MSP

How to Migrate from One Managed Service Provider to Another

End of Support

When signing up for a new Managed Services Provider you should finalize dates of when a new Managed Services Provider will take on support for your company and the old provider will cease support. There should be at least 2 weeks ( recommended 1 Month ) in between for a handover period, to make sure there is no drop in IT Support Quality for your Company.

Migration

Your new MSP should help you with below automatically but this is a list for any company or project manager needing to understand what should be completed.

  • Documentation - Make sure all Documentation from the old provider is handed over to the new one and it is as up-to-date as possible. The company being Supported should also have copies of this on file. The new company should check this and make sure any questions have been answered by the new provider. This should be sent over in a password protected encrypted format (password sent by another means of communication e.g. SMS ).
     
  • Migration of servers if needed - If your servers are stored onsite you don't need to worry about this, however, some servers are hosted virtually with MSP's hardware or hosted in a rack owned by the MSP. You will need to investigate Physical or Virtual Migrations. If hosted with Services such as Azure/AWS the company should have their own login to these portals
     
  • Migration of Services if needed - Double check what services the Old MSP currently provide that will cease after the support. This could be DNS Hosting, Website Hosting, 365 Tenant hosting, Mail Hosting, Domain Registration, Mail Filtering.
     
  • Support Agreements - Make sure you have a list of all Third Party Support Agreements currently held by the company such as Vmware, Firewall, Web Filtering, Veeam
  • Software - Make sure you have a list of all software purchased by your company or old MSP as well as keys. Usually, you should have a login to the VLSC from Microsoft as well.
     
  • Monitoring - Make sure the old provider removes all their monitoring that has been set up to an external ( not internal ) system.
     
  • Antivirus - Make sure the old Antivirus is removed by the old provider and the new one has been installed.
     
  • RMM - Remote Monitoring Again make sure the old RMM tool is removed from all computers and the new one is installed by the new provider.

Passwords

Hopefully all your passwords have been stored in a password database either internally or hosted with the MSP. These should be handed over to the new provider. This should be sent over in a password protected encrypted format (password sent by another means of communication e.g. SMS )

Cutover Day

  • Make sure all your Staff know the new provider details and means to lodge support tickets
  • Access Accounts - For security reasons all service, root and domain admin passwords should be reset and updates on the needed system. Also remote access should be blocked from the old MSP
  • Create a rule on your Email server to monitor any emails going to the old MSP - This will catch old monitoring services etc.

VTL - Why you shouldn't invest in new tape Drives or Tapes

Amazon provides a service called VTL , Virtual Tape Library which means your Existing Backup Programs can utilise this service per normal E.g. Veeam! This means whenever your tape drive fails you can not move to this service with a Gateway and continue on your retention per normal without a shift in Technology or process

Costs

  • Virtual tape storage - $0.024 per GB-month of data stored
  • Virtual tape storage - Archived - $0.0045 per GB-month of data stored

How To 

  1. Download the AWS Storage Gateway virtual machine (VM) from the AWS Management Console, and deploy it where your backup server is located, on VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, or even in Amazon EC2.
  2. Install the gateway and provision storage (DAS, NAS or SAN) locally for the tape gateway. This storage will act as a durable “Upload Buffer" for data being uploaded to AWS, and as a cache for recently read virtual tape data. This Cache Storage space can be used to retain the latest backup for quick local recoveries.
  3. Configure the local gateway as a VTL using the AWS Management Console, associate its IP Address with your AWS Account and select an AWS Region for your gateway to store uploaded data.
  4. Mount the AWS Storage Gateway virtual tape drives and virtual media changer to your existing backup server and allow your backup software to discover the Virtual Tape Library and virtual tapes.
  5. Switch your backup jobs to the gateway, and data will be first written locally to the gateway, cached and buffered for upload into the VTL, which resides in S3. Much like tape automation systems, virtual tapes can be archived to Amazon Glacier for lower-cost retention which removes them from the online VTL.
  6. Retrieve tapes from archive in Amazon Glacier via the AWS Management Console and manage your recovery process via your backup software.
  7. You can deploy additional gateways at other sites, or in EC2 as well, both to back up data from those locations, and also for remote recoveries of your other sites.

Learn more about getting started here.

Azure

Starwind has partnered with Azure to offer a similar product however you need to purchase a VM to be able to do this

https://azuremarketplace.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/apps/starwind.starwindvtl?tab=Overview

Cost of this is : $0.01 / Month / GB in "Cool Storage" . and it's Archive Storage ( Cheaper ) is still to be priced

What is a MSP ( Managed Service Provider ) and why does your business need one?

MSP (Managed Service Provider ) Brief definition : Is a company that provides your company with IT Services such as Network Administrator, Server Management, Desktop and  IT Support

Here are the main Services that Managed Service Providers in Surrey, such as Response IT Provide

IT Helpdesk

This is probably the most important one that you think of when you need IT. Which is the speedy resolution of a problem with your Phone , Computer , Printer or Email! We operate a layered team of technical people who await your problem and will stay with you until we fix it or find someone who can! We use tools such as an IT Ticketing System to log calls so we can monitor call volumes from companies analyse ongoing problems so we can fix them instead of them reoccurring as well as providing training where needed.

This part of the organization is also responsible for looking at ongoing problems users face and recommending new software and hardware for the organization like server and computer upgrades or a new piece of software to speed up users existing work. These recommendations turn into Projects and are managed through the same ticketing system.
 

RMM (Remote Monitoring and Management)

This is a service we provide which you don't get to speak to as much as the IT helpdesk, but it's very important to the continued running of your IT System. We have monitoring tools to check that your system is running fine with regards to servers being alive , internet connection staying up and not being heavily utilised and also everything is up-to-date. This enables us to fix problems before you even know about it!

We have a dedicated NOC (Network Operations Center) who are solely responsible for the task of remote management. This team also help us to automate tasks such as rolling out Security Updates and Software , performing a SAM Audit of your network to check Licensing compliance and check of backups which brings us onto the subject below!

Backup and Disaster

Another big one that happens behind the scenes and is very important with new threats we are seeing such as 

  •     User Error

  •     Natural Disasters

  •     Hardware Failures

  •     Cybercrime

  •     Insider Threats

We provide services which can give you multi-layers of backups which can protect you from any of the above and enable you to recover for accidental deletions , virus outbreaks which cannot be recovered from ( such as Cryptolocker ! ) as well a Disaster Recovery solution where in the worst case the core of your business still runs to avoid and loss of business

 

Why do you need one of these?

All the above main services are there to keep your IT Infrastructure running which enables you to keep running your business without interruption. Downtime of an IT System is an unexpected cost which gets overlooked but costs the company by :

  • Employees not being able to work ( Waste of salary / time cost )
  • Existing customers not being able to contact you to either create new business or continue existing
  • New Customers not being able to contact you and going to a competitor
  • Loss of Data - The re-doing of existing work or permanent loss of a customer

Going with an MSP gives you access to a broad range of skillsets with our unique experts which enables speedy resolutions of problems if/when they happen and a plan to mitigate these in the future