Networks are growing more complex by the day and to monitor them effectively, organizations need to invest in technical know-how, expensive tools, and costly operations. To avoid the overheads of cost, effort, and time, and to ensure constant availability of networks, more and more organizations are turning to managed service providers (MSPs) to manage their network. In fact, the global market for MSPs has been steadily growing and is expected to cross $300 million in the next few years.

2021 is sure to bring a number of challenges for your MSP—here are some of the best tools on the market today that can help your company overcome these challenges. Managed services providers (MSPs) and other businesses that deal with sensitive data on behalf of their customers and their own organization face a range of challenges.

Unlike the previous year, more managed service providers (MSPs) are embracing digitalization in 2021. Many organizations have adopted a remote-first mentality and are investing in technologies that are strategically aligned with this new way of life. Despite the 3.2 percent decline in IT spending in 2020, Gartner projects that spending will surge and reach $3.9 trillion worldwide in 2021. More IT organizations are investing in enterprise software as remote work becomes essential.

Data loss can cause big problems for managed service providers (MSPs) and their customers. With an MSP backup and disaster recovery (BDR) solution in place, MSPs can guard against data loss following a cyber attack, hardware failure, or any other IT incident.

Monitoring is a major part of a Managed Service Provider or MSP. After all, it emerged as remote management and monitoring (RMM) of servers. However, today MSP’s scope is well-defined and distinguished from standard RMMs. Nevertheless, monitoring is still a key service that these companies provide to their clients. Managed service providers take care of all the IT infrastructure of their clients.

Managed service providers (MSPs) need the right tools to get the job done quickly and securely. MSP tools dictate control over everything from virtual machine (VM) management and database administration to application and server monitoring. They can also help MSPs oversee IT infrastructure. MSP tools are valuable, but not all tools are created equal.

Today’s organizations face ransomware, malware, and other cyber attacks, and managed service providers (MSPs) need an incident response plan (or “IRP”) to mitigate against these threats. In a recent survey of 200 MSPs, 74% of respondents said they have suffered a cyber attack, and 83% noted their small and medium-sized business (SMB) customers experienced one as well. Yet, with an incident response plan (IRP), MSPs can protect themselves and their customers against cyber attacks.