Starting own IT consultancy - Gathering list of tools required and recommendations
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Yes, 100% control of 100% clients (If the client approves of it, and most do) ... We do this for remote support for most of our clients, where we have setup their IT infra... The VPN technology used is same for most, but yes, some are different .. But, no host ed VPN, for sure ..
We are comparatively a smaller company, with a comparatively smaller client-base .... For, most parts, one person from our end, is connected to just one client.. However, I think multiple simultaneous VPN connections have been made... I recollect, a colleague doing something with routing table to accomplish this ...
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Haven't read everyone else's recommendations but I think Wireshark and Metasploit are great tools that anyone in IT should familiarize themselves with. I'm working on that now as well.
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@Veet said in Starting own IT consultancy - Gathering list of tools required and recommendations:
Yes, 100% control of 100% clients (If the client approves of it, and most do) ... We do this for remote support for most of our clients, where we have setup their IT infra... The VPN technology used is same for most, but yes, some are different .. But, no host ed VPN, for sure ..
We are comparatively a smaller company, with a comparatively smaller client-base .... For, most parts, one person from our end, is connected to just one client.. However, I think multiple simultaneous VPN connections have been made... I recollect, a colleague doing something with routing table to accomplish this ...
That becomes super complex if the clients have overlapping IP address ranges. When we were tiny we tried to get clients to all have different IP spaces. That doesn't scale well (often failing at the first client as people just won't change.)
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@scottalanmiller said in Starting own IT consultancy - Gathering list of tools required and recommendations:
@Veet said in Starting own IT consultancy - Gathering list of tools required and recommendations:
Yes, 100% control of 100% clients (If the client approves of it, and most do) ... We do this for remote support for most of our clients, where we have setup their IT infra... The VPN technology used is same for most, but yes, some are different .. But, no host ed VPN, for sure ..
We are comparatively a smaller company, with a comparatively smaller client-base .... For, most parts, one person from our end, is connected to just one client.. However, I think multiple simultaneous VPN connections have been made... I recollect, a colleague doing something with routing table to accomplish this ...
That becomes super complex if the clients have overlapping IP address ranges. When we were tiny we tried to get clients to all have different IP spaces. That doesn't scale well (often failing at the first client as people just won't change.)
In this situation you have to setup translations of your own. I connect to a hospital that does that. They have a translation inside their Cisco router for the connection to me.
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My own MSP lasted like three months. Honestly, I didn't market hard enough to get anough billable clients to completely supplant my 9-5 salary.
But...lesson learned.
My tools I used were LogMeIn for remote access. The remote client was great to help folks from my iPhone/laptop. For ticketing, I used an excel sheet. Ghetto, I know.
For invoicing and proposals, I used Google Docs.
Ghetto. I know. -
@FrostyPhoenix said in Starting own IT consultancy - Gathering list of tools required and recommendations:
My own MSP lasted like three months. Honestly, I didn't market hard enough to get anough billable clients to completely supplant my 9-5 salary.
Starting an SMB is hard. Starting an MSP is one of the hardest SMBs to do. It's a nearly impossible market without competition, and there is a lot of competition!
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@scottalanmiller said in Starting own IT consultancy - Gathering list of tools required and recommendations:
@FrostyPhoenix said in Starting own IT consultancy - Gathering list of tools required and recommendations:
My own MSP lasted like three months. Honestly, I didn't market hard enough to get anough billable clients to completely supplant my 9-5 salary.
Starting an SMB is hard. Starting an MSP is one of the hardest SMBs to do. It's a nearly impossible market without competition, and there is a lot of competition!
Even if you are wanting to run a mostly local business.
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When our company was considering a move into the MSP space, we talked to a lot of other MSPs. (None of who were competition for us.)
And we heard about the same from every one of them ... they wanted to get the heck out of the MSP business.
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Some file sync & share might be a nice value-add for customers or even for your own company's files. Dropbox and Google Drive are great, but pricey and a pain to keep organized. ownCloud is great if you want to set it up on your own. DattoDrive is a re-branded version of ownCloud hosted by Datto. They offer $10/mo with unlimited users.
