There is no doubt that the right provider can bring a lot of value to your organization, but you don t want to give the keys to the kingdom to somebody who is going to be out of business next year. Technical competence is one area in which it is imperative to ask tough questions. A competent provider should begin with an analysis of its potential customer s IT infrastructure to ensure it is ready to meet current and future demands. That might include an inventory of all hardware and software systems and components, support contracts, data backup requirements, system availability expectations and disaster recovery plans. Based upon that inventory, a knowledgeable MSP should be able to recommend any equipment, tools or configuration changes that might be necessary to improve performance and reliability.
Flexibility is another important consideration.
While an MSP can and should offer systems recommendations, it should not dictate what infrastructure systems the customer must put in place. If a vendor tightly controls the environment by determining what hardware, software, location, service levels and IT investments are required, the customer could easily get locked into a system that doesn t support its future needs. Again, a vendor with a long track record and a broad knowledge of various types of infrastructures shouldn t require that kind of control. An MSP that can t conform to a customer s needs probably isn t the real deal. It is important to be able to attack a problem from the customer s point of view, Bishop said.