Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

September 2022

6 Best Network Inventory Documentation Tools

Although network inventory documentation isn’t the most glamorous task, it is essential for the success of any IT department. According to Steady Networks, “Workers spend about 22 minutes each day dealing with some type of IT issue.” An accurate network inventory can greatly reduce the time it takes for internal IT to identify and solve issues.

N-central: Getting customers' Active Issues under control

For some N-central users, clicking on the Active Issues view and seeing the total number of issues in the bottom right hand corner can be daunting and lead you to think ‘How am I ever going to get this under control?’ In this blog, we are going to look at a few steps you can take to address some of these issues and bring that number down, so that your Active Issues view returns to a useful dynamic dashboard, with key issues that you need to address.

4 Energy Vampires Draining Your Helpdesk's Efficiency

The way that many organizations are operating has fundamentally changed over the past few years, and IT has been forced to evolve to keep pace. The good news is many teams are seeing their budgets for new tools and services increase. The bad news is the additional tooling doesn’t appear to be making a dent in IT support workloads (at least not yet). According to Zendesk, tickets filed by corporate employees jumped 31% last year.

Virtual CISO Services: A New Revenue Stream for MSPs?

As you look to optimize your MSP’s growing business, it’s going to become more and more important to maintain an acceptable return on your investment. To do this, you’ll need to find services that increase your gross margin on every client engagement. Virtual CISO services can greatly help in this function. While solutions like Auvik already help MSPs have visibility inside of client networks, we want to take this a step further with the addition of vCISO services.

The 2022 Guide to Managed Services Agreements for MSPs

Wouldn’t it be great if all business transactions could be conducted over lunch and executed with a handshake? It would sure cut down on the paperwork. Unfortunately, business is far too complicated for the kind of vagueness and misunderstanding that would arise from such a deal. Everything needs to be in writing. Love them or hate them, those piles of paperwork are your allies. This is especially true when evolving your business from a break/fix model to managed services.

Backup Strategy for Small Business Guide

Data is essential to a business, but too often the necessary precautions are not in place. Many small businesses are just one small data disaster away from going out of business. What’s worrying is that 3 out of 4 small businesses have no backup strategy or disaster recovery plan in place to prevent this from happening. This lack of preparation can bring a halt to business operations or cause an organization to go out of business.

Asset Lifecycle Management (ALM) Overview & Steps

All businesses and organizations have assets that are essential for their success, so it makes sense that the demand for asset lifecycle management services rises every year. A SkyQuest report on the asset management market claims, “The global asset management market was valued at $250.12 billion in 2021, and it is expected to reach a value of $1113.53 billion by 2028.” Discover how asset lifecycle management works and benefits businesses around the globe.

An MSP's Guide to Quarterly Business Reviews

Quarterly business reviews (QBRs) are one of the best tools you can use when it comes to being transparent and keeping your clients updated on all the work you’re taking care of for them. Otherwise known as technical business reviews, or semi-annual business reviews, QBRs serve as an excellent opportunity to touch base with clients, highlight the value of the services you provide, and create a strategic agenda moving forward.

8 Secret Struggles Today's MSPs Are Dealing With

In the managed services industry, there’s no shortage of support. Whether online or in person, there are countless ways to connect with other MSPs, share stories, and provide tips and tricks to help you build your business—and overcome MSP struggles and biggest challenges. And while MSPs are willing to share industry trends they’re taking advantage of, they’re not always willing to talk about the ones they’re losing sleep over.

Is Your Mac Spying On You? Maybe It Should be

What would you call software installed on your Mac, that’s hidden from sight, difficult to remove, and that silently monitors everything that happens on the system? You might call it spyware, or a RAT (Remote Access Trojan), and start thinking about how best to get rid of it. However, that same description can also be applied to the software that’s used to keep your machine safe from such threats.

Ninja Quick Guides: How to Gather Device Info for Warranty Requests

When submitting a warranty request for a device on your network, you’ll likely need to have important device information handy, such as the serial number. Rather than getting caught up in a game of telephone with the end-user, all relevant information for any devices is conveniently pulled in through the NinjaOne console.

Make Your MSP a Recession-Proof Business

Many believe we’re either in a recession or on the brink of one. It’s a familiar cycle: high inflation, international strife, supply chain challenges, and tightening monetary policies are all driving fears of a downturn. While the IT industry has exceeded expectations for the past few years, it isn’t immune to a recession. As a result, many IT MSPs are thinking about what they can do to ensure a recession-proof business over the next year and beyond.

Single Pane of Glass Software: Better than Stand Alone

G2 reports that nearly 70% of IT professionals state that IT environments have increased in complexity compared to just two years ago. More complex IT environments suggest the need for increased monitoring and management to ensure that all components efficiently work together. When you add more applications and software to IT management, it can complicate the management process if solutions don’t integrate or there isn’t structure with how the applications work together.

Ninja Quick Guides: How to Get Device Warranty Info Remotely

Keeping track of and maintaining IT assets is essential for a successful business. However, Capterra reports that businesses are reacting instead of preventing maintenance issues 80% of the time. Proactive IT asset management is made possible with a current and accurate IT asset inventory.

