https://www.channelfutures.com/wp-content/themes/channelfutures_child/assets/images/logo/footer-new-logo.png
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • Analytics
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Cloud
    • Data Centers
    • Desktop
    • IoT
    • Mobility
    • Networking
    • Open Source
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Virtualization
    • Voice/Connectivity
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Best Practices
    • Business Models
    • Channel 101
    • Channel Programs
    • Channel Research
    • Digital Transformation
    • Diversity & Inclusion
    • Leadership
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Specialty Practices
  • MSSP Insider
    • Back
    • Business of Security
    • Cloud and Edge
    • Endpoint
    • Network
    • People and Careers
    • Training and Policies
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • 2020 MSP 501 Rankings
    • 2020 Hot 101 Rankings
    • 2020 MSP 501 Report
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Our Sponsors
    • From the Industry
    • Content Resources
    • COVID-19 Partner Help
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • Reports
    • Videos
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
  • EMEA
  • Awards
    • Back
    • Excellence in Digital Services
    • 2020 MSP 501
    • Top Gun 51
  • Events
    • Back
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • Channel Partners Evolution
    • Channel Evolution Europe
    • Channel Partners Event Coverage
    • Webinars
  • Channel Mentor
    • Back
    • Channel Market Intelligence
    • Channel Educational Series
Channel Futures
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • Analytics
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Cloud
    • Data Centers
    • Desktop
    • IoT
    • Mobility
    • Networking
    • Open Source
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Virtualization
    • Voice/Connectivity
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Best Practices
    • Business Models
    • Channel 101
    • Channel Programs
    • Channel Research
    • Digital Transformation
    • Diversity & Inclusion
    • Leadership
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Specialty Practices
  • MSSP Insider
    • Back
    • Business of Security
    • Cloud and Edge
    • Endpoint
    • Network
    • People and Careers
    • Training and Policies
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • 2020 MSP 501 Rankings
    • 2020 Hot 101 Rankings
    • 2020 MSP 501 Report
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Our Sponsors
    • From the Industry
    • Content Resources
    • COVID-19 Partner Help
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • Reports
    • Videos
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
  • EMEA
  • Awards
    • Back
    • Excellence in Digital Services
    • 2020 MSP 501
    • Top Gun 51
  • Events
    • Back
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • Channel Partners Evolution
    • Channel Evolution Europe
    • Channel Partners Event Coverage
    • Webinars
  • Channel Mentor
    • Back
    • Channel Market Intelligence
    • Channel Educational Series
    • Newsletter
  • REGISTER
  • MSPs
  • VARs / SIs
  • Digital Service Providers
  • Cloud Service Providers
  • CHANNEL PARTNERS ONLINE
 Channel Futures

From the Industry


Service Monitoring: Give Customers Real-time Visibility

  • Written by Vikas Aggarwal 2
  • April 13, 2011
During a recent training engagement with a new customer, we received a somewhat frantic call from our IT contact. She sounded a bit stressed and said that our consultant would nee

During a recent training engagement with a new customer, we received a somewhat frantic call from our IT contact. She sounded a bit stressed and said that our consultant would need to remain on-site one more day for a follow-on training session. The IT contact emphasized that this was not something she had planned for, nor foreseen, and it had come up quite suddenly.

Indeed, the IT group had given a presentation to the company’s executive team on their recently deployed network monitoring software. Upon seeing a demonstration of the top-level Business Service dashboards that displayed key metrics on the performance of critical business services, the VP of Customer Care immediately requested that he wanted himself and his directors to be trained on accessing and customizing the dashboards. Interestingly, this is not the first time we have experienced this kind of a reaction from senior managers and business owners.

Whether an internal IT organization supports the business or whether MSPs manage the IT infrastructure and applications, the business and management constituents want real-time visibility on the performance of business services that are dependent on the underlying IT infrastructure. They are no longer content with after-the-fact reporting, and want direct access to the relevant data to view service performance and validate compliance against targets. The prevailing assumption has been that IT monitoring tools are not able to deliver actionable information that is relevant to business owners or senior managers. That is no longer the case.

Opportunities and Challenges

The demand for greater visibility presents both an opportunity and a challenge for MSPs. Being able to provide timely and relevant performance information to business owners and senior managers through mechanisms like service impact dashboards and real-time status reports will enhance MSP offerings. On the other hand, MSPs will need to make investments in the appropriate systems that enable providing a service-oriented view of the IT infrastructure and applications.

Monitoring software systems will need to have two primary underpinnings to meet the challenge:

  • The first, and the more critical one, is having built-in, pre-integrated Business Service Management (BSM) capability that links the underlying IT infrastructure to business services. Within a fully integrated BSM environment, information is presented in a way that is relevant to the user roles within an organization. The business owner can access a rolled-up dashboard view of the metrics on which the business services depend. The information in this view is described in business terms. An IT operations person can simultaneously view the detailed performance data plots for a given piece of the underlying IT infrastructure, where the data is defined in technical terms. To learn more about BSM solutions, read a BSM overview whitepaper.
  • The second requirement is that the monitoring system needs to have full multi-tenancy support. The application has to allow creation of read-only, read-write and admin users within a domain, and admin users across domains. The ability to enable look-and-feel that is driven by the customer login (e.g. custom logo, role-specific layouts, custom stylesheets, etc.) will be important to ensure an intuitive and high-quality user experience for business users and senior managers.

Given the appropriate tools, such as service health dashboards, MSPs can enable business owners to proactively monitor/verify the status and trending of business service performance. To get started, MSPs need to learn more about some of the organizations that are embracing BSM solutions.

