Until MSPs came along, typically only large companies with healthy IT budgets had advanced monitoring capabilities at their disposal. MSP prices vary depending on the services involved. MSPs can offer lower prices partly because they use the Internet to gather and deliver information, a much less expensive medium than private networks used by traditional management services. But the Web doesn't offer the reliability that a private network does. As a result, customers should make sure MSPs provide some level of service-level agreements that protect them from any downtime.
Users can cancel service at any time, without penalty.
The advantages add up for midsize businesses by letting them access software they otherwise couldn't afford or support. Boeh estimates that the service costs a few thousand dollars each month. Using iSharp also means Boeh doesn't have to hire IT personnel to handle the testing. Many companies see this as the biggest benefit of MSPs. Jon Olsen, general manager of network integration services for Fiber Optic Technologies, a privately held, nationwide integrator of enterprise networks in Englewood, Colo., says network managers and security gurus are hard to find and even harder to keep.