Demand is growing fast for managed security services – particularly for threat detection and response services – making it important for managed services providers (MSPs) to become more efficient and capitalise on new opportunities.
This is according to speakers at a webinar for MSPs hosted by Sophos and Datto this week.
Kyle Torres, channel account executive for UK and Ireland at Sophos, said any MSP should be offering security as part of its services now. “You don’t have to be a fully fledged managed security services provider, but every MSP should have some form of security embedded in its portfolio,” he said. “This lays the groundwork for becoming an MSSP in future.”
Torres, and Yannick Piat, product sales specialist, Datto, outlined the Datto tools that allow MSPs to streamline management of Sophos solutions in their environment.
Torres said Sophos and Datto complement each other, offering a complete cyber security ecosystem that is able to be managed by a reliable professional service automation (PSA) and remote monitoring and management (RMM) vendor, through a 100% channel model. The integration enables efficiencies and introduces compliance through automation and reporting, he said. “A key to being a successful MSP is efficiency, and automation enables that.”
A poll of MSPs attending the webinar found that the most pressing problems facing MSPs are a lack of manpower and resources (35%), automation and efficiency (5%), integrations of multiple tools (11%), providing full cyber security to customers (5%), and all of these (41%).
Piat said: “Our partnership offers huge benefits to MSPs. One of the main concerns MSPs have is manpower and resources, and the automation and efficiencies we give to our customers solves these problems.”
Torres said: “Gartner predicts that by 2024, more than 90% of buyers looking to outsource to security services providers will focus on threat detection and response services and Sophos is a leader in solutions to provide these managed services. To help MSPs capitalise on the trends in the most efficient way, the Sophos Connect Flex MSP programme is one security vendor, with one management dashboard to manage all customers, and one flexible programme with aggregated billing, volume-based discounts, on-demand monthly billing, no order process and no licence management needed.”
He explained that the Sophos adaptive cyber security ecosystem at its top level includes managed services self-managed through Sophos central. Underpinning that is the data lake, feeding into a broad range of solutions offering end-to-end protection.
Torres demonstrated the ease with which customers can be onboarded and managed using the Sophos dashboard, and how Datto integrates with the tool to automated deployment and billing.
Yannick Piat, product sales specialist at Datto, outlined how the Sophos partnership with Datto simplifies MSP operations, with Datto RMM software to audit, manage, monitor, support and report, reducing risk for the MSP and its clients.
“Datto RMM enables MSPs to standardise and automate services, increase efficiency, reduce costs and better understand the customer infrastructure – which also positions the MSP to offer more products and services,” he said. “As a true cloud solution, Datto RMM is always up to date. It is powerful and efficient and easy to use, and we believe it is the most innovative solution in this market. Autotask Professional Service Automation (PSA) is a cloud-based platform that centralises operations and unifies tasks, with tools for ticketing, project management, time tracking, billing and inventory and procurement.”
He said Datto RMM and Autotask PSA work together to simplify MSP operations, with Autotask PSA designed to solve challenges MSPs face such as understanding customer needs, dealing with diverse and separate systems within a complex environment and meeting SLAs. Autotask improves efficiency, enhances profitability and services and reduces risk, he said.
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