In my first two blogs in this series, I looked at some of the obvious signs and not so obvious signs that it might be time to change your RMM. However, the reality is that most MSPs don’t want to change unless they really have to, and in many of the cases I’ve seen they’re prepared to let things be bad for way too long.

This is the third in a four-part series focusing on the findings from our 2023 annual Field Report for IT Management. We surveyed 4500 IT professionals from internal IT teams and MSPs across North America to gauge where their organizations are heading from a network management perspective. In part three, we’ll discuss how organizations are thinking about extending the reach of their visibility and control over their networks with Wi-Fi and SaaS management.

Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is a basic network protocol designed to collect and report data from network devices connected to IP networks — even if the devices are different hardware and run different software. Most modems, routers, switches, servers, workstations, and printers will support SNMP communication. SNMP messages are transported via UDP on port 161.

Concerns of automation taking away the available jobs for the workforce have prevailed for over 50 years. While automation can be a substitute for labor, David Autor declares, “Automation also complements labor, raises output in ways that lead to higher demand for labor, and interacts with adjustments in labor supply.” Automation can be invaluable for industries that provide professional services.

This is the second installment of a three part blog series. John Appleby sits down with Nick Miletich, CTO at Managecore, to discuss how building a next generation managed service firm had to include automation at the helm.

Data loss is catastrophic for any business. TrueList’s data loss statistics point out that “almost 70% of small businesses close within a year of a large data loss.” One of the most effective ways to prevent loss is to backup data. There are multiple data backup solutions available, and one of the newest options is known as chain-free backup.

You’d be hard pressed to find a managed services provider (MSP) who doesn’t work with remote access protocols on a regular basis. That said, not all remote access methods are equal, and choosing the right protocol is essential in providing the best service to your clients.

The trend toward hybrid work environments has forced businesses to think about how to protect their organizations from increased use of “bring your own device” (BYOD) endpoints and other new devices. This is no small challenge, as MSPs know. The rise of the remote worker presents once of the biggest changes to the overall cybersecurity landscape that we’ve ever encountered.

In my last blog I took a look at some of what I see as the most obvious signs that your MSP business might have outgrown its RMM. These included: In this blog, I’m going to turn my attention to looking at some of the less obvious signs to reconsider your RMM.

IoT devices are exponentially growing in number each year, with an anticipated 14.4 billion IoT devices by the end of 2023 up to 27 billion IoT devices by the year 2025. The accelerated growth can be attributed to a variety of positive effects like increased efficiency, productivity, and convenience. However, in order to gain these benefits, these IoT devices need to be managed effectively.

The last day of support for Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012/R2 is set for October 10, 2023. Microsoft announced, “After this date, these products will no longer receive security updates, non-security updates, bug fixes, technical support, or online technical content updates.” Recently, Windows 7/8/8.1 also reached their end of support. Without continual support from Microsoft, the software becomes less secure and more risky, so they end the life of the product.

The cloud has fundamentally changed how organizations work with technology. The days of an on-prem infrastructure and endpoints with a physical data center are starting to be seen in the rearview mirror by many businesses, and now nearly half of all corporate data is stored in the cloud. There are multiple factors that have caused this change and increased the transition to the cloud, but one of the main supporting factors that makes this possible is the use of managed cloud services.

Data is the currency of today’s digital age. It’s what is most valued by companies, consumers, and (unfortunately) threat actors. Because of this, protecting both organizational and personal data is top priority. It’s also key to remember that data is important, wherever it is. The locations data is stored, like endpoints and servers, differ in the type and amount of data they store.

When thinking about your strategy around backups, recovery, availability, and business continuity, one part of the plan tends to fall by the wayside: backup retention. We focus so much on things like recovery objectives, SLAs, and tiers of data, that our thinking revolves around the need to potentially recover the backup that we just made a matter of minutes afterward. But there are data sets that need to be available weeks, months—even years—after they are made.

The bulk of networked devices are now wireless. Most Wi-Fi manufacturers now offer some form of Wi-Fi monitoring, including cloud-based solutions, and often have great dashboards that require no setup at all. But if you don’t know it’s there, or how to take advantage of it, is it really any help? This quick guide is designed to help your team with best practices when it comes to Wi-Fi monitoring: how to understand and make the most of what is available to you.

Cybersecurity is a top concern among businesses, especially as the number of cyberattacks, data breaches, and malware infections continue to grow each year. These attacks can happen at any moment during the day, too. It can be a headache trying to keep watch for cyberthreats 24/7 and know how to effectively respond when they are detected, especially for MSPs who have multiple different clients.

