The simple definition of managed services from Wikipedia is:
“…the practice of outsourcing the responsibility for maintaining, and anticipating need for, a range of processes and functions in order to improve operations and cut expenses. It is an alternative to the break/fix or on-demand outsourcing model where the service provider performs on-demand services and bills the customer only for the work done.
“…The client and the MSP [managed service provider] are bound by a contractual, service-level agreement that states the performance and quality metrics of their relationship.”
Derive Technologies’ managed service plans are constructed specifically for each individual client, mixing standard Derive professional service offerings with customized ones. Derive’s offerings (click on the Standard Service Offerings info tab below to see them) incorporate both proactive and reactive services spanning a variety of IT technology domains.
The firm’s best technology leaders are made available through the Project Management Office (PMO); the PMO facilitates efficient interactions between client leadership and Derive’s service delivery personnel and builds Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that align with client requirements. The PMO’s advisory service also aligns Derive’s managed services with client workstreams and ensures strict compliance with PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) standardized methodology.
Derive’s senior technology advisors add further value with visionary planning functions that complement traditional managed services. As an evolutionary outgrowth of Derive’s client advisory, the firm has established a unique c-level service — called The Virtual CTO — aimed primarily at SMB and middle-market organizations to provide enterprise-grade strategic technology roadmaps aligned with an organization’s business goals and objectives.
Click on The Virtual CTO info tab below to learn more about this service that can help your organization not only plan for current needs, but anticipate future technology trends, requirements, and opportunities.
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Domain Areas for IT Infrastructure Managed Services:
Project Management Office (PMO)
Cloud/Hybrid Cloud
Cloud and hybrid cloud infrastructure present a new, fresh approach to IT operations. Derive has put together a unique service offering to address this paradigm. Today there are several premier providers of cloud services; Derive is a Premium Partner with all of them.
Derive takes a layered approach to managed cloud services, beginning with an engagement to identify client needs and requirements. Frequently, Derive adapts legacy infrastructure to a new cloud-based architectures. A representation of some of those services consists of:
Virtualization/Physical
Virtualization is a method that is used within on-premise capacity as well as cloud-based infrastructures. It is an operating system layered onto a server that allows multiple logical environments to exist on one or more physical environments. Physical components like servers, networking and storage are managed inside the virtualized environment.
Derive provides architecture/design, installation, maintenance, patching and administration to these environments. Derive frequently works with the following virtualization providers:
These partners and others are supported. During an initial discussion, the Derive team analyzes the current state and desired future state of an organization’s virtual assets. At that point, Derive can make recommendations on how best to move forward.
Security
Security is a domain that touches all facets of IT infrastructure. As part of an initial assessment, Derive examines how different security systems and policies should be configured and deployed. Tight integration of security protocols into the overall IT infrastructure fabric is key to establishing an effective IT security domain.
Based on the outcome of the security assessment, the PMO and practice leads will earmark security components as required as part of a unified IT infrastructure security protocol. The security workstream can be a standalone effort or part of another IT project.
Infrastructure Support - Administration, Patching, Updates & Upgrades
Backup Software
Systems Monitoring & Alerting
To learn more about how Derive Technologies can address your needs, BOOK A FREE CONSULTATION
Obstacles to strategic goal setting and the determination of long-term IT roadmaps are commonplace in many organizations, and often encountered in SMB-size entities due to human resource shortfalls. In many instances, Derive can solve this challenge by providing a Virtual CTO service to augment an organization’s technology leadership on a short- or longer-term basis.
Derive’s internal practice leaders in computing, networking, hyperconvergence, virtualization, hybrid cloud computing and datacenter implementation and management combine their individual decades of operational and managerial experience—along with dozens of advanced technology certifications from industry-leader IT vendors—to solve critical gaps in technology direction-setting for clients.
The Virtual CTO service takes the combined technology leadership, knowledge, and hands-on experience of Derive’s most senior architects and practice leads and makes it available to those clients in clear need of advanced technology roadmap construction and strategic planning. This service is designed to appeal to organizations that can be classified as:
The Virtual CTO service is staffed out of Derive’s Project Management Office (PMO) and can be deployed in many ways, ranging from long-term strategic technology planning to the dissection of complex problems and the assembly of detailed tactical executable solutions. Client management teams can use this service as a powerful adjunct to the advisory services normally provided by Derive as part of its managed service agreement.
To learn more about how Derive Technologies can address your needs, BOOK A FREE CONSULTATION
Derive Technologies has provided business and technological innovation for our clients through progressive, decades-long relationships with some of the world's most important providers of core infrastructure, cloud, mobility, collaboration, security and numerous other solutions.