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@Meik92 said in Starting own IT consultancy - Gathering list of tools required and recommendations:
Some file sync & share might be a nice value-add for customers or even for your own company's files. Dropbox and Google Drive are great, but pricey and a pain to keep organized. ownCloud is great if you want to set it up on your own. DattoDrive is a re-branded version of ownCloud hosted by Datto. They offer $10/mo with unlimited users.
if you think those things are expensive from someone like Google and Dropbox - two players with HUGE wallets and deep pockets, how do you think you'll be able to provide a comparable offering for less? Their efficiency has to be huge compared to what someone smaller can provide.
Unless you're not providing something comparable... .i.e. no backups, smaller internet pipes, no 3 datacenter failover, etc.
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@Dashrender said in Starting own IT consultancy - Gathering list of tools required and recommendations:
@Meik92 said in Starting own IT consultancy - Gathering list of tools required and recommendations:
Some file sync & share might be a nice value-add for customers or even for your own company's files. Dropbox and Google Drive are great, but pricey and a pain to keep organized. ownCloud is great if you want to set it up on your own. DattoDrive is a re-branded version of ownCloud hosted by Datto. They offer $10/mo with unlimited users.
if you think those things are expensive from someone like Google and Dropbox - two players with HUGE wallets and deep pockets, how do you think you'll be able to provide a comparable offering for less? Their efficiency has to be huge compared to what someone smaller can provide.
Unless you're not providing something comparable... .i.e. no backups, smaller internet pipes, no 3 datacenter failover, etc.
Datto isn't small. I mean they are small compared to Google, who isn't. But they are already in the datacenter storage business. And running hosted ownCloud doesn't require the resources that Google Drive does as Datto doesn't need to pay the development arm to keep it being produced.
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@Dashrender I think it's important to note that we aren't small =P Datto has 9 datacenters around the world containing 250+ petabytes of storage space. Two of those centers are bi-coastal in the US.
We make our profit from other offerings related to business continuity. That allows us to make this service available at or near operating expenses. It's really intended to help small and medium businesses and we've acknowledged it won't make us large profits.
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@scottalanmiller We do actually have a small team as well to aid in the development of ownCloud and DattoDrive ^_^
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UG! one of the things I really dislike about ML! You can't easily see who is representing a company. And until you see a name a million times, or have several pointed conversations with someone about a specific thing, many will never remember that xyz person works for abc company. I only know Nic works for Webroot because I've known him a LONG time and he's helped me out of a few jams.
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I just asked to join the service providers group. I think that's the closest I can get.
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@Meik92 said in Starting own IT consultancy - Gathering list of tools required and recommendations:
I just asked to join the service providers group. I think that's the closest I can get.
@Meik92 should gets the purdy vendor tags.
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@dafyre said in Starting own IT consultancy - Gathering list of tools required and recommendations:
@Meik92 said in Starting own IT consultancy - Gathering list of tools required and recommendations:
I just asked to join the service providers group. I think that's the closest I can get.
@Meik92 should gets the purdy vendor tags.
Already added. he should add an avatar, too.
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@Meik92 said in Starting own IT consultancy - Gathering list of tools required and recommendations:
I just asked to join the service providers group. I think that's the closest I can get.
Awesome! This wasn't a knock on you, just the current functionality of ML - I rather like the way SpiceWorks does it Some name at some company - made it really easy for each employee from a company to have their own identity at the time being tied to that company.
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@Dashrender said in Starting own IT consultancy - Gathering list of tools required and recommendations:
@Meik92 said in Starting own IT consultancy - Gathering list of tools required and recommendations:
I just asked to join the service providers group. I think that's the closest I can get.
Awesome! This wasn't a knock on you, just the current functionality of ML - I rather like the way SpiceWorks does it Some name at some company - made it really easy for each employee from a company to have their own identity at the time being tied to that company.
Huh - just had a thought. What about asking all vendors who want to be known (and post as) a vendor update they name to be name@company?
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@Dashrender said in Starting own IT consultancy - Gathering list of tools required and recommendations:
@Dashrender said in Starting own IT consultancy - Gathering list of tools required and recommendations:
@Meik92 said in Starting own IT consultancy - Gathering list of tools required and recommendations:
I just asked to join the service providers group. I think that's the closest I can get.
Awesome! This wasn't a knock on you, just the current functionality of ML - I rather like the way SpiceWorks does it Some name at some company - made it really easy for each employee from a company to have their own identity at the time being tied to that company.
Huh - just had a thought. What about asking all vendors who want to be known (and post as) a vendor update they name to be name@company?
They could but seems like that would make for easy abuse as anyone could do that.
