Becoming you Client's IT - Selling Managed Services

Written by David Stelzl, CISSP


If you are attending trade shows or reading technology news, you know that managed services inrepparttar SMB market is a hot topic right now. There are a number of solutions out there that offer a platform for building managed and monitoring services; with an emphasis onrepparttar 107152 SMB market. This is important because many are asking "How do I improve my financial stability, maintain market share, and increaserepparttar 107153 company's valuation"?

If you have already started selling managed services of some type, you know that there is more to it than buying a monitoring tool, installing it in your office, and getting a junior sales person to make thousands of phone calls. There has to be a value proposition that is compelling to what has been called, "The post chasm buyer". It has to actually meet a business need, provide a return on investment, or move a customer closer to some federal security requirement. Before you move forward, there are four key questions you need to ask:

1. What will you offer?

You know how most SMB companies don't have time to keep up with their IT environment? Patches are often out of date, security is very weak, main business systems are not highly-available, backups have never been checked, and there is either one or just a part time person dedicated to keeping everything going (a major security risk in itself). Now you need a program that solvesrepparttar 107154 problem. Its not monitoring, its much more.

You need a program. Your program consists ofrepparttar 107155 everything you can do to help a manager or business owner forget about IT. Systems have to be assessed for areas of risk (security holes, points of failure, inadequate procedures and personnel, etc.). Then, your client's infrastructure needs to be repaired, optimized, stabilized, and cleaned up from spyware, RATs (remote access trojans), and other security/availability problems. Finally, a program to keep things going must be put into place. This might include periodic planning meetings, reports that forecast disk space and bandwidth constraints, quarterly or monthly onsite proactive maintenance (some of this might be done remotely or through automated systems), and of course, 7 by 24 monitoring. The bottom line is, post chasm buyers are not going to buy monitoring; they are going to buy uptime.

2. How will you build it?

You might have something in place right now - perhaps you do it all yourself. But as Mack Hanan pointed out in his book "Consultative Selling", a book written in 1972 on selling profit improvement, selling hours for dollars is always a commodity and will not build a long term profitable business. You need leverage.

Start by listing everything you could do for a company on a periodic basis and categorize it by system. You might have servers, workstations, network components, etc. Then you have administrative tasks that parallel these devices; Helpdesk services, planning and strategy, user awareness training, etc. I recommend that you add security as a separate section where we will list higher level security options in addition to items that will fall under each component. Now figure out what you can automate through tools that are out onrepparttar 107156 market today.

Once you haverepparttar 107157 offerings list, you will want to begin building on a platform that has many of these functions built right into it. Your core offering should includerepparttar 107158 monitoring functions, while also addressing security. In a recent workshop I conducted atrepparttar 107159 Level Platforms Headquarters in Ottawa, Peter Sandiford, CEO of Level Platforms maderepparttar 107160 comment that, “Solution providers need to stay on top of not only performance issues but alsorepparttar 107161 exploding number of critical threats that can cripple their entire operations. The distinction between an MSP (Managed Service Provider) and an MSSP (Managed Security Services Provider) has disappeared." In response, Peter's organization has put together one complete integrated solution using a monthly subscription price; a pricing model that should help all of us beginrepparttar 107162 process without a large cash outlay.

Making The Decision To Automate Your Software Testing

Written by Danna Henderson


Not every software testing project can or should be automated. Before your department accepts a new test automation project, you should establish a process by which projects are reviewed and either accepted or rejected. This can be done with a simple Test Automation Acceptance Checklist.

Repeatable Test Cases with Static Data

The true cost benefit of test automation is achieved only whenrepparttar same scripts are executed multiple times. The first execution is very expensive because it includesrepparttar 107151 one-time cost ofrepparttar 107152 automation tools and 100% ofrepparttar 107153 Test Automation engineer’s time. Whenrepparttar 107154 scripts are executed again,repparttar 107155 cost of test automation declines sharply. The tool has already been purchased andrepparttar 107156 scripts have already been coded. If there have been changes inrepparttar 107157 application,repparttar 107158 scripts may require maintenance before being executed. Maintenance on minor software updates should be minimal.

Because test automation is only successful whenrepparttar 107159 scripts can be executed multiple times, only application which requirerepparttar 107160 same test cases to be executed withrepparttar 107161 same data are good candidates for automation. For example, a mortgage application that needs to be regression tested on a weekly basis could be a good candidate for test automation. Script maintenance is minimal andrepparttar 107162 scripts can enter a mortgage application usingrepparttar 107163 same group of test data in a fraction ofrepparttar 107164 time it would take a manual tester to testrepparttar 107165 same functionality.

Onrepparttar 107166 other hand, a mortgage origination system, which cannot userepparttar 107167 same test data for each iteration would not be a good automation candidate. Due torepparttar 107168 nature of mortgage systems, data could be staged in various states of approval or rejection, based onrepparttar 107169 current data andrepparttar 107170 departments who have already processed their part ofrepparttar 107171 mortgage application. Ifrepparttar 107172 script cannot easily figure out what data to enter inrepparttar 107173 software, it is not a good automation candidate.

Another problem with automating this type of complex system is thatrepparttar 107174 test environment often contains a sampling of production data that is refreshed on a periodic basis. Sometimes this can be overcome by rebuildingrepparttar 107175 test data whenrepparttar 107176 test environment is refreshed. The feasibility of rebuilding test data on a regular basis depends onrepparttar 107177 complexity ofrepparttar 107178 application. You will have to make that decision on a case-by-case basis.

Application or Environmental Stability

Environmental stability is crucial to a successfully automating a software testing project. Scripts cannot be coded in a timely manner ifrepparttar 107179 application environment is unavailable, experiences frequent down-times, or excessive defects and errors.

Little or No Application or Environment Downtime

It takes longer to write scripts than it does to manually testrepparttar 107180 same functionality. Most automation tools are watered down version of C or Visual Basic, which means that writing automated scripts is essentially programming and takes adequate time and specialized skills. Unlike manual test cases, which can sometimes be written based off requirements and mock-ups, automated tools requirerepparttar 107181 actual application. When a test environment is unavailable, automation engineers cannot create scripts, which prolongsrepparttar 107182 project and ends up costing more.

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