Marketing and creating content can be an absolute minefield for MSPs. After all, why do you need to do it when you have survived and grown your business so far through referrals.

One way to shortcut the content creation and thinking time is to use Microsoft Marketing Partner Content and or other Services like Content MX – But are they worth it and what role do they really have in MSP Marketing?

In this blog, I share with you how you can use these resources to get the best bang for your buck and time spent nurturing new leads, while your team are busy closing tickets.

Deciding on what content to use

Surely, delivering excellent customer service and value for money is easier than sitting down and structuring and writing content.

After all, many businesses just don’t understand the benefit of creating engaging content that tells a story to the reader.

At the end of the day, for any business transaction to take place, there needs to be an element of trust to be built. And for this to be built there needs to be a rapport between the buyer and the seller.

This is where many MSPs miss a trick. The most effective types of content are those that will tell a story of an issue or a technical problem where the reader says “That’s ME! I’ve had that problem”. If you were to ever hear those words, then you’ve hit the jackpot!

This could be around a security breach and because the customer didn’t have a reliable backup, they lost all their data. In this piece, you would be talking about the issue and how you prevent that from happening.

This then starts to build that rapport because you are resonating with their pain points.

Although many MSPs believe that “You all provide the same technical service” and why most of the time, that is very true, the one fact that people buy from people is often overlooked.

I have never worked in such an energetic and inspiring business sector in all my life. The technical know-how and energy of Channel businesses can be off the scale, your teams quite simply get up every morning to fix problems and clients love you because they can’t even begin to understand how to do what you do.

But how do I create content and make it different? Simple, tell an engaging story of a situation where you have helped someone overcome a technical issue and then relate it back to a real business outcome for THEM.

Where the Marketing meets the Tech

Marketing plays a massive part in building that trust, rapport and likeability that turns contacts into clients and this is where your content planning comes into play.

So, as a business, you have decided that you need to put some effort into this and start to share with the world what you do, how you help and why you are better than every other MSP on the planet!

The first thing to remember is not to sell the TECH!

People aren’t interested in HOW you do what you do, and much of the content through Microsoft and Content MX is based around the technology, so there is a trick here to make it more personal rather than “Stock Content”.

So instead of an article title being “Using Backup to protect your businesses data” you could try “How data recovery can prevent you going bust!”

Also, no one wants to see the same LinkedIn stock image or post across multiple MSP’s.

At IT Experts, we help MSPs Business Owners adopt a more personal and individual approach, particularly if you are marketing into a niche.

Remember that people buy from people and trust and likeability are key factors when selecting which content to put out there.

Making your Content Personal

The trick here is to create and post content that your target customer cares about and not what the vendors want you to sell. This can be tricky for techie businesses because your happy place is in the Tech and not in the Marketing.

So, when you start to create content, should you use the Microsoft Content Programme and Content MX OR should you start from scratch and use either your own skills or that of a marketing agency?

Below are my 4 top tips to help you get the best out of both worlds! Additionally, we’ve also embedded a video conversation that Andy Syrewicze (a fellow Dojo author) and I had on this topic as well. Here we talk about much of what we’ve covered below and then some!

Watch: Andy and Ian Talk About MSP Content Marketing

The Steps to Success

Step 1 – Decide on your Content Model

As marketers in the business, our job is now to share our message with the world and connect and build rapport with our target market. This will be much easier if you are Marketing in a Niche and have a specific business sector that you are targeting.

Typically, there will be 4 or 5 different elements to your business, Security, Availability, User Experience, Help Desk etc.. etc… These are the areas that you can create your own business model around and once tested with your audience, it will be easier to create “Pillar Content” themes/subjects that your target audience wants to read about because they are key to their business functioning.

Step 2 – How to shortcut the creation

People build trust easier when they know they are dealing with an Expert and yes, you need to tell everyone how amazing you are at what you do.

Once you have this threaded through your content plan and by adapting to Microsoft (or any other pre-written content), will help you get your head above the parapet and stand out from your competition. The “Stock” vendor content will help you get the subjects together, but you MUST relate it back to a BUSINESS problem rather than clearly selling the vendors’ products.

Step 3 – Post consistently

Consistency wins every day. Having a well-thought-out content plan means that you will never run out of things to say or post about. Now start to mix this up with some Stories on what your business is up to, New Starters, New Clients, New Vans… whatever but mix in the human element.

You can even add a few personal stories and achievements as well. People love this kind of content. Be careful if you are using an automation tool, as they have been known to affect post reach when you hit the Social Media Channels algorithm (as these are always changing). Also vary up the images, titles, copy to see what resonates best with your audience.

