Winning IT support and support services for your business

Our IT support services are certified IT professionals based in the United States. We offer a high-quality IT help desk and remote network monitoring services, every hour of the day. Much more than traditional technical support, Dataprise Technical Support Services provide our customers with professional and immediate assistance without costly assistance.

Help desk software is the heart of a well-run help center and is a vital consideration for business owners. In fact, it is one of the main priorities of a company, be it a small or medium company (SME) or a large organization. Fortunately, there is no shortage of options to choose from, as there is a wide range of assistive software. Some solutions are better suited to SMEs, while others are better suited to larger organizations; Others, however, are better suited for internal IT operations than for organizations that handle customer requests. Also, not all technical support software is created the same way. The IT Help Desk is generally considered more tactical, with the primary goal of helping to quickly resolve immediate end-user needs and technical problems and incidents. The helpdesk is reactive in nature, but it must be efficient and fast. The IT help desk may be separate or part of a larger help desk operation to improve customer service for the entire organization.

Technology can happen anywhere, anytime, and access to IT support is crucial. When one of your IT users has a question or needs help with a software program or device, they will have immediate access to technical support, day or night. All covered IT support services are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including weekends and holidays, to help users in your organization meet their IT support needs. When users call our helpdesk, they can be sure that their needs are quickly understood and addressed.

The IT service center is generally a larger, more strategic, and cross-organizational function. A service center examines the broader needs and context of the business rather than focusing only on meeting user needs, as a helpdesk does. The support desk is the central point of contact for technology support at Illinois Tech. The support desk staff provides technical troubleshooting and administrative support to all students, faculty, and staff. To more easily meet your needs, the helpdesk uses a peer-to-peer model that allows student learners to support student problems.

24/7 IT support: managed services and IT support

Several IT-managed support and service companies claim to offer 24/7 IT support, but do not define exactly what they mean. What is 24/7 IT support?

For some support companies, 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week IT support simply means automated 24-hour-a-day, 7-a-week monitoring that records and reports errors that the Support can respond to when they are in the office. Other companies may go further and provide IT support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but outsource it to another provider, who does not know your account, to handle problems outside normal business hours.

24/7 IT support center technical consultants are available in person, by phone, or by chat to assist you with campus applications and services or to assist you with your personal computer or device. The center can also provide information such as the location of campus computer labs, the availability of on-campus training, and information on obtaining off-campus assistance.

StratusPointIT, formerly ComputerSupport.com, is an end-to-end technology solutions provider, a highly award-winning IT company that combines expertise, creativity and versatility for your success. Our solutions help companies migrate to the cloud, enhance local operations with managed IT services and 24/7 national on-site IT support. This is what you should do. wait:

WOW24-7 has strong professional experience in providing remote technical support services to companies around the world. Our technology specialists work with companies in different industries to help them deliver an excellent customer experience.

Why is WOW24-7 considered one of the best technical support companies in the United States and Europe? Thanks to our innovative solutions! We have armed our clients with a range of advantages such as:

24/7 technical support. Your clients will receive reactive help at all times. Our agents go out of their way to offer you a personalized approach and thus strengthen your loyalty to your brand.

Increase productivity. Do you want to improve the productivity of your team? We have a solution! Outsource technical support for WOW24-7 and allow your staff to focus on core development and top-level customer demands.

Fast answer. Whatever the problem, our team is made up of certified members who can offer professional technical support at L1. As a result, you'll get reduced average call time and a quick response to customer inquiries.

Monthly reports. We analyze all customer requests and document what works well and what needs to be improved. Let our team manage your frontline support and keep you informed with regular metric reports.

What is a Help Desk?

It is full of jargon. It can be difficult to keep track of all the relevant processes, frameworks, tools and acronyms. With all the obscure IT terms floating around the world, there are three important terms related to IT support that we often see confused, confused, or misused:

• Service desk (or "IT service desk")
• Help Desk (or "IT Help Desk")
• ITSM ("IT Service Management")

Does it matter if you use the term help desk, service desk or ITSM to describe IT support? This is the case, because you may be sub-selling or over-selling capabilities (to yourself or others), including your IT support technology.

What is a Help Desk?

