What is Managed IT Services? What does this do for my company? Can I afford this service?

My name is Pat, Sales Executive for IT Vizion. Many of our new customers are not aware of what this service is and what the services can do for their company. A majority of the cold-calls I make daily result in customers that are not interested in the Managed IT Services itself. One of the major problems that I noticed is that few people are aware of what Managed IT Services is and what it can provide for their company.

“Bottom-line” and in a “Nutshell,” its outsourcing any virtual IT function that can be done in-house through another company enabling themselves to focus on more important matters such as increasing company revenue or re-positioning the company for more business.

Managed IT Services ensures the level of knowledge that a current IT staff would ensure on-site. IT Vizion provides many services including DesktopCare and ServerCare maintenance which includes some of the following: patch management, network-performance monitoring, intrusion detection and prevention, remote backup and storage, virus prevention, customer relationship management, and a help desk. Anything that pertains to boost an organization’s productivity and off-load the burden to a third party can be considered a managed service.

IT Vizion does everything your IT Staff does without having to train, make up for vacation, or any other issues that would keep one IT personel from managing the company systems.

Properly implemented managed services have the potential to create more consistencies and higher profit margins for solution providers while streamlining business processes and efficiencies.

Relying on a Managed IT Services is provider is one of the best ways to handle problems like system downtime, our company is a “proactive” solutions company. Proactive means constant process to prevent abrupt issues causing company downtime.

Managed IT Services is absolutely affordable because IT Vizion already has the dedicated staff employed to service our clients with any needs pertaining to the services provided. The cost of having an IT investment is higher than outsourcing the promise for “piece of mind” in company operating costs.

I spoke to another prospective customer previously and they asked if something like this was extremely expensive, some were immediately deterred from the idea itself because the cost for Managed IT Services was presumed as a higher cost compared to having an IT Staff in-house. Depending on needs of the company, I would say the cost of having Managed IT Services is less than the cost for one head IT person. “Think about this for the bottom-line.”

Yes, Managed IT Services is affordable! Meet with us and we’ll show you how.

Today I got a very good question from a firm that handles over 2,000 machines. They have an internal IT staff (of about 10), and overall they seem to do a great job on their own. The question was “What can you do for us?”. So I thought about it for about 5-seconds before I responded.

IT Vizion prides itself on its ability to work with existing IT staff members. We work behind the scenes as a partner, helping firms become more effective and efficient as a company. There is always room for improvement. And based on my 10-years experience in IT, every company needs a trusted partner they can turn to to either bounce off general ideas or request 3rd level support.

The foundation for every successful project based relationship that IT Vizion handles is as follows. A Project Manager is assigned in charge of the design and installation of the proposed solution. At the same time an Account Manager is also put on the project to assist with all quotes and product acquisition (if needed) from our strategic partners.

The following is a list of a few of projects types we regularly work on with our clients:

• Provide an integrated set of tools for IT management
• Move or relocation assistance
• Database performance tuning or backup/recovery
• ASP.NET, PHP, .NET or Java programming
• Exchange server installation or upgrades
• Firewall integration
• Desktop upgrades
• Backup solutions
• And much more…

To become an IT Vizion client and receive the service level you’ve been missing or for more information contact us online. Alternatively, call us today at 866.848.7809 or 951.256.4320.

Ok. So let me break away from the Oracle OpenWorld related side of things, and discuss my new adventure. Because of my long interest/affair with Linux (#307589), I picked up a copy of Oracle Unbreakable Linux and decided to install it on my laptop (HP Compaq 6510b).

Here is a bit of my install experience of what I had to do to get to this point, where I’m ready to install the Oracle Database.