Ninja's Latest Feature Update Saves You Hours of Documentation

Since the addition of custom fields to Ninja, we’ve had the ability to read-from and write-to device-level custom fields via scripts and the terminal. Organization-level custom fields (available as part of Ninja’s documentation functionality) have always been readable via scripts, but up till now they have not been writable.

Cybersecurity Insurance Trends: Key Takeaways for MSPs

The increasing frequency and severity of ransomware attacks are driving significant changes in the cyber insurance market. The May 2021 attack on Colonial Pipeline Co. showed—or rather, confirmed—just how vicious and financially damaging these events can be. Unsurprisingly, cyber security insurers are taking steps to limit their exposure to losses from cyberattacks.

Ninja's New Notification Channels Help You Reach Technicians Easier

Staying ahead of any issues can be the difference between a swift resolution or a catastrophe. At NinjaOne, we want to arm our partners with the tools to be alerted at a moment’s notice of any potential problems with their or their customers’ endpoints. This is why we built our new notification channels feature - to help technicians proactively manage their endpoints with critical alerts no matter where they are and regardless of what tools they use.

Ninja Quick Guides: How to Use Winget to Install and Update Software Remotely

Whether your organization has a few remote employees or your entire workforce has gone remote, you need an easy way to install and update software remotely. By using a tool called winget, you can natively deploy software through Windows. In this article, we’ll take a look at what winget is, how it works, and how you can use it.

Using automation to deliver reliable managed security services

As a Cloud Service Provider (CSP), Managed Service Provider (MSP), or Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) you are instrumental in delivering effective and reliable managed security services to your clients. With cybercriminals taking advantage of less secure environments and becoming more advanced with their security breaches, this is becoming increasingly complex.

Data Protection Methods for IT & MSP Teams

The two words that IT and MSP teams never want to hear are “data loss.” According to Business Partner Magazine’s article on data backup, “94% of companies that fail to recover from a major data loss do not survive, and 43% of companies never resume their operation after a major data loss event.” To prevent these disasters from occurring, IT & MSP teams rely on data protection.

SCCM vs WSUS: What You Need To Know

There are a variety of modern and legacy technology solutions that businesses can use in their IT environments. WSUS and SCCM are two different legacy products by Microsoft that are used for IT management. They each have unique capabilities that serve endpoints and ensure they are in optimal condition. Read on to learn more about the roles of WSUS and SCCM in an IT environment.

5 Success Tips for a Winning MSP Business Plan

Looking to scale your MSP network monitoring business this year? Maybe you’re new to the game and still wondering how to write an MSP business plan. Maybe you think the answer is a vCIO? No problem! Here are five tips from the experts at the MSP Growth Summit on how to craft and optimize your MSP business plan.

Why Your MSP Needs a Network Infrastructure Tool?

As a new or growing MSP, discovering tools and processes that will let you do more with less is a prime focus. You’re always looking for ways to boost that bottom line by cutting costs, driving more revenue, and improving overall efficiency. If you have more than a handful of employees, you’ve likely already implemented a good MSP network monitoring tool and PSA (professional services automation) tools.

10 Tips for Getting IT Budget from the C-Suite

Picture this: You’re on the hunt for a new solution to help your IT team save precious time and money. You understand the benefits, you’ve done your research, and you know which vendors are on the top of your list. But there’s still one massive hurdle that you need to leap over before you can make the purchase – executive approval. Getting executive buy-in on purchases can often be more difficult than finding the right product.

What is RMM Software? A Modern Definition Plus Evaluation Criteria for 2023

RMM is short for remote monitoring and management. RMM software is used to do two things: a) gather information from remote endpoints and networks to assess their health; and b) perform various remote IT management tasks on them without disruption. RMM solutions are most widely used by managed services providers (MSPs).

Patch Management Overview with Explanations

Since the number of malware attacks continues to rise every year, effective patch management is more important now than ever before. In fact, a recent Market Data Forecast report on the patch management industry claims that “the global patch management market size is forecasted to grow USD 1084 million by 2027 from USD 652 million in 2022, growing at a CAGR of 10.7% between 2022 and 2027.” Learn more about patch management and its multiple benefits in this overview.

Backup Deduplication: Overview for MSPs and IT

Backups are needed for everything from restoring a lost or damaged file to completing an entire disaster recovery. Data backups require a lot of storage space, which takes up more resources and drives costs up. To make the most of this storage, businesses need to optimize their data backups. Fortunately, backup deduplication can help reduce the overall load on data storage and provide other benefits.

Putting your MSP customers first means putting your people first too

At N-able, we pride ourselves on creating a world-class culture where people are the center of everything. We know that when we take care of our N-ablites, they will be able to bring their best energy to work every day and focus their time and attention on supporting our customers. This same idea holds true for MSPs—and anyone who wants to create an exciting and desirable culture within their own organization.

7 Ways to Slam Dunk Your Next Network Assessment Using Auvik

So, you’re an MSP that’s recently won a new client. As part of the deal, you’ve promised a network assessment: a look at the overall network to determine if there are any glaring issues that will interfere with day-to-day operations. The topology is vast, spanning multiple sites and dozens of switches and firewalls. How do you act quickly? And what should you be looking for? Here are 7 network assessment tasks Auvik can help you easily complete.