Step 4 – Measure your success

EVERYTHING in business must return an ROI and Marketing activities are no different. However, measuring Marketing Success can be difficult because it can so many times be seen by so many as intangible.

Start to track the impressions, likes, comments, and shares as a starting point. Tag people who you think may be interested and ask them an open question to try and build engagement.

Content creation can be very powerful, particularly if you have a clear Call to Action (CTA) into an event, a survey, or an introductory call.

So many times, we simply don’t tell people what we want them to do when they have finished reading an article.

In Summary

I think the Microsoft Content programme can add value, but to really stand out from the crowd you need to turn it into YOUR content and interesting and relevant articles that your target market cares about.

There is also an opportunity to adapt some of the content pieces, so they are simple to understand rather than techno-jargon that blatantly just sells vendors’ products.

Remember most B2B customers won’t care about the tech, they want to understand the business outcomes that YOU are going to help them with!

Also, if you’re interested in any of our other marketing-related content, be sure to check out the below articles!

3 Steps for Building Customer Targeted Marketing

3 Steps to Finally Break Free from the Daily Marketing Grind

3 Common Marketing Mistakes Made by MSPs Today

Have a great day and it would be lovely to hear how this article has helped you out in the comments below

Thanks for reading!

The post Microsoft Partner Marketing Content Guide for the Modern MSP appeared first on Altaro DOJO | MSP.

It’s hard to believe a whole entire year has passed us once again. While we’re not usually one to follow the crowd in terms of content creation here on the DOJO, I do see value in doing pieces like these year-end round-ups, reflections… or whatever you want to call them. The point is… it’s been an interesting year for MSPs. It’s been SEVERAL interesting years for MSPs, and I’ve always felt there is value in taking some time to stop, think, and discuss where we’ve been, and where we’re going.

While many of the “end of year” posts you’ve seen out on the web usually contain static content, I’d like to encourage your feedback and interaction in the comments section below after you’ve read through this piece. The MSP community has always been one of my favorite communities. We always look out for each other, and we always discuss the issues meaningfully, as a group. After the discussion, there are ALWAYS meaningful take-aways and action items, and it’s this process that has helped shape my viewpoint and my place in the MSP industry over the years.

I’d like to think my viewpoint is somewhat unique. Maybe not exclusively unique, but unique nonetheless. I’ve been involved in the MSP industry in some way for the last 20 years. Either as a customer, an MSP software partner (like Altaro and Hornetsecurity) or as an MSP itself. During that time I’ve done MSP help desk, engineering, architecture, pre-sales, marketing, account management, service costing, playbook creation, strategy and planning, team leadership, and everything in between. Through my interaction with the community, peer groups, and contacts within multiple MSPs across the country, I try to keep a close eye on the pulse of the MSP industry. Many of my thoughts throughout this piece derive from that experience and the contacts I’ve made over the years.

That all said, let’s get to it.

Current State of the Industry

I always like to frame these discussions from a viewpoint of data. Any reflection or prediction done in this article would be wasted without a frame of reference. In short, how are things looking in the IT space from a business perspective, and how does that information help us prepare for 2022? To start, let’s look at some somewhat recent data from Gartner. According to a Gartner Article from October, the forecast for the IT Services space looks to remain healthy and full of opportunities for enterprising and agile MSPs.

Some key data from the report:

• • Overall IT spending forecast is predicted to grow by 5.5% in 2022 to total nearly 4.5 trillion USD

• • Enterprise Software development is seen to have the largest piece of that increase at 11.5%

• • IT Services Specifically are predicted to have the 2nd largest increase cited in the report at 8.6% growth over the previous year

• • The total predicted spending on IT services in 2022 is 1.3 trillion USD

• • Data Center Systems spending is poised to increase by 5.8%

• • Spending on Devices is predicted to rise by 2.3%

• • And finally, we’re predicted to see a 2.1% increase in spending on communications services

As we can see, the importance of professional IT services is continuing to increase and shows no sign of slowing down. MSPs are uniquely positioned to address this growing need through a vast array of offered services ranging from support, endpoint management, cloud services, productivity and process improvement and more. Some MSPs with development resources in-house may even find themselves being able to cash in on that enterprise software development increase as well! Conjecture aside, however, how are some MSPs navigating the current ecosystem and tapping into the growing market? I recently read an annual report from Channel Futures that I found really interesting.

