Digital transformation and technological innovation have made network infrastructure more available to all businesses. Evolving your network can enable process streamlining, productivity improvements, and collaboration and communication enhancements. Still, thereʼs a drawback. Managing, maintaining, monitoring, and—most importantly—securing your network can be daunting. Thatʼs where managed network services can have a positive impact.

The Necessity of a Robust Network Infrastructure

A robust network infrastructure is fundamental to business success and competitiveness as it supports communication, collaboration, efficiency, security, and growth in our increasingly digital and interconnected world.

Yet, many businesses encounter issues maintaining their own network infrastructure. With limited resources and a lack of dedicated IT staff, securing the network can be a significant challenge. Meanwhile, as the business grows, scaling up to accommodate increased demands can also pose problems. Understanding the full scope of network resources needed (e.g., bandwidth, storage, computing power) and implementing increasingly complex solutions can overwhelm business owners.

All the while, network downtime can lead to productivity and revenue losses as well as reputation damage. Ensuring network availability and reliability is critical to business success as well as employee and customer experience, not to mention compliance with industry standards and government regulations.

With managed IT services, the business can offload certain aspects of network maintenance and security to an expert partner.

What is Managed Network Services?

Managed network services are provided by a third-party IT provider. Your business selects a dedicated partner to design, implement, monitor, manage, and maintain its network infrastructure. These experts can free your internal tech staff up to focus on core business activities by providing solutions that ensure the network operates reliably, securely, and efficiently.

Benefits of Network Management Services

Partnering with external IT experts for network managed services brings several advantages. These include professional support to:

• Design and deploy network infrastructure tailored to your specific requirements as far as scalability, performance, security, and budget.
• Continuously monitor the health, performance, and security of your network infrastructure. Using advanced monitoring tools and technologies, your IT partner can identify and resolve issues proactively, minimizing downtime and optimizing network performance.
• Protect the network from cyber threats, such as malware, viruses, hackers, and unauthorized access. Managed network security services typically include: firewall configuration, intrusion detection and prevention, antivirus software, encryption, and security policy enforcement.
• Address network issues, troubleshoot problems, and provide technical assistance to end-users.
• Implement backup and disaster recovery solutions to safeguard critical data and ensure business continuity in the event of hardware failures, natural disasters, or cyber attacks.
• Provide access to the latest network technologies (e.g., Merakiʼs cloud-managed solutions) tailored to your business needs.
• Increase network visibility with graphical maps, current and historical event logs, and on-demand reports.
• Simplify compliance with regulatory mandates and industry standards.

The Value of Managed Network Services

Contracting with a managed service provider (MSP) can help your business reduce costs. For one, they can find ways to automate, organize, and standardize configurations to improve IT efficiency and effectiveness.

MSPs also give you access to specialized expertise in a more cost-effective manner than if your business tried to hire and retain a similarly skilled team. For example, since the MSP will have many clients with network switching concerns, it can have an expert on-hand. If you tried to do the same, youʼd be paying someone to sit around until the next time a switch needed configuration.

Additionally, these IT providers typically charge a predictable flat fee, which can help with your financial planning, while providing 24/7 support of your network availability.

Proactive Management for Your Network

Managed network service providers meet an increasingly critical need in todayʼs complex and dynamic business landscape. Leveraging the expertise, resources, and scalability of an MSP like NextPointe can help you maintain competitiveness, ensure security, and maximize efficiency.

NextPointe applies a process-oriented approach, robust tools, and a knowledgeable staff to network management for businesses of all sizes. Find out more about how we create stable, high-performing networks; offer accurate, timely problem resolution; and proactively manage your network reliability, security, and scalability.