time or want to invest in the staff to manage their IT infrastructure. In many cases, the cost of entry for establishing in-house services (like an Exchange server) is also prohibitive for smaller businesses. Paying a monthly fee for things like this, and knowing that the service provider is going to take care of the patching, A/V, updates, etc. seems to take a significant load off the plate of small business owners whose main focus is to provide their own services, not perform IT work. Virtualized datacenter-hosted services like these are our fastest growing service offering. Hope that helps and have fun ... Adam ----- Original Message ----- From: "Shawn Everett" <sh...@tandac.com> To: "NT System Admin Issues" <ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com> Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 5:43 PM Subject: RE: Managed Services > One of the things we do quite well is to complement an existing company's > IT staff. > > Are they going on vacation? > Need a few extra bodies for a big project? > Need another resource to bounce problems off of? > > We market ourselves as just being part of the team. We're not here to > rightsize or downsize anyone. Interestingly we have never kicked out an > existing IT person in an organization. > > Thanks to everyone on an off list for the comments and tips about managed > services. I'll be reviewing them in more detail over the next couple of > days. > > Shawn > >> Completely understand this but oddly enough I'm seeing a trend where >> internal IT orgs are exploring options, not senior management due to >> overall workload or new business initiatives. Again, managed services >> from ANYONE is not a one size fit all; thanks for the comments. >> >> Shook >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Tim Vander Kooi [mailto:tvanderk...@expl.com] >> Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 10:40 AM >> To: NT System Admin Issues >> Subject: RE: Managed Services >> >> Or be "rightsized".. >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: David Lum [mailto:david....@nwea.org] >> Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 8:28 AM >> To: NT System Admin Issues >> Subject: RE: Managed Services >> >> "what could any of you accomplish if you didn't have to deal with >> monitoring, patching, AV, backups, hardware, event log review, security >> traffic analysis, storage and OS care and feeding?" >> >> I could quit :-) >> >> David Lum // SYSTEMS ENGINEER >> NORTHWEST EVALUATION ASSOCIATION >> (Desk) 971.222.1025 // (Cell) 503.267.9764 >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Andy Shook [mailto:andy.sh...@peak10.com] >> Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 6:14 AM >> To: NT System Admin Issues >> Subject: RE: Managed Services >> >> (Disclaimer: http://www.peak10.com/Managed-Services/default.asp ) >> >> Shawn, >> My company and job role aside, managed services have a large value >> proposition in the right scenario. I talk to prospects and customers all >> day long about managed services. I'm a straight shooter, if they are not >> a good fit I tell them as will my sales guys. As mentioned, they have a >> good play for businesses with no internal IT (better\faster\cheaper) but >> I >> will also say the BETTER play for overall managed services is the way >> they >> augment & compliment an internal IT shop. Think about it, what could any >> of you accomplish if you didn't have to deal with monitoring, patching, >> AV, backups, hardware, event log review, security traffic analysis, >> storage and OS care and feeding? In other words, source the mundane junk >> and have the internal IT person\people move up the stack to core business >> functions and applications. Time slice a managed services provider's >> capabilities to keep the lights on and you migrate to a more strategic >> role. >> >> What I find intriguing during these discussions are people's definition >> of >> 'infrastructure'. I'm a little more leading edge in my thoughts; I >> consider infrastructure to include everything mentioned above as well as, >> the hypervisor, email platforms and databases. What about you? >> >> Every situation is different, I welcome comments and questions on or off >> list. >> >> Shook >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Shawn Everett [mailto:sh...@tandac.com] >> Sent: Monday, July 20, 2009 6:26 PM >> To: NT System Admin Issues >> Subject: Managed Services >> >> Does anyone here sell managed services or subscribe to them as a service >> from a vendor? >> >> I'm looking for overall opinions. Do you find them useful, why or why >> not? >> >> Shawn >> >> >> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ >> ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ >> >> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ >> ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ >> >> >> >> >> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ >> ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ >> >> >> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ >> ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ >> >> >> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ >> ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ >> >> > > > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ > ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
