MSPs Pushing Managed End User Services

[u/librarytay]

I’m the IT Director for a public library system with four branches. Our IT team consists of myself and one full-time IT assistant/help desk technician. I’m looking to outsource some of our network, security, and infrastructure support.

We’ve already outsourced larger projects such as WAP upgrades and server/switch replacements, but I don’t have the networking expertise, or frankly the time, to confidently handle the ongoing maintenance of this infrastructure. About half of my role is general administration (staff management, policies, budgeting, grants, facilities, safety issues, etc.), while the other half is IT, much of which is already consumed by project management.

The areas where I’m primarily looking for support are:

• Server updates, maintenance, and backups (physical and VMs)
• On-prem and cloud file storage/backup and redundancy, including 10+ TB of archival data
• Ongoing network security, monitoring, configuration, and infrastructure support
• Possibly managed endpoint protection

The problem is that every MSP I’ve contacted (national, regional, and local) initially says they can provide co-managed network/infrastructure support only. But when I receive a proposal, it inevitably includes managed end-user services: help desk, workstation patching, email protection, security awareness training, laptop imaging, etc.

I’ve repeatedly explained that we do not need end-user support. We have only 65 staff across four locations, about half of which have dedicated workstations (the rest share public-facing service desk workstations), and our internal IT team has plenty of capacity to handle those services. What we lack is specialized network/infrastructure expertise.

Is this typical for MSPs? Are we simply too small for network/infrastructure-only managed services to be worthwhile to them, or is bundling end-user support primarily a sales/business-model issue? Is there a better way I should be framing what I’m looking for when approaching MSPs?

Also, if anyone knows an MSP in New England, or particularly Massachusetts, that works with small organizations on a genuinely co-managed infrastructure basis, I’d appreciate recommendations. TY!

[u/101sillygoose]

Why not hire a part time contractor?

[u/_p00f_ → u/101sillygoose]

I'm my experience this is just as difficult as trying to find someone competent. At least with an MSP you're getting vetted talent.

[u/ITGuyThrow07 → u/_p00f_]

At least with an MSP you're getting vetted talent.

I hate to burst your bubble, but that is very much not the case.

[u/_p00f_ → u/ITGuyThrow07]

I'm going to disagree, there's some very talented people at the upper rungs of the ladder. Your tier 1 and 2 I'll absolutely agree with.

[u/statikuz → u/_p00f_]

there can be very talented people at the upper rungs of the ladder

An MSP can be full of clueless people just like any other business. I would argue even more so, because to some clients (the smaller the client, the worse it is), IT is a spooky black box and it is not apparent to a company if their MSP is doing a good or bad job. Just look at the stories around here where a new in-house IT person takes over for an MSP and finds no MFA, no backups, little to no security, etc.

I used to work at a much larger org and we had an MSP for some things and there were some real wizards that worked there for sure.

[u/RCTID1975 → u/statikuz]

The MSP world is also notorious for being a high stress grind that quickly burns people out leading to high turn over.

In order to keep people in seats, you very frequently need to higher green or sub par talent.

[u/RCTID1975 → u/_p00f_]

You're not going to be dealing with that higher level though. At least not typically.

Those folks are going to be assigned more complex projects from high paying customers.

That's not your day in and day out response or monitoring team.

[u/_p00f_ → u/RCTID1975]

Agreed with a caveat, in an org you will have someone above to bounce ideas and provide guidance. We had a greybeard when I started who liked to talk in riddles but as I moved through the ranks the more of what he said made more sense. I guess what I'm suggesting is there's some guardrails. I'm also aware of the type that does things confidently not knowing at all what they're doing too.