A majority of businesses today are turning toward an MSP for network security as it is becoming a critical issue requiring specialized services. A subset of the ASP market, MSPs offer specialized network management and security services via the Internet.

A serious predicament in the IT industry today is time crunch. Professionals are overworked and have hardly any time left for other critical areas like security that needs constant supervision. Furthermore security has become all the more necessary as more and more critical corporate information are available online, automatically leaving internal information exposed. What is the way out?

You certainly have a way out. Avail the services of a Managed Service Provider, MSP in brief. MSPs offer business access to best of breed security and monitoring software and security services via the Internet on a subscription basis. Net ProActive Services AVP Managed Services, R.Prabhakar defines themselves as "IT Infrastructure Management providers, who take ownership of all aspects of availability, performance and security of enterprise IT". "From just monitoring the network for up/down status to 24x7 comprehensive management of networks, systems and security, MSPs offer a wide variety of services". "It is therefore, very crucial for enterprises to understand the range and quality of service offered by MSPs", added Prabhakar.

Why avail an MSP’s service at all?

• MSPs maintain best business practices and has more security domain knowledge than most others whose expertise lay elsewhere.
• MSPs are staffed 24x7x365 to ensure immediate action against any potential attack or security breach. They operate consistent with industry standards and are constantly in tune with best practices.
• MSPs use best-of-breed software that most companies cannot afford and maintain on their own.
• MSPs allows its customers to benefit from its economies of scale and have access to top-of-the line software at an economical price.
• MSPs takes care of all upgrades and updates to the security software.
• MSPs can bring you considerable cost savings both financial and human resources.
• In an MSP model, customers retain control of their networks and data centers while optimizing the overall security. This is a considerable benefit as businesses do not have to surrender control of their critical information systems and at the same time they can ensure optimum security.
• MSPs provide shortened implementation time. Design and implementation of services which was a long drawn process earlier is just a question of a few days with an MSP model.
• MSPs have specialized knowledge in technologies like PKIs for instance, which ensures online security and this, is a major differentiator for the MSPs.

Who are Management Service Providers?

Management services are purchased directly for the management capability (e.g., performance monitoring, help desk). Users evaluate the service explicitly to provide a management process(s) within their organization. The vendor's management processes and management technology are at the heart of an evaluation. Survival of an Management Service offering is centered on a vendor's ability to deliver more efficient management faster and cheaper than an IT enterprise could do on its own. The Management Service Provider offerings can target management of not only external services (e.g., Web sites) but also internal infrastructure and applications.

While both MSP and managed services terms have been used as descriptors of a type of company, it is more accurate to think of them as types of offerings. This adoption difference is due to users current willingness in outsourcing peripheral services (e.g., VPN, firewall, hosting), therefore adding discrete management to these base services is an easy transition and requires little change in thinking for enterprises. For Management services to be procured, a cultural shift must occur in IT groups, as they are used to doing management of the in-house systems themselves.

Managed services vendors are not without glitches which enterprises need to watch out for. As an outsourced service commoditizes (and prices drop), vendors move to add on management (and other additional services) to expand their business. While it is easy to "add a service" to the product list, the vendors are typically not well-versed in core management processes and tend to try and build too much internal technology, creating costly and difficult-to-maintain environments (which is leading to vendor failures). Managed service vendors must be able to illustrate detailed operational processes, strong management technology, and communicate how their staff is trained to meet the task at hand. Expect to see a lot of partnering among vendors to round out managed service offerings.

While the above factors could be the challenges faced by MSPs, the MSP model seems to have bright prospects. In the words of Prabhakar, the market for MSPs is picking up and more and more customers are keen to look at this innovative model that brings enhanced service levels to existing IT operations.

In conclusion, the future of MSPs rests on how well they overcome the challenges posed to them by the market and the users.