Said report surveys the MSPs on Channel Future’s MSP 501 list. Highlights include:

• • 99% of MSPs in the MSP 501 now offer managed security as a major solution area

• • 7 of the 10 top growth areas for MSPs in the MSP 501 are security-related and include a focus on, endpoints, network security, end-user training, SIEM, phishing, and others

• • 97% of MSPs surveyed stated that they use multi-factor authentication (MFA) to protect their own environments

• • Top revenue-generating solutions amongst MSPs in the MSP 501 includes help desk (69%), managed security (58%), BDR (43%), and RMM (32$)

• • Full-time employee hires grew by 6%

• • 18% of those MSPs surveyed made one or more acquisitions

It comes as no surprise that security services aren’t just a part of the MSP game, they’re a HUGE part of the game now. Clearly, if you’re not working on getting managed security worked into your solution stack, now is the time to start. Not to mention the multitude of security issues we dealt with in 2021, the sooner you start the better! That said, if you need further convincing, we ran several end-customer-focused surveys here at Hornetsecurity this year and found loads of interesting information on security concerns. The two surveys I’d like to highlight as part of this discussion revolve around Ransomware and Email security specifically.

Feel free to view the results at your leisure, but I wanted to at least share some of the more interesting findings below, starting with ransomware and the fact that at least 1 in 5 of organizations surveyed fell prey to ransomware.

Contrast that with the fact that nearly 10% of organizations were forced to pay the ransom. That’s 10% too much in my opinion!

More interestingly, in terms of targets, we found that no organization was “safe” from ransomware threats. Businesses of all shapes and sizes are a target and are actively being exploited by ransomware attacks.

Again, these are just a few MSP-relevant findings from the report if you’d like to see the full survey results and findings you can do so here!

In addition to the danger that ransomware serves to MSPs directly and to their customers, one other common theme in ransomware discussions from last year is a vector of attack. It’s no surprise that Phishing continues to be a major vector of attack for threat actors, and MSPs know this. As mentioned above, many MSPs in the Channel Futures MSP 501 report cited phishing protection to be one of their primary growth areas over the last year. That said, according to another one of our major surveys from 2021 focusing on email security, it appears not everyone is getting on board yet. According to our email security survey, we found that 62% of all reported breaches were the result of either user-compromised passwords or a successful phishing attack.

In something of a correlation, we also found that 1/3rd of companies DO NOT enable MFA for all users

Again, these were just a subset of some larger survey results. If you’re interested in viewing the full report on email security, you can find it here!

Putting It All Together

So I’ve inundated you with lots of data from 4 different sources. What does it all mean for you as an MSP? When you contrast the first two sources on the current state of the MSP space, with our survey results on ransomware and email security, there are a few things that pop out.

• • There is, and will continue to be, a large amount of opportunity in the managed security space in the coming years.

• • Many organizations are struggling to implement even the most basic of security services within their environments.

• • I’ll remind you that 7 of the top 10 growth areas for MSPs on the MSP 501 list were security-related, including ransomware and phishing protection.

In short, if you’re looking for a TLDR, invest in security services for your customers if you want to guarantee growth in the coming year.

What Challenges and Concerns have led us here?

It feels like ancient history now, but the fact is that the rapid adoption of hybrid and remote work during the early days of the COVID 19 pandemic in 2020 created some unintended side effects. Threat actors seized the opportunity to stage ever-increasing attacks on cloud services. This included things ranging from Microsoft 365 targeting ransomware to large supply-chain style attacks like we saw with the Solarwinds hack early in the year. This is not to mention the current Log4J mess that we’re all in.

We’ve covered many of these topics on the DOJO over the past year. The one I found most personally interesting and most directly impactful to some MSPs in my opinion was the Solarwinds supply chain hack. In fact I spent quite a bit of time talking about the attack with Fabio Viggiani from Truesec multiple times over the year regarding that attack specifically and what it meant for MSPs. For ease of viewing I’ve embedded both videos in that series below:

Here is the first video in the series shortly after the hack was revealed

Followed by another video a few months later after the damage had become a bit more clear

All of these factors, all of the news coverage, and financial damage that has occurred over this last year as a result has finally put security at top of mind for many organizations. This is not to mention that many internal IT departments are finding themselves understaffed, and under-trained to deal with this challenge, which is another key point that has led us to where we are now with the increased demand and MSSP services.

Security, again, is certainly top of mind for most MSPs given the year(s) we’ve had. However, that hasn’t been the only challenge MSPs have faced over the last 12 months. Other challenges that have cropped up this year for many MSPs include:

• • Having to learn how to teach and learn how to optimize processes for varying types of end-customers due to increased adoption of cloud services such as Microsoft 365

• • Having to skill up entire teams as new solutions are rolled out to enable hybrid and remote-work scenarios

• • After mass-adoption of vendor-specific solution stacks, having to worry about vendor concentration risk for yourself and/or your end-customers

• • Hiring Challenges

• • Changes in Licensing Costs for Microsoft 365 services

So yeah… you know there are challenges. You’ve likely experienced some of these yourself. Your next question, however, is likely, what do we do about them by preparing for the coming year?

How can MSPs Prepare for 2022

If you take nothing else away from this article, here is your list of actionable items. These are the steps you can start to take to not only position your MSP for maximum growth in the coming 12 months but to also help you deal with many of the challenges we just discussed. All of the below suggestions will serve to either position you to provide additional services, or shore up a pain point that is keeping you from running as optimally as possible. Let’s start with the obvious one.

1. 1. Invest in Managed Security services for your customers – This includes several components. You’re going to want to do your research on trusted security solutions for your Managed Security stack (We happen to know about some pretty awesome M365 security software BTW). In addition to product choice, you need to skill up your team on it as well. Also, don’t forget to fashion your costing and marketing around these new services as well! Once you’ve checked these checkboxes you’ll be well-positioned to address the MSP needs we discussed earlier in the article.
   2. Train the trainer – With the increased adoption of Microsoft 365, many MSPs are finding themselves in a place where they have to be able to show how the various services in M365 can improve in place process and create digital transformation. You MUST have someone on your team that can not only teach others how to use M365 to the fullest, but that person also needs to be able to wrap their head around business processes from multiple industry verticals. Having someone fill this role will ensure that each customer is leveraging every piece of M365 services possible, increasing customer satisfaction as well as your bottom line!
   3. Invest in your team – I likely don’t need to tell you, that the pace of change in the industry is accelerating. Don’t neglect to keep your team training in some way/shape/form at all times. Remember, you’re the expert for your customers and you’re doing them a disservice if you’re not providing the correct solution for the correct problem. Not only does this help you remain “the expert” it also increases customer trust. If you need some help on this, we have an article regarding certification for your technical team.
   4. Educate yourself on vendor concentration risk – You’re going to start hearing more about this term. Vendor concentration risk is the concept that relying too much on any one vendor for most (if not all) of your technology needs could constitute an unacceptable risk to the business. All those cloud services are great until that vendor goes belly up for a few hours…. or a day…etc..etc. While there are some vendors I would trust more than others, such as Microsoft (Azure & M365), it’s still something you need to be aware of. Do the risk assessment and be able to speak intelligently about it, and you may turn a potential no into a yes somewhere down the line in your sales cycle.
   5. Get Help on Hiring – This has been an ongoing challenge for MSPs since the dawn of MSPs. We’re technology professionals, not talent acquisition specialists. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I’ve been of the stance for some time that if I put my MSP leadership hat on, I’m outsourcing this. This process will take more time internally than you think it’s going to take, and that’s time you could spend chasing leads and billing existing customers. Get help on this one, and wait for the candidates to come to you. That said, it is and is going to continue being an employee’s market for some time. Be flexible with remote work and salary requests. Invest well in your new employees and they WILL take care of you and your customers.
   6. Make plans to deal with the M365 licensing cost increase – You’ve likely heard that there is a pretty hefty price increase coming to M365 soon if you haven’t felt it already. The cost aside, the big fact making waves about this change is the fact that with a 12-month commitment the cost of the license stays largely the same as it was before. The problem here is your end customers still expect that month-to-month flexibility and you need to plan for that. Whether that’s getting a lending partner, charging a premium to the customer to maintain that flexibility…etc..etc, you need to come up with a plan (and stick to it) on how you’re going to navigate that. My only hard-line suggestion here is, don’t assume that risk yourself. You don’t want to be on the hook for M365 licensing for 11 months if a customer leaves after 30 days.

Covering these six key areas should set you up in the coming year for success. That said, don’t write these down, start executing and then not give it another thought until the end of Q4 next year. Always be evaluating the market, the risks, and the technologies. Things are changing rapidly and to remain successful in the MSP space you need to stay agile, and pivot quickly if needed.

Our Most Popular MSP Articles of 2021

To wrap things up, I’d like to share our most popular MSP articles from the last 12 months. These are in addition to many of the resources I’ve shared throughout this article.

• • 70% of MSPs saw increased revenue as companies work from home

• • How the SolarWinds Hack Could Change Data Security Forever

• • How to Manage Multiple Office 365 Tenants with M365 Lighthouse

What I found interesting about these top viewed articles, is they all plug into the larger discussion we’ve been having in this article. Changes from the pandemic, security concerns, and implementing new technologies!

With that, I’ll wish you a happy new year and I truly hope you all have a successful and fruitful 2022!

As always, feel free to let us know what you think in the comments below!

The post State of the MSP Industry: What Happened in 2021? appeared first on Altaro DOJO | MSP.

For an established MSP, client “roadmapping” maybe something you’re somewhat familiar with. But for those that are new, or for those less sales-oriented MSPs, the concept and its value may be less apparent. That said, not only can client roadmapping generate additional revenue, it also provides other benefits as well.

In this article, we’ll define client roadmapping, why you should do it, and reveal the best practices.

Let’s get stuck in it!

What is Client Roadmapping?

Client roadmapping is exactly what it sounds like. Your customers turn to you for trusted technology advice based on their business problems. Roadmapping uses your existing knowledge of your customer, their needs in the next 6 to 18 months, and any given pain points to generate a roadmap of improvements, projects, and goals.

How is Client Roadmapping Helpful to MSPs?

The benefits to the client are somewhat obvious in that they know what their technology priorities are when additions/changes are likely to occur, and how much they’re likely to cost. That said, the benefits to the MSP may be somewhat less apparent. Let’s break down some of the core benefits.

Build trust with your customers

Working with your customer on this project will help to establish a more trusting relationship with your customer. After you generate your roadmap, recommendations, and projected technology spend over the coming 18 months your customer will see you have a detailed understanding of their pain points and their goals.

Strategy vs. Tactics

I’ve found many people get hung up on these two. Strategy is the long term set of goals and plans for the future. Tactics are the day to day actions of how you get there. I’ve seen countless MSPs get so mired in the tactics and execution of the day to day, they don’t stop to consider the long term strategy for a given client (or even their own business!). A regular roadmapping schedule for all clients will help ensure that time is being spent on the longer-term strategy.

Roadmapping fills the pipeline

Many MSPs evolve naturally from a break-fix business. Necessity is the mother of invention, right? The problem here is many MSPs never evolve out of that reactionary phase and take a more structured look at their strategy. A regular roadmapping process with each client will help your MSP evolve while also increasing customer satisfaction.

Helps you direct technical team training

You’re likely to get a sense organically over time of what technologies your customers are using. That said, it’s not always super apparent. After you’ve gone through a roadmapping exercise with multiple customers, you’re likely to start seeing some overlap in need. You can use this information to help determine what skills your technical team needs to learn, and which ones they need to learn better.

Helps your customer plan long-term IT Spend

There will always be costs that crop up unexpectedly, but building a roadmap can help your customer keep them to a minimum. It also makes planning costs for large capital expenditure and ongoing services costs (like your support services!) easier as well. I’ve found that this actually makes the sales cycle with your customers easier because you’ve provided extra value by taking all the work out of it for them. They can simply look at the long term costs, compare it with their budget and make a decision.

Allows you to add the “Virtual CIO” service to your toolbox

Once you get really good at this practice, it’s one of many things you can do as part of a VCIO service. I’ve seen many MSPs who will package this service up with Monthly/Weekly reports, meetings, ticket reviews, root cause analysis and more. If you’re good at something, never do it for free! Once you’ve fleshed out all these different services roadmapping becomes part of its own premium service. That said, you likely don’t want to quit doing it for customers not buying the VCIO service. My suggestion would be to just do it less frequently. For example, as part of a VCIO service, I would expect monthly updates to the customer’s roadmap along with changing priorities, costs…etc. Whereas a customer not paying for your VCIO service would maybe have it done once a year. It allows you a chance to pitch that service to customers not currently using it on a regular basis while also filling your pipeline with some additional work.

Makes it easier for you to identify cost-savings for your clients

As part of the roadmapping process, it helps to have an understanding of what your customers current IT spend is. This helps you identify potential savings across their tech stack, and it has the added benefit of potentially getting some costing information from a competitor if you’re in a situation where there are multiple service providers in play (which is more common than you think). That said, I would always recommend approaching competitor pricing information from your customers carefully and not being pushy about it. It can be off-putting for some businesses, but if you frame it through the process of strategy and from a place of assistance and value, then you’ll find that many are ok with it as they search for the best deal.

How to carry out client Roadmapping

Thus far we’ve talked about the what and the why of client roadmapping. How is it done from a practical perspective?

1. 1. Determine your customer’s existing IT spend – In order to properly plan and create a strategy, you need to know what your customer’s current IT spend and budget is. Pairing this information with their pain points and technology goals will allow you to define priorities and also talk with your customer about whether their goals are realistic in the sense of budget. Once you’ve got this information you can track it in a secured XLS file to keep things organized.
   2. Identify current issues within the customer’s environment – This step may be particularly easy if you’re already providing services for them, but if it’s a relatively new client I would suggest selling them an environmental assessment. An assessment is a good best practice for all new customers in fact! You can’t make good recommendations while you’re blind. Trying to do so will only end in disaster for your bottom line and for your customer. Once you have an idea of the existing issues, pairing them with the organization’s goals and budget will help you make informed decisions on behalf of your customer.
   3. Talk with the customer about their perceived pain points – This step is easily missed. The more technical oriented MSPs will focus on the issues they have identified and many will forget to talk to the customer about issues that THEY feel are important. They may be aware of issues or technology process issues that don’t usually show up inside of an audit. You need to take this into consideration when building a roadmap as well.
   4. Determine what your own defined best practices are – Based on your own experience and the way that you conduct business, are there certain decisions your customers should be making? Are there services or applications you offer, but only in a certain way? Do you have pre-defined “service packages” that contain varying levels of your best services and practices? You’ll need to keep these in mind when you’re making roadmap recommendations to your customer.
   5. What tools are in your toolbox for highlighted issues? – You need to know what tools you offer to address certain problems. This gives you the information you need to cost out those services/products when you’re building your customer’s roadmap. For example, if you identify inconsistent backups as a key concern, then you’ll price out and bring forward your managed backup solution as part of your roadmap recommendations.

Summary

This article should get you thinking about the steps and considerations you need to take to start strategic roadmapping for your customers. We’ll be putting together another article that shows these concepts in action with example costing and pricing because a picture is worth a thousand words. Be sure to subscribe to the DOJO to get notified once that post is published.

Also, be sure to check out our other MSP focused articles! We have a wide breadth of MSP content focused on a number of areas!

Additionally, if you have any questions or thoughts on anything covered in this blog post, be sure to let us know in the comments section below the video.

Until next time! Thanks for reading!

The post Roadmapping for the Modern MSP appeared first on Altaro DOJO | MSP.

If you’re an MSP, there’s a big change coming in how you manage your client’s Office 365 tenants and Microsoft 365 tenants. Microsoft 365 Lighthouse, now in public preview, is a new way to manage multiple client’s users and devices in a single pane of glass. This article will show you how to set up the preview, how to make sure your clients appear and how to manage settings and policies across all of them. There’s a companion video to this article, with demos of the setup and use of Microsoft 365 Lighthouse on our YouTube channel, or simply watch it below.

Note that Microsoft 365 Lighthouse is a different service than Azure Lighthouse, which lets an MSP manage resources in their client’s Azure subscriptions securely. It makes sense to name the services similarly since the concept of a “service provider managing a client’s cloud service” is the same but it’s bound to cause some confusion. We’ve looked at Azure Lighthouse here:

• • An MSP Go-to-Market Strategy for Azure Lighthouse

• • Azure Lighthouse Core Services

• • 11 Rad Ways Azure Lighthouse Integrates with Azure Services

Just aa Azure Lighthouse has been a game-changer for the business model of MSPs, Microsoft 365 Lighthouse will be a turning point for MSPs as well, with the difference that every MSP I know has all their clients on Office / Microsoft 365, while not everyone uses Azure.

Signing up for the preview

Before we get to the requirements to use Microsoft 365 Lighthouse let’s get it activated in your MSPs M365 tenant. It’s a straightforward process but it can take up to 24 hours, in my case it only took a couple of hours.

Sign into your tenant at admin.microsoft.com and go to Billing > Purchase services > Other services and search for Microsoft 365 Lighthouse public preview and buy a single license for $0. There’s no cost for Microsoft 365 Lighthouse during the preview, cost after General Availability hasn’t been revealed yet but I suspect it’ll be free, just like Azure Lighthouse.

Purchase Lighthouse public preview

After some time, you’ll receive an email to let you know that your tenant has been enabled for the preview.

Microsoft 365 Lighthouse enabled

Microsoft 365 Lighthouse requirements

There are a few things that need to be in place for you to take advantage of Microsoft 365 Lighthouse.

First your MSP must be enrolled in the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program, either as an Indirect Reseller or Direct Bill partner.

Secondly, each client must provide Delegated Admin Privileges (DAP) to your MSP.

Thirdly, at this time, each client must have at least one Microsoft 365 Business Premium license and they must have fewer than 500 licensed users. I suspect that some of these limitations will be lifted, probably after General Availability (GA). I’m sure there are many businesses larger than 500 users who are already using an MSP to manage their Office 365 tenant, just as there are many smaller businesses who rely on the advanced security features in Microsoft 365 E5 for instance, but their MSP would like to manage them using Lighthouse. With no inside information, I suspect Microsoft is focusing on this market segment to start with because it’s the one many MSPs focus on as well and converging on Business Premium only also makes sense as it gives a common set of features to manage using Lighthouse.

Fourth, if you want to manage tenant devices, they must be enrolled in Microsoft Endpoint Manager (MEM).

Fifth, for user account data to show up in reports, the client’s tenants must have Azure Active Directory Premium P1, which is included in Microsoft 365 Business Premium.

Sixth, to see devices on the threat management pages they must be running Microsoft Defender Antivirus (built into Windows). This one could be a bit tricky, many MSPs rely on their favorite AV tool and may not want to move to the built-in solution, but (if you’re stuck in the past) know that Defender AV is quite capable these days and is also a stepping stone to the excellent Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE).

The last three on the list won’t stop you using Microsoft 365 Lighthouse but will limit the functionality as mentioned.

In summary:

1. 1. Enroll in the Cloud Solution Provider program
   2. Invite each client to Delegated Admin Privileges
   3. Ensure the clients have at least one Microsoft 365 Business Premium license
   4. Enroll devices in Microsoft Endpoint Manager
   5. Make sure the clients have Azure Active Directory Premium P1
   6. Enable Defender Antivirus

Enrolling in the Cloud Solutions Provider program

I suspect most Microsoft based MSP have already completed this step and my MSP took this step a few years ago so I don’t have screenshots to show you the process but here’s the official documentation.

Your main choice is between being an indirect reseller, where you buy Azure / Microsoft 365 and on-premises licensing through CSP via a distributor or being a direct bill partner. The latter requires you to provide the first level of support for your clients, fully manage customer billing and provisioning and generate at least 300,000 USD revenue in cloud sales in a 12-month period. Here’s the page to get started as in indirect reseller. 

Once enrolled the CSP area in the Partner Center lights up, here you can manage clients.

CSP in Partner Center

Invite a client to Delegated Admin Privileges

I suspect there’s a bit of dirty laundry in most MSPs cupboards (including mine) where they don’t have delegated access to their client’s tenants but instead have Global Admin accounts to login directly to each tenant to do any administration. If that’s the case, please ensure that those Admin accounts have MFA enabled.

To use Microsoft 365 Lighthouse, you need to set up your MSP with delegated admin rights to each tenant, start by clicking the link “Request a reseller relationship” in the CSP portal. Pick your indirect provider, make sure “Include delegated administration privileges” is selected and edit the email before sending it to your client. Note that the recipient must be a Global Administrator in the tenant to be able to action it.

Request a reseller relationship in the CSP partner portal

When a global admin for the tenant clicks the link in the email, they’re greeted with this screen and simply click the Authorize button.

Authorize client for Delegated Admin Privileges

They should now show up under customers in your CSP portal, in my case this was nearly instantaneous.

Exploring the Microsoft 365 Lighthouse portal

Logging on to the Home page

Go to https://lighthouse.microsoft.com and sign in with an account in your MSP tenant with Global Admin credentials and MFA enabled. If the account doesn’t have MFA enabled, you’ll need to enable it before being able to sign in. In case you find this burdensome, understand that you’re effectively accessing all your tenants in one place using Lighthouse so enforcing MFA is a must. I would also suggest that access to Lighthouse should be limited to approved, locked down admin workstations, something you can do using Conditional Access in AAD.

According to Microsoft it can take up to 48 hours before client data starts showing up in the portal, in my experience it took less than two hours.

Home in the Microsoft 365 Lighthouse Portal

On the Home page is an overview of my clients, with tiles for threats (Defender Antivirus), devices with it installed, risky users and device compliance. You can filter this view with the Tenants button in the top left.

User account pages

When I drill into the Risky users tile, I’m taken to the Users part of Lighthouse where there are four tabs, showing accounts that have been flagged as risky, and their current status (At risk or remediated). Clicking View risk detections for an individual account takes me to the AAD portal for that tenant to investigate the risk. The Multifactor Authentication tab shows the tenants status for MFA enablement, and users who aren’t registered for MFA whereas the Password reset tab shows the state of the tenants and accounts for Self-service password reset (SSPR). I can also search across all usernames and when I find a particular user, I can reset their password or block sign-in. Particularly password reset is a very common action for MSP helpdesk staff so instead of having to sign into a particular client’s tenant, find the user and then reset their password, you can do it here for any user.

Risky users blade

Antivirus and Threats

Clicking either the Threat or Antivirus tile takes me to the Threat management area where an overview tab shows me threats (active / mitigated / resolved), devices missing Defender AV and devices overdue for scans. The Threats tab shows a list of active, mitigated, resolved, and allowed threats, whereas the Antivirus protection tab shows me a list of devices, their state, if the AV is up to date, real-time protection state and if any scheduled quick or full scans are due.

Antivirus status across each device

The orange warnings in the screenshot show quick scans that are overdue. Clicking on an individual device brings up its details, plus options to run a quick or full scan, update the signatures and rebooting the device.

Device details in Antivirus view

Note that you can also multi select several devices and run scans on all of them or even reboot all of them in one fell swoop. You can also filter the view of the devices based on device state, threat protection, update status, and any overdue scans.

Devices & Tenants

The Device area has four tabs, Overview shows devices managed by compliance policies in MEM whereas the Devices tab shows the compliance status for each device with the ability to filter the view based on whether the device is corporate or personal, the OS its running and its status. The Policies tab syncs from MEM whereas the Settings tab shows non-compliant settings across tenants. In this area of Lighthouse, I noticed that the data on some tabs were missing, possibly due to the 48 hours not having passed after adding tenant. You can also click an individual device to see details and click a link there to see it in the full Endpoint Manager console.

Device compliance with MEM policies view

The Tenants view shows tenants, including ones that are ineligible for Lighthouse (missing license for Microsoft 365 Business Premium for instance) or ones that don’t have Delegated Administrative privilege yet. You can create and assign tags to different tenants as a way to organize them.

Security and Baselines

There are two specific Role Based Access Control (RBAC) roles associated with the Microsoft 365 Lighthouse, Admin Agent and Helpdesk Agent. The former has permissions to change most settings whereas the latter can view everything but only reset passwords, block sign-ins and update customer contact / website details. Microsoft recommends using Privileged Identity Management (PIM), a feature in AAD Premium P2 (in the partners tenant) to enforce the principle of least privilege so that a Helpdesk Agent can be eligible to be an Admin Agent but must go through a PIM workflow, which can include entering a service ticket, being approved by a supervisor and perform an MFA to elevate to that permission, for a restricted time of a few hours.

Security baselines are a key feature in Microsoft 365 Lighthouse, today you can’t edit them, there are six default baselines:

• • Require MFA for admins (CA report only policy)

• • Require MFA for end users (CA report only policy)

• • Block legacy authentication (CA report only policy)

• • Enroll devices in MEM & Azure AD Join

• • Antivirus policy – a Device Configuration profile

• • Windows 10 Compliance policy

In the Baselines area I can see the Default baseline and apply it to groups of clients. Note that the three Conditional Access policies are report only and thus won’t actually enforce the setting, just give you reports on where it would have been applied. This is a good way to get a grip on the state of MFA and legacy authentication usage across your tenants but in today’s security challenged business landscape it’s vital to move to enforcing MFA and disabling the legacy protocols as soon as possible.

There are two other areas in Microsoft 365 Lighthouse: Windows 365 that gives a view of any Cloud PCs in your client’s tenants and their network connections to on-premises. I don’t have any clients using Windows 365 yet, but it makes great sense to surface this information in Lighthouse.

The final area is Service health, it shows advisories and incidents across Teams / Microsoft 365 / Exchange Online and another 20 services, it’s the same view as in the Microsoft 365 Admin Centre but it makes sense to have it handy in this portal.

Conclusion

This is a public preview, and both the functionality and requirements are a bit limited, but I suspect this will change as feedback comes to Microsoft, particularly now that it’s in public preview. There’s a specific UserVoice for Microsoft 365 Lighthouse – join here.

I think Microsoft 365 Lighthouse will be a gamechanger for MSPs, it’s a shift in how you manage your clients’ digital estates at scale, and I suspect that it’ll find fans in both large and small MSPs. Some questions I have at this stage is the shared MSP model, which works in Azure Lighthouse where you can have one MSP managing your backups and IaaS VMs and another MSP handling your databases. Today that’s not supported in Microsoft 365 Lighthouse.

Another concern is the overlap with third party MSP management tools, and my initial take is that I’m far more likely to trust Microsoft to get security right rather than the RMM software vendors of today (especially given recent news), plus a first-party provided tool is always preferable to me personally. Full disclosure – I don’t use an MSP tool in my business, but I do rely on N-Able Take Control for remote access to devices.

Microsoft 365 Lighthouse isn’t a replacement for a Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) tool today but once the functionality is expanded I can see this being one of the main tools in your MSP toolbox..

The post How to Manage Multiple Office 365 Tenants with M365 Lighthouse appeared first on Altaro DOJO | MSP.

In this article, I share with you my top 5 mistakes that I see tech leaders make daily, and once you master these, I guarantee that your employee engagement will increase, your trust in your team will increase, and the team’s output and productivity will also increase!

If you’re a technician at heart, it’s often the business and people skills where you may struggle with particularly when trying to get a team on board. Many leaders who stem from a technical background ignore the fact that when your team is engaged, they will perform better and your life will become easier.

Unfortunately, this is NOT