Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

This is the fourth 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 four, we’ll discuss the needs of the end-user and how IT teams can contribute to their productivity. You can read the full 2023 field report and compare your own IT statistics here.

There’s a reason why the network monitoring market reached about $2 billion in 2019 and is expected to reach $5 billion by 2026. In today’s tech-focused world, organizations require network monitoring to secure and manage their IT infrastructures. One of the crucial systems that every network monitoring and management operation needs to succeed is known as network discovery.

Figuring out which software solution will meet the needs of your organization’s IT environment can be a big challenge. There are many factors to consider before making a final decision, and one of those is to learn what software solutions are available. Intune and SCCM are two Microsoft solutions that help you manage the devices in your IT environment. Find out what each software solution does, how Intune vs SCCM compare to each other , and which one is right for you.

The best part about patching in N-able N-central is the ability to fully automate the process, but even if that is accomplished correctly there is still a need to have the right amount of sensitivity of patch monitoring in place. I have always monitored patches in terms of age, I did so with WSUS v3 (15 years ago) and have always done so in N-central.

As you likely be all too aware, there is a Microsoft Outlook zero-day vulnerability listed under CVE-2023-23397. With the increased attacks on Outlook this month, Microsoft has pushed out fixes for about 80 Windows flaws. More information on some of those patches can be found in my colleague Lewis Pope’s March 2023 Patch Tuesday blog. Lewis was also kind enough to send over the remediation script for both N-able N-central and N-able N-sight.

Network device monitoring is a crucial aspect of IT management and it helps organizations to ensure that their network infrastructure is running smoothly. Many people that use RMM solutions will often use an additional application to monitor their network devices. However, one of the huge benefits of using N-able N-central as your RMM solution is the way it allows you to monitor network devices through Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).

Penetration Testing -- also known as “pentesting” -- are used by cybersecurity professionals and managed service providers to identify vulnerabilities present in a system before a cybersecurity incident takes place. You will often come across clients asking you to perform penetration testing, especially as emerging government regulations begin to make the practice mandatory.

As a managed service provider, you know that cyberthreats are increasing in frequency, sophistication, and impact. In recent years, we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of cyber-attacks targeting businesses, governments, and individuals. This explosion of cyberthreats highlights the need for businesses and individuals to take cybersecurity seriously and implement modernized security measures to protect themselves against these threats.

The tech world has been on a rollercoaster since the COVID-19 pandemic. During the large-scale shift to remote work throughout 2020-21, big tech firms invested heavily in talent and infrastructure and there was plenty of growth in the IT space. Since the second half of 2022, however, high inflation, big tech layoffs, and the threat of an economic recession have organizations focused more on remaining cost-effective than investing in growth.

MSPs own and process large amounts of sensitive data and act as gateways to the sensitive data and infrastructure of their clients, which is why cybercriminals view them as good potential targets. To adequately protect this sensitive data from today’s sophisticated attacks, it is crucial that MSPs leverage cybersecurity best practices to ensure the safety and security of their own systems and their customers’ systems.