Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

Please Note: The following article details the experience one of our partners had using MarketBuilder. As such, individual results may vary. When asked about N-able MarketBuilder, George Ioannides’ response is effusive: “I love it.” Although George, who owns Cleveland, Ohio-based MSP, Fidelity Systems, hasn’t yet been able to use MarketBuilder to its full potential, he’s an avid user of its social media and marketing capabilities.

Data disasters are practically inevitable, but a planned out backup strategy can combat their damaging effects. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) of the U.S. government is a major organization that recommends sticking to a 3-2-1 backup strategy. Follow the 3-2-1 backup rule to ensure that your data is kept safe.

As a managed service provider, your success depends largely on the satisfaction of your customers. If they’re happy, they’ll stay with you and recommend you to others. But if they’re not, they’ll take their business elsewhere. Sometimes, some customers are never satisfied no matter how hard you try. Instead, they’re always finding something to complain about, which can be frustrating.

Dropbox is one of the oldest names around when it comes to cloud file storage, and the company has built a reputation as a reliable platform for file sharing and collaboration. Recently, Dropbox has been taking a few sidesteps from its roots and promising secure data backup features along with its staple file sync and share. Dropbox is not alone here. Most cloud storage solutions seem to be trying their hands at backup -- if not in practice, at least in terminology.

The idea of a VLAN, or Virtual Local Area Network, is simple enough, right? It’s hard to imagine any work in a modern networking/IT space without having encountered, set up, or managed a VLAN. Well if that’s all you needed to know about VLANs, we’d be done here, but there’s a bit more to it. To cover our bases: In most modern networks the primary purpose of the LAN is to provide connectivity to a wider network, most notably the internet.

When prospects do a Google search on your MSP, where do they find you? Is your MSP landing on Page 1, or is it being relegated to Page 2 or even worse? According to quicksprout.com, the top result on Google has a 33% chance of getting clicked, and they have found that 75% of people won’t scroll beyond the first page. (I know I never do—if what I’m looking for can’t be found on Page 1, why bother even seeing what is on Page 2?)

In today's business and IT environment, marked by constant change and transformation, if you’re a managed service provider (MSP), you are probably struggling to keep up. You’re faced with the need to modernize your operations, but the speed at which you can do so is constrained by years of accumulated complexity and chaos.

Any mature industry, at some point, will be regulated by local, state, or federal laws. Restaurants did not always have to have food safety inspections. Gas stations did not always have to have pumps calibrated and certified. Vehicles have not always required seat belts. As a society, we are well served by these regulations that help keep us safe and protect consumer interests.

At some point in your IT career, you’re going to be involved in a project. Whether you’re planning it or executing it, a project needs to be guided to ensure it achieves its goal. It’s easy to start, but without IT project management, deadlines can slip, costs can skyrocket, and things might never move forward. We’re here to help! We’ve enlisted the help of two of our Auvik experts that specialize in IT project management to pass along some of their hard-won tips and tricks.