With the right level of integration (and correlation) between the business service monitoring layer and the underlying network/IT monitoring technology, business owners can better understand the impact of the complex mesh of underlying infrastructure on the specific outcomes of interest in their business services. MSPs should consider adopting tools that deliver real-time business service assurance capability, and give business owners the visibility they desire.

Vikas Aggarwal is CEO of Zyrion Inc., a leading provider of BSM and Network Performance Monitoring solutions. Monthly guest blogs such as this one are part of MSPmentor’s annual platinum sponsorship. Read all of Aggarwal’s guest blog submissions here.

Tags: Cloud Service Providers Digital Service Providers MSPs VARs/SIs From the Industry

Related


  • 2021 goals
    Partners Share Their 2021 Goals—and Plans for Achieving Them
    How to move forward, turn obstacles into opportunities and focus on what can be controlled in order to meet 2021 goals.
  • security centric
    The Importance of Being Security-Centric
    Why security-centric MSPs will find success in 2021.
  • cyberattacks threat hunters
    Cyberattacks: Threat Hunters Conquer Unpredictability with 3 Measures
    To thwart cyberattacks, threat hunters rely on baseline corrective actions, proactivity over reactivity, and separating legitimate tools from illegitimate uses.
  • data migration
    The Right Data Migration Tool Helps Schools Move to Cloud During COVID Crisis
    Effective data migration tools enable schools to move to a secure cloud environment, making applications and content easier to access, as well as mitigating the risk of data loss.

Leave a comment Cancel reply

-or-

Log in with your Channel Futures account

Alternatively, post a comment by completing the form below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • Your Cloud Data Is Protected, But Is It Portable?
  • How to Improve First Call Resolution with Microsoft Office 365 Service Tickets
  • Tactics for Selling SaaS Backup
  • Cloud Migration Hurdles—and How to Overcome Them

Galleries

View all

New, Changing Partner Programs: AWS, Tech Data, Avaya, Verizon

January 11, 2021

Industry Perspectives

View all

The Rise in Remote Work Increases the Need for Patch Management

January 27, 2021

Partners Share Their 2021 Goals—and Plans for Achieving Them

January 26, 2021

The Importance of Being Security-Centric

January 22, 2021

Webinars

View all

Your Network Perimeter Has Changed

February 18, 2021

In Case of Emergency: The Importance of Proactive Critical Event Management

February 23, 2021

How Managed Hosting Providers Thrive with the Alternative Cloud

February 24, 2021

White Papers

View all

Product Brief: Kaseya VSA Integrated Workflows with BMS and IT Glue

January 26, 2021

Why Subscription Business Model

January 15, 2021

The Ultimate MSP Guide to Sales Efficiency

January 14, 2021

Upcoming Events

View all

Channel Partners Virtual

March 2, 2021 - March 4, 2021

Channel Partners Conference & Expo

November 1, 2021 - November 4, 2021

Videos and Fastchats

View all

FASTCHAT: How SOAR Eliminates Security Challenges and Elevates Service Provider Revenues

January 6, 2021

Happy Holidays from Channel Partners & Channel Futures!

December 21, 2020

FASTCHAT: How Old, Unpatched Technologies Are Creating New Security Threats for MSPs and Their Customers

December 3, 2020

Twitter

ChannelFutures

Building an efficient and profitable #patchmanagement practice in 2021 @ConnectWise #cybersecurity #endpoint #MSP… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

January 28, 2021
ChannelFutures

International effort takes down #Emotet botnet, but @Netenrich, @digitalshadows, @Vectra_AI say it will be back.… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

January 28, 2021
ChannelFutures

.@Microsoft @Azure’s Tyler Bryson, new U.S. channel head, talks priorities at @GetNerdio’s #NerdioCon… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

January 27, 2021
ChannelFutures

.@CryptoStopper hires @GetChanneled to build partner program, act as virtual channel chief. #ransomware… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

January 27, 2021
ChannelFutures

MSSPs, check for this ‘novel’ social engineering threat from North Korea. #Google. dlvr.it/RrTS9J https://t.co/2mDcnNvkHz

January 27, 2021
ChannelFutures

.@keepersecurity report shows financial sector heavily targeted by #cybercriminals. dlvr.it/RrTBPz https://t.co/joTBNeb2MT

January 27, 2021
ChannelFutures

.@Trustwave unveils new global referral partner program. #cybersecurity dlvr.it/RrT9Td https://t.co/amXCw33UsF

January 27, 2021
ChannelFutures

Ecosystem security provider Cyberpion launches first #partnerprogram. dlvr.it/RrSnxK https://t.co/g7Po3jq8iw

January 27, 2021

MSSP Insider

Newsletters and Updates

Sign up for The Channel Report, Channel Futures Update, MSP 501 Newsletter and more.

Live Channel Events

Get the latest information on the next industry-leading Channel Partners event.

Channel Partners Online

Want more? Find more channel news and analysis on our sister site, Channel Partners.

Media Kit And Advertising

Want to reach our audience? Access our media kit

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • Channel Partners Online
  • Channel Partners Events
  • MSP 501
  • MSSP Insider
  • IoT World Today
  • Webhostingtalk

WORKING WITH US

  • Contact
  • About us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter

FOLLOW Channel Futures ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2021 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.
This website uses cookies, including third party ones, to allow for analysis of how people use our website in order to improve your experience and our services. By continuing to use our website, you agree to the use of such cookies. Click here for more information on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
X