My system is setup (now) for a dual boot between both Windows XP Pro & Oracle Linux. I had to repartition my drive (Paragon Partition Manager worked just dandy), start the Oracle Linux install (which is basically a recompiled version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5), created my Linux partitions, selected the Software Development + Web Server package, and let roll. 15-minutes later it was complete. After a reboot I noticed that the X didn’t start (startx). The problem is that the new /etc/X11/xorg.conf (as of RHES 4x) didn’t discover my laptop’ video/display information. So I hacked my way through it and added/modified the Monitor and Screent sections of the xorg.conf. This is part of how my xorg.conf looks:

Section “Monitor”
Identifier “Monitor0″
VendorName “HP Monitor”
ModelName “LCD Panel 1280×800″
HorizSync 31.5-82.00
VertRefresh 58.0-75.0
Option “dpms”
EndSection

Section “Device”
Identifier “Videocard0″
Driver “vesa”
EndSection

Section “Screen”
Identifier “Screen0″
Device “Videocard0″
Monitor “Monitor0″
DefaultDepth 24
# Modes “1280×800″ “1024×768″ “800×600″
SubSection “Display”
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes “1280×800″ “1024×768″ “800×600″
EndSubSection
EndSection

After updating the xorg.conf, issued a startx and voila! Xwindows (gnome) is up and running… Now, on to getting the database installed …. Cheers.

I am spending the week in San Francisco at Oracle’s OpenWorld. This is the “premier” Oracle event. Oracle takes the opportunity to talk about progress (over the years), introduce new products, and discuss its road-map. This years’ event attracted over 43,000 attendees.

San Francisco is a great city to see (that’s later in the week), but my purpose here is to come up to speed on Oracle’s flagship product, their Database, and see how it can be applied/managed better for our customers. The new Oracle Database 11g has a handful of new features including things that stood out in the crowd - at least for me: Database Replay (change management), Fault Diagnosability Infrastructure (similar to the OFA idea), RMAN improvements (such as active database duplication), DataPump enhancements (additional encryption support, AES), tablespace encryption, and statistics improvements to mention a few.

Since I work quite a bit with embedded Oracle installations, I was disappointed to see that Oracle hasn’t made any changes to the way it’s embedded database technology works - besides introducing OracleLite. Well, I take that back. One thing that they’ve done is to update the Embedded Database Readme and Installation docs… Here is one major problem I have with the current process, and it just irks me:

• Ability to deliver the just the install files necessary to support the customer environment, and not the the entire 1.76GB folder!

This is a huge disadvantage if you ever consider delivering the application over the FTP. Besides this “minor” drawback, the embedded database works pretty well - as long as you have all your database maintenance schedules in place.

For today, I’m checking out. Let’s see what tomorrow holds at the Moscone Center… Ciao.

Like most IT consulting providers, it was easy to make money off of customers in panic needing immediate/emergency network support or Windows server and/or desktop resolution. When I started Ivascu Consulting, LLC (now IT Vizion) in 2004, that’s was how we operated our business. On a break-fix approach. Driving around town (at least 100mi. daily) putting out “fires”.  Reacting to problems.

Then, Managed Services came along. In 2005 I first read an in depth white paper about managed mervices. Initially, it looked like another expensive business proposition - expensive for IT Vizion that is. However, after further research on the subject matter, it became evident that for my company to really bring value to my customers, I had to do something different. Different then what every other “IT consultant” does. That meant investing money I didn’t have, in implementing a managed services infrastructure. Over the past two years, IT Vizion has invested well over $100k in perfecting our processes, implementation, and training, so we can be proactive to customer issues.

Today, our business model is a strict managed services one. We no longer run around town putting out fires after they impacted our customer’s business, instead we work around the clock doing preventive maintenance and avoiding over 80% of typical issues. We maintain servers, desktops and laptops using systematic inspection, detection, and correction of incipient failures either before they occur or before they develop into any major defects. Besides preventive maintenance work, we become intimate with our customer’s networks, their business needs, growth patterns, and their staff. We become part of their winning team. A trusted business partner in discussing trends, IT strategy, procurement, filling a CTO/IT Manager type role for those that lack it or cannot afford it, and a single point of contact and accountability for any technology related issues.

Since then, our company has grown significantly based mainly on word-of-mouth. We want to keep that tradition going and we will continue to do whatever it takes to make IT work for our valued customers!

For those not familiar with what Managed Services really mean, here is how Dr. Gerard E. Macioce, one of the leading experts in the field of organizational leadership and business processes used by the United States federal organizations, defines it: “… the practice of transferring day-to-day related [IT] management responsibility as a strategic method for improved effective and efficient operation.”.  Read more about it here.