As defined by Merriam-Webster, a help desk is "a group of people who provide general help and information for electronic or computer problems." Given this definition, it may seem at first glance that there is little difference between helpdesk and helpdesk, but the missing keyword here is "customer". While the primary goal of a help desk is simply to solve problems, the primary goal of a help desk is to provide services to its customers or users. There is a certain emphasis on service delivery and customer centralization on missing services in support services.

And although support services are often limited to a single ITSM activity (in particular, incident management or problem solving process), support services cover the widest range of activities mentioned above. In a sense, support services are therefore a subset of services.

If you are still confused about the differences between a help desk and a help desk, don't worry. It is true that the distinction may seem a bit difficult, so we have tried to clarify it by analyzing all the differences between them below.

What is Service Desk?

The ITIL definition of a service center is as follows: “The single point of contact between the service provider and users. A typical service center handles incidents and service requests, and also manages communication with users. "

This definition may seem a bit formal and vague, so here is an easier way to express it: a service center is a communication center where customers (for example, employees or other interested parties) can find help from their suppliers. IT services. As indicated by the ITIL service center definition, this assistance can take the form of incident resolution or service request processing, but whatever the type of assistance provided, the goal of a service is to provide a high-quality service to customers in a timely manner.

Service offices often also include various ITSM activities. For example, a service center generally includes ITSM activities that include service request management, incident management, knowledge management, self-service, and reporting. In general, there are also strong links to the problem and change management processes.

An IT service center helps customers resolve incidents or manage service requests, creates and manages service knowledge, provides self-service to customers who want to resolve incidents quickly and independently, and provides measurements on equipment and tool effectiveness. Service desks may include more or less than that, but the point is that they are a robust, service-oriented, customer-centric way of providing IT support to customers.

What is ITSM?

IT service management, often called ITSM, is simply how IT teams manage end-to-end service delivery to customers. This includes all IT service design, creation, delivery and support processes and activities. The core concept of ITSM is the belief that IT must be delivered as a service.

Due to their daily interactions with IT, people often interpret ITSM as basic IT support. Rather, ITSM teams monitor all kinds of technologies in the workplace, from laptops to servers and critical software applications.

ITSM generally consists of several basic processes, as defined by ITIL, the most widely accepted framework or approach for ITSM. These are some of these processes:

• Service request management
• Administrative knowledge
• IT asset management
• Incident management
• Problem management
• Change management

You will notice that some of these processes, such as IT asset management, problem management, and change management, are outside the scope of basic IT support. This is because the ITSM covers all the activities involved in providing IT to the company. Although the scope of ITSM is broad, help desks and help desks are defined in a much more limited way and represent only smaller parts of ITSM.

Service Desk vs help Desk: What’s the Difference?

• The service desk is an evolution of the help desk, born out of the ITIL framework of ITSM best practices (formerly known as the IT infrastructure library), and based on the underlying concept of "managing IT as that service".
• A help desk is born out of IT-centric computing (mainframe), while a service desk is born out of service-centric computing (the aforementioned approach taken by ITIL to provide IT as a service)
• This may sound insignificant, but many argue that a helpdesk provides help, while a helpdesk provides a service, that is, that with a helpdesk, the goal is to provide service to end users with an appearance of customer service.
• A helpdesk is considered to be troubleshooting (what ITIL calls incident management), while a helpdesk is there to help not only with troubleshooting but also with service requests (requests for new services ) and requests for information (such as "how to do X?"). Although there is no reason why a help desk cannot offer these additional features (aside from IT terminology trends).
• A help desk was an addition to existing IT operations, while the help desk is part of an ecosystem of IT service delivery and IT support based on something called "the service life cycle". This is probably a great reason why the term helpdesk was used in ITIL helpdesk.
• Those familiar with ITIL will state that a help desk is tactical, while a help desk is strategic. Of course, this will vary from one organization to another.
• A help desk may be viewed by some as offering a subset of help desk capabilities, or may be described as limited in scope by statements such as "the evolution of help desk service 'support".