Creating, organizing, and managing documentation is a hassle, but it is a necessary function of every department within an organization. Statista’s digital documentation review shows just how much each business department uses digital documentation tools with sales at 62%, marketing at 57%, finance at 53%, IT at 41%, legal at 39%, operations at 35%, and human resources at 28%.

Although endpoint detection and response has been around since 2013, EDR is still IT security’s most popular buzzword today. The reason why organizations around the globe choose to use endpoint detection and response as one of their top security solutions is simple: it works. Fighting against malicious endpoint threats and cyberattacks is by no means an easy task.

As your MSP business grows and develops, it’s highly likely that at some point you’re going to find that the tools you originally chose to support your business may not be enough for your current needs. Obviously, no vendor wants to lose customers, and we’d all rather make sure you’re using your existing tools to their full capacity. However, there are going to be times when your existing toolset will be holding you back, and you need to know how to spot that.

Overall, 59.77% of these customers said “All 3 of These Areas” are on the radar! Software as a Service (SaaS) has become a staple in the modern workplace. With the new last mile of the office network, businesses have had to adapt to a hybrid work-from-home model, making SaaS apps more critical than ever. In fact, Gartner predicts that the SaaS industry as a whole will see 16.8% growth in 2023.

Check Point’s 2022 Workforce Security Report states that more than half of the workforce works remotely in 57% of organizations. The increase in the number of employees that work from home brings up new security implications that on-premise IT environments didn’t have to worry about. As organizations continue to undergo digital transformation, the existing network and network security architectures no longer meet the needs of the current digital era.

As we move into the new year, organizations can expect the number of cyberattacks to increase significantly. In order to battle these upcoming threats, effective patching and patch management processes will be essential. Before patching vulnerabilities, there are two main vulnerability assessments that IT teams should focus on: CVE & CVSS scores. Below, we’ll examine the importance of CVE & CVSS scores along with some of their uses and benefits in the cybersecurity space.

It is safe to say that anyone responsible for patch management will have had their fair share of issues with Windows Feature Updates over the years. These updates have amounted to new operating systems versions being released up to twice a year, and needless to say, could be huge in size—ranging anywhere from 3GB to 6GB. This resulted in not only long download times, but also lengthy install times—anywhere from one to two hours—that required multiple reboots to complete.

“If you are a managed service provider (MSP) in Switzerland, your customers are very likely Swiss customers, so they speak the local language, and they want their data to be in Switzerland, and they want your service provider to comply with all the Swiss regulations. And the same is true in 190 other countries, especially after last year,”

As the cyberthreat landscape is getting more sophisticated, the need for skilled cybersecurity professionals is also rising. The recent 2022 (ISC)2 Cybersecurity Workforce Study revealed that, in the past year, the cybersecurity workforce gap (the difference between the number of security professionals required and the number of suitably qualified people in the marketplace) has grown more than twice as much as the number of actual cybersecurity workforce hired, with a 26.2% year-on-year increase.

This is the second in a four-part series focusing on the findings from our 2023 annual Field Report for IT Management. We surveyed 4500 IT professionals from internal IT teams and MSPs across North America to gauge where their organizations are heading from a network management perspective. In part two, we’ll discuss the confidence IT pros have in their networks and how they can use automation to do more with less. You can read the full 2023 field report and compare your own IT statistics here.

During the COVID-19 Pandemic, it was reported that cybercrime increased by 600%. As the world has become more reliant on technology, whether for personal life or for business, cyberattacks have risen with it. Unfortunately, there are a lot of cybersecurity misconceptions that prevent businesses from adequately preparing for and responding to these attacks. More time and resources need to be spent protecting this critical information.

Network management is the ongoing monitoring, administration, and maintenance of any networked system of computers. That said, networks have grown beyond the desktop computer, now encompassing all manner of end devices — mobile devices, laptops, printers — and the hardware that facilitates their interaction.

Let’s be honest. Patching is tedious work. In a recent patching study by Ponemon and ServiceNow, it was revealed that 65% of businesses say that it is difficult to prioritize patches. Even after applying a patch, the patch management process doesn’t end there. Sometimes, new patches create more problems than they fix. This step-by-step guide prepares for such situations and explains how to uninstall a problematic patch.

Last month, I introduced a new blog series for 2023 that aims to focus on how we can do a better job of making our New Year resolutions stick. Why do so many resolutions fail? Because we attempt to do too much, too quickly. We place too much pressure on ourselves to change EVERYTHING we don’t like, which can then become overwhelming to manage and keep up with.

Did you know that your choice of a data protection solution can not only help you recover from cyber-attacks, but can also reduce your vulnerability to those attacks? By storing your primary backups safely off the local network, and choosing a remotely hosted SaaS data protection application, two critical attack vectors will be safely out of the reach of ransomware.