Managed Services are now a popular means for organisations to gain guaranteed service levels at a known fixed price for IT services not deemed to be core to the business. This is not to say that the out-sourced services are not critical to business operations, but they are often those considered an operational hassle and an inefficient use of limited resources.
Union defines Managed Services as those that add service level commitments and operational management tasks to traditional Support Services, and Managed Services differentiate themselves from Shared Services by virtue of asset ownership. Managed Services are typically delivered by a third party using assets owned by the customer. Shared Services are those delivered on shared and aggregated infrastructure owned by the provider. With Managed Services you retain control of the technology and your long-term service level delivery ambitions.
Union’s Managed Services are typically customised to customer requirements and can take the form of either dedicated or shared resources, located remotely or locally to your infrastructure, for monitoring, management, and intervention of operational tasks relating to server, storage, and backup infrastructure services.
Service levels can be defined by performance, availability, data integrity, and commissioning response. Service level definitions are combined to create Service Classes which are then aligned to infrastructure services and functional areas e.g. electronic messaging.
It is highly likely that any Managed Service we deliver you will require some capital investment first. This is part of our own risk assessment and also an important process in ensuring you get the service you need. All of this is assessed in advance and the business case for a Managed Service objectively considered by both parties on its merits before either has to make any commitment.