The Importance of Service Desk and Help Desk Tools

If your team takes the service desk approach, choosing the right service desk software for your organization is critical, as it is a foundation of ITSM. The service desk serves as the interface between customers and the IT team. Of course, features like knowledge management and reporting are critical in a service desk solution, but you’ll also want a service desk that's easy to use and set up, enables collaboration, and adapts to your needs. That way, your IT team can deliver excellent support - and value to the business - quickly.

And even if your team takes the help desk approach, having a tool that helps you keep track of what issues come up and who is solving them is crucial. With a dedicated help desk tool, your IT team can be more transparent, collaborative, and efficient.

The Top 10 Benefits of Outsourcing IT through Managed Services

Outsourcing of IT services through managed IT services can bring immediate benefits.

1. Control IT costs

Outsourcing converts IT fixed costs into variable costs and allows you to have an effective budget. In other words, you only pay for what you use when you need it.

2. Reduce labor costs

Hiring and training IT staff can be very expensive, and temporary workers don't always meet your expectations. Outsourcing allows you to focus your employees where you need them most.

3. Trained, experienced, qualified, certified.

How do you ensure that an employee is qualified if they are not IT trained? Certifications like Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) are important, but they are also experienced.

4. Qualified has no immediate experience

Few problems are new to top IT service companies experiencing multiple related issues. An internal IT employee leads an isolated existence, no matter how much he trains. We would all prefer to be an experienced doctor; The same applies to IT.

5. Increase efficiency and competitiveness.

Businesses that attempt to do all IT services in-house may have much more time to research, develop, and implement, increasing costs and ultimately passing it on to customers.

6. Deploy new technology quickly

A high-quality outsourced IT services organization has the resources to start new projects right away. Working internally on the same project can take weeks or months to hire the right people, train them, and provide the necessary support. For most deployments, high-quality IT companies initially have years of experience to save time and money.

7. Focus on your core business

Organizations have limited resources and each manager has limited time and attention. Outsourcing can help your company focus on its core business and not be distracted by complex IT decisions.

8. Reduce risk

Every business investment carries a certain risk. Markets, competition, government regulations, financial conditions, and technologies are changing very rapidly. Outsourcing providers assume and control a large portion of this risk for you with industry-specific knowledge, in particular security and compliance issues. In general, they can make much better decisions about how to avoid risks in their areas of expertise.

9. Level the playing field

Most small companies cannot afford to use the internal support services of large companies. Outsourcing can help small companies act "big" by giving them access to similar technologies and expertise that large companies have. An independent cost structure and economies of scale managed by third parties can give your business a competitive advantage.

10. Compliance and security

Is your firewall up to date? Do you have a DMZ installed? Check your workstations and servers? Has your company implemented PCI security standards and is working to maintain them? For example, companies have more options than ever to be successful with many payment methods, such as credit and debit cards, gift vouchers, electronic checks, and bank transfers, to name just a few. However, these forms of transaction also require due diligence. By outsourcing a qualified Managed Services company that is familiar with PCI compliance standards, you can be assured that your company will minimize the risks associated with maintaining customer information, credit card numbers, confidential competitive information, and more.

Role OF IOT Managed Services in the Evolution of Corporate IOT

IOT Managed Services is ready to help companies in many ways, from building and administering the entire network to managing specific projects, such as: B. the move to 3G extinction.

IoT is no longer just the domain of the first users. This also means that multiple companies can implement IoT without fully understanding what's ahead. Many face decisions about how to integrate IoT architectures into their existing network environments, how to continue to manage those architectures, what devices are connected to them, and what applications they run.

In the past, IT employees in companies faced many similar decisions when implementing new technologies. They decided whether they would like to be involved in creating or managing solutions, or sought help from managed service providers who could do everything there. MSP can help you with any questions about long-term planning, purchasing hardware and software, building architectures, and managing your networks and services.

MSPs have been important business partners for decades and support them in developing connectivity, security and cloud computing technologies. The latest development that companies are looking for for MSP support is IoT development.

"The philosophy has changed because IoT is believed to be as easy as getting a data plan and connecting hardware," said Chris Baird, CEO of OptConnect, a communications company. Kaysville, Utah, which provided managed services. for many years and we officially launched an IOT management services offering at the recent IoT 2019 global conference and expo in Santa Clara, California. “When you think about how big the IoT is for companies and what they need to get started, it can be complex for many companies to combine different parts of the complete IoT solution. ""

According to Persistence Market Research, managed market IoT services are growing rapidly. The market, which includes services such as infrastructure management, network management, device management, security management, and data management, will be worth more than $ 94 billion by 2026, with an average annual growth rate of more than 20% between 2018 and 2026, an estimated PMR 2018- Study.

Different needs

Ultimately, there are many reasons why a business can choose a managed IoT service provider. Most obviously, they lack the knowledge and experience to do the job effectively and profitably.

Steve Garrett, Product Manager at OptConnect, said that many companies are beginning to deal with the growing interest in IoT. "They are not fully trained and have no idea how to connect their devices." These are the companies that likely need a fully managed service solution that encompasses everything from sensor hardware to connectivity, security, network monitoring, and possibly more.

Other companies, Garrett said, "know the Internet of Things and are trying to rebuild it. You can try to make the decision to create or buy something and realize that there are simply too many options. An MSP can be one. Help companies manage this moment ". Parts of the IoT construction or management of aspects of the IoT architecture that the company does not manage alone.

Garrett said companies that are very familiar with IoT and that are sufficiently advanced in their IoT travel may be forced to migrate a self-managed architecture to a third-party managed service. "We have clients who have deployed 4,000 to 5,000 mobile phone websites that are overwhelmed and have learned that they can no longer grow their business. We have delivered many of these portfolios and transferred them to our services."

For some companies, the need for managed Internet of Things services may not be due to a lack of knowledge, but to more practical management problems, such as: B. Lack of budgets for the sale of IoT devices. These companies may find it more advantageous to pay the IoT as ongoing operating expenses than to provide a much larger budget for the two initial investment costs associated with implementing the IoT.

But not all companies may need a managed service solution for "nut soup," as Garrett has described. Some companies may not have enough team members with specific skills to manage one aspect of IoT administration, such as: B. Connectivity, security, data analytics, or device management. In these cases, an MSP can manage this pain instead of everything. For example, OptConnect, which focuses primarily on cellular technology for IoT connectivity, can focus on managing a company's connections to multiple operators without being more involved in the company's internal IoT architecture, if all of this works, he said.

Management of "Sunset"

Sometimes the need for managed services becomes apparent from the first day that a company begins to develop its IoT strategy. However, in other cases, the need may be motivated by an event that is not necessarily under the control of that company. An example of this particular type of problem is the so-called "3G sunset," which refers to the plans of several large mobile operators to finally eliminate 3G connectivity when 4G becomes more dominant and 5G begins. for delivery. Many mobile operators will shut down 3G by the end of 2020 and 2020, but different operators are likely to do so at different times, which can make the transition confusing.

Also, preparing IoT networks for businesses for this transition is not as easy as simply replacing a 3G module with a 4G module. 4G has features, including higher bandwidth, that could improve 3G and give businesses a reason to rethink their applications and the way they use their IoT connections. 3G modules in industrial plants may also require more time and planning for separation, and the legal requirements for certification of these devices may vary from generation to generation. These issues have proven to be a critical factor for companies seeking MSP help and have inspired some IoT device vendors to offer device management as a managed service.

"Overall, this is a long-term strategy," Dennis Kelley, executive vice president of sales for Telit, said by email. With the demise of 3G networks, organizations implementing IoT must ensure that every decision they make is valid throughout the implementation cycle. In the utility sector, for example, they expect the meter to remain off at a customer or industrial site for 10 to 15 years. ""

He added: "Switching from 3G to 4G is a technological change. Therefore, there are different functions and different types of network operations. Businesses should take this into account. Therefore, there are regulatory considerations." It's not just about deleting a form and inserting a new one that is suddenly automatically certified, "Kelley said. In general, legal requirements have changed since the last time a client was certified. Clients should be aware of these. changes and therefore be prepared to comply with these legal regulations to implement this next generation device "".

As IoT becomes increasingly important to a company's success, more of them can take responsibility for certain IoT processes and functions internally, especially for those with the highest business sensitivity or business value. competitive. In these cases, companies are simply trying to protect their "secret sauce" and MSPs need to work with them to deliver the parts they need, Kelley said.

"His concern is security: whether someone has access to his application or not," he said. "So you run it on a CPU and motherboard memory and it works the same way, whether it's a service or a platform. We have clients who want us to manage everything and we have other clients, who just want to if we're a data channel or we simply want to add a messaging service or we want to be the data platform, it only depends on the client and the execution of your application.

Network Deployment

Once the design is complete, the solution must be delivered to the field and the field implementation task begins. Regardless of whether it's a simple change, migration, or full deployment of new hardware and software, the need for a robust methodology, process, and extensive network of proven field resources is critical.

Successful deployment on site does not just involve sending a technician to install, upgrade, or replace hardware or software on site. To be successful, you need a well-designed plan, logistics skills, and a reliable network of field resources. If many companies have the technical know-how to develop the design, they lack the logistical and field components necessary for successful use.

The solution

Externetworks, Network Deployment Services provides all the elements necessary for a successful deployment. In general, these act as a turnkey solution, or individual elements can be used to bridge gaps in your equipment.

Project management: leadership and coordination.

Site survey: on-site field engineering validates and documents the environment

Staging: Loading, configuring, and testing solutions before shipping increases success

On-site use: Make sure your facilities run smoothly using TekMinders' national network of technicians on-site

WHAT YOU WILL RECEIVE

Website Survey 

• Verification of site readiness on site
• Written report of all requirements before installation.

Staging

• Receive and review equipment at a central delivery facility
• Load and configure hardware / software according to design specifications

• Test as a system
• Repack and send to installation site

Use on site

• Take a physical inventory, inspect and install network hardware
• Connect the physical interfaces and check the status of the network interface.
• Turn on connectivity and test

Express logistics services

Externetworks will manage and accommodate customer-specific parts at our parts storage locations. We will work with you to create a savings plan, store our locations and ship replacement parts when needed, and even process RMAs.

SD-WAN Deployment Options: DIY vs. Cloud Managed

So you can implement SD-WAN. Now you must make a decision: do it yourself or buy it as a managed service?

As the market for software defined wide area networks (SD-WAN) continues to grow significantly, the way that companies use SD-WAN Deployment Service, and the way that vendors sell it, is evolving.

According to Lee Doyle, director of Doyle Research, there are three main models. At one end of the spectrum is DIY, where end users install and manage software and service. At the other extreme is a fully managed approach, where a vendor performs the installation and ongoing support of the deployment. A hybrid option combines the two, with the provider managing some aspects of installation and administration, and end users can tailor the solution to their needs.

"There is currently a real mix of customer attitudes towards deployments," said Ramesh Prabagaran, senior director of SD-WAN at Cisco. How do companies know which approach is the right one? He says it depends on your comfort level.

Many of the larger companies like Fortune 50 still use this technology, Prabagaran says.

Medium-sized companies are rather mixed. Some have the experience to manage installation and ongoing support, while others want some level of help from their vendor.

The hybrid option with managed service providers, with which customers can tailor certain aspects of provision, is becoming increasingly popular. According to Robert McBride, head of product marketing at software vendor SD-WAN Versa, this approach enables customers to control things like providing new network connections, setting compliance rules, and creating policies for specific applications. Versa, which sells its software to a variety of managed service providers and telecommunications providers, enables it through role-based access controls of multiple tenants in SD-WAN software. In this way, a supplier can enable the provision of certain aspects of the provision by the customer.

DIY vs. Managed SD-WAN

Deciding whether to manage an SD-WAN deployment yourself or use it as a service depends on the client's ability to run it. Does the customer have in-house staff to manage the deployment and resources to redesign WAN connections to branch offices and remote locations? As a rule, the largest companies have sufficient resources, says McBride. Smaller companies do not have this experience and use SD-WAN as a service. Medium customers are divided between the two approaches.

Capital One’s SD-WAN Deployment 

Capital One took a hybrid approach to implementing SD-WAN, Jason Abfalter, chief technology officer for Capital One's retail and direct banking division, said at the Open Networking User Group meeting in New York last fall. The company recently completed its SD-WAN installation at branch number 75 in the past five months. The company performs at least one new installation a week, sometimes even two a day. Capital One does this primarily in-house, but plans to install Versa installations, which are also available during installation, to resolve issues.

Andrew Dugan, senior vice president of technology planning, network architecture and security at CenturyLink, which offers a managed SD-WAN service, says working with a managed SD-WAN provider brings benefits. "Many customers come to us because they not only want to use SD-WAN, but also want to integrate it more fully into a range of network services that we can offer," he says. Customers combine various types of broadband connections, MPLS with a private connection, and even mobile or LTE services at their branches. A service provider can group these services on a consolidated invoice while performing ongoing maintenance.

Another advantage of working with a service provider, according to McBride, is that you can have direct connections to public cloud services, be it IaaS providers like Amazon Web Service or Microsoft Azure, or SaaS providers like Salesforce. It can be difficult for individual organizations to connect directly to cloud providers unless they go through a connection point.

The Next Wave: SD-Branch

There is currently an even bigger trend in the industry, which can be seen as the next development beyond SD-WAN. This involves creating a software-defined branch (SD branch) and managing many network functions in the branch through software. McBride says that many customer sites have six to ten network management devices, including routers, wireless access points, firewalls, unified threat management systems, and WAN optimization. The purpose of SD-Branch is to consolidate all of this into one system.

SD-WAN is considered one of the applications that can be consolidated into an SD branch. If customers want to combine these multiple branches into a single system, they face similar decisions to do it themselves or to work with a service provider. As with SD-WAN, customer appetite depends on the resources they have to move on to the next wave of branch virtualization.

Skills to Run a Network Operations Centre

A NOC is designed to help monitor a company's network and to make sure everything is stored, backed up, and working properly. The only way for a NOC to be effective is to have a team of engineers, technicians and supervisors on duty responsible for ensuring that it works and works in optimal conditions. Different positions have different roles and responsibilities to ensure that a NOC operates efficiently and that the company using the NOC is properly notified and supported.

For example, ExterNetworks is successful because its engineers, technicians, and supervisors on duty know what they are doing and what they are responsible for. They work together to ensure that the NOC works correctly for their clients. A NOC network operations centre needs qualified engineers and conscientious shift managers to function properly.

How does communication flow through a NOC?

Two central employees make up the staff of a NOC: the supervisors on duty and the engineers. There are three important parts to this flow, each of which is specifically managed to ensure proper operation of the NOC.

Network Operation Centre Job Description

1. Incident management

NOC engineers and technicians manage this part of the communication flow. They take care of all the company's complaints about your network to see what happens. They also process requests for updates, new orders, reports, and other NOC-managed company information.

2. Climbing

A NOC engineer or technician generally handles the escalation, but a shift supervisor can handle the escalation at the request of the company that owns the network. An escalation generally occurs when standard troubleshooting does not help, but must be corrected in a timely manner.

3. Prioritization

Prioritization is managed by shift supervisors. They monitor all tickets and incidents entering the NOC and assign them according to importance and priority to ensure the most critical tasks are completed as soon as possible. This ensures that there are no minor problems on a company's network.

Skills required to run a corporate network operations centre.

As with any job, there are specific skills that NOC employees must have to make sure it works properly at all times:

Incident management: mastery of the management of any incident that occurs in the NOC or in the company network

Documentation: must be competent in documenting problems, reports, etc. to make sure things work out quickly.

Monitoring infrastructure: You must know the internal workings and functionality of the NOC infrastructure to be able to accurately monitor problems.

Use experience: must be competent in NOC experiences

Understand routing / change very well - you must know how to route information and be able to change the route if necessary

Monitor Systems: Must be proficient in how to monitor systems and what to look for

Reports: you must be able to correctly report the different aspects of a network

Understand SAN Basics - Competent to understand SAN basics

Follow-up problems: competent to follow / follow up on the problems that appear in the NOC

Troubleshooting: Competent and knowledgeable about networks and how to properly solve various problems

In general, a NOC must function properly to be effective. Shift supervisors, technicians, and NOC engineers must have a thorough understanding of technical issues and procedures to perform their work effectively for the companies that use them. They must be available to monitor networks 24 hours a day, to ensure they continue to function optimally for their customers.