MSP or VAR or just avoid
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@hobbit666 said in MSP or VAR or just avoid:
...or use my VAR to find you server or two e.g. DELL, HP, IBM, SCALE etc that meets XYZ requirements?
As a matter of good practice, you want your VAR to be as controlled as possible. You should pretty much always give them the models, specs, details, etc. of what you need. The VAR is not IT, think of them as secretaries with access to technical catalogues. IT and IT alone is responsible for getting the right system for the company, a VAR has zero responsibility there.
So while you CAN ask your VAR questions like this, it's a problem. Because the VAR will only respond withing their range of sales, which is never how you want information, and their responses will be influences by things that are negative to you, like margins.
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@scottalanmiller said in MSP or VAR or just avoid:
One question... does the company in question sell things?
If yes, VAR.
If not, not a VAR.That's it. The only question, and the answer is simple.
Define things? A VAR sells products and services, a pure MSP sells only services (ie labour). I don't see a massive destinction between a product (software/hardware) and a service (labour). To me, they are all "things" that you sell.
I now work for a Microsoft partner. We sell consultancy. We also sell Microsoft licences and support, so I suppose you would call my company a VAR, but I don't see it that way since the licencing side of the business is not our primary role. I'd see us more as an MSP or a software house. But I'm not really bothered about the distinction - we sell stuff, primarily labour.
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@carnival-boy A VAR, is generally selling one type of product or service. Like yourself. Your company sells MS product, and you service MS Product, so your interest in a customer is to keep them on Microsoft product, and thereby make servicing those products a key component of your business.
A true MSP is product agnostic. They don't really care if you use Microsoft, or Linux, or Oracle, or whatever. They don't have an interest in the brand of equipment, or the software platform. All they really care about is providing service to their client in the best possible way.
Sure an MSP sells services, but the big difference is a true MSP has no vested interest in pushing you into specific products or services. On the other hand, A VAR has a HUGE interest in selling you specific products or services. Specifically, their products, which then, in many cases, require their services.
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@pchiodo said in MSP or VAR or just avoid:
A true MSP is product agnostic. They don't really care if you use Microsoft, or Linux, or Oracle, or whatever. They don't have an interest in the brand of equipment, or the software platform. All they really care about is providing service to their client in the best possible way.
I think this is where i'm getting confused and in the grey area. If a MSP is product agnostic, how do they "recommend" a solution? As let say the best fit for a hardware refresh was a Scale Cluster + Switches etc, doesn't that they make them a VAR as they are pushing Scale? Or would a MSP just say "go for a Hyper-converged solution"
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@hobbit666 Exactly. An MSP wouldn't care if it's Scale, or Starwind, or someone else, as long as the product fits your business. For example, the last company I worked at needed complex VLANs, so we contracted with an MSP to come in and set that up. They didn't really care what brand of network gear we had, as long as it supported our goals. In this case, Layer 3 switches. We already had them, and they fit the purpose. If we didn't have Layer 3 switches, they certainly would have told us that we needed them to make this work. They might recommend a particular brand or model, but only because they've worked with a lot of different brands and models and can provide experienced recommendations. They aren't selling me switches, but simply telling me what is best for our purpose.
A VAR, on the other hand, would have recommended a specific switch, and offered to supply it along with the service, and had this other company done that, they would have been a VAR, not an MSP, as they have a vested interest in selling us swtiches that make them money.
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@jaredbusch said in MSP or VAR or just avoid:
@hobbit666 said in MSP or VAR or just avoid:
But if a true MSP/ITSPs (guess you mean IT Service Pro's)
MSP - Managed Service Provider
ITSP - IT Service Provider.All MSP are ITSP, it is a subset.
Not all ITSP are MSP.
I think @scottalanmiller talked about this a few posts back, and certainly in a blog post that someone else can get the link for.
@scottalanmiller wrote various blog posts on this below:
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@hobbit666 said in MSP or VAR or just avoid:
@pchiodo said in MSP or VAR or just avoid:
A true MSP is product agnostic. They don't really care if you use Microsoft, or Linux, or Oracle, or whatever. They don't have an interest in the brand of equipment, or the software platform. All they really care about is providing service to their client in the best possible way.
I think this is where i'm getting confused and in the grey area. If a MSP is product agnostic, how do they "recommend" a solution? As let say the best fit for a hardware refresh was a Scale Cluster + Switches etc, doesn't that they make them a VAR as they are pushing Scale? Or would a MSP just say "go for a Hyper-converged solution"
A big thing here, and I didn't read it mentioned. Is that VARs are often incentivized by the vendor to push a specific product. The incentives can come in any number of ways, training, discounted licensing, vehicles, trips, straight money, these recommendations come regardless of business need. MSPs on the other hand are rarely incentivized by external forces to recommend a product, generally the recommendations come from experience and actually understanding what the business process and needs are.
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@pchiodo said in MSP or VAR or just avoid:
A true MSP is product agnostic. They don't really care if you use Microsoft, or Linux, or Oracle, or whatever. They don't have an interest in the brand of equipment, or the software platform. All they really care about is providing service to their client in the best possible way.
Realistically, I don't believe you can ever be product agnostic. A typical MSP will have in-house expertise in SQL Server but not in Oracle. So they're absolutely going to care about whether you should use Oracle or SQL Server, because they're not going to be in a position to support you in Oracle (just to use your example).
For an MSP to be truly agnostic it would either have to massive (to be able to employ both Oracle and SQL Server experts), or it is full of generalists who can support both but lack expertise in either.
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@carnival-boy said in MSP or VAR or just avoid:
@pchiodo said in MSP or VAR or just avoid:
A true MSP is product agnostic. They don't really care if you use Microsoft, or Linux, or Oracle, or whatever. They don't have an interest in the brand of equipment, or the software platform. All they really care about is providing service to their client in the best possible way.
Realistically, I don't believe you can ever be product agnostic.
You don't really want people to be completely product or technology agnostic. Kind of, but not really. It's not that you don't want bias of your own, and not that you don't want a bias from your MSP / ITSP, you just want a bias that is... positive, aligned to you, and reasonably transparent.
For example, my MSP might be biased towards solutions that make them look good, and they look good by saving my company money. That's a bias that I like.
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@carnival-boy said in MSP or VAR or just avoid:
For an MSP to be truly agnostic it would either have to massive (to be able to employ both Oracle and SQL Server experts), or it is full of generalists who can support both but lack expertise in either.
That's part of the goal, or typical goals, of moving to the MSP model. They bring more scale and with scale comes agnosticism (the move towards it, but obtaining it as you pointed out.) You might not have expertise or experience with every OS out there, but even a moderately small MSP like NTG regularly supports and works with many databases. Not Oracle, which isn't a big deal as it has essentially no place in any intentional deployment, but MS SQL Server, MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, REDIS, MongoDB, SQLite, etc. all regularly supported.
MSPs are way more likely to have the desire and ability to grow support skill sets, although this can happen internally as well. But internal skill growth is costly and risky to maintain. For an MSP, skill growth increases potential customer support options. So MSPs have more incentive to consider things they've not done specifically before than internal IT departments do.
Nothing is perfect, but MSPs make agnosticism easier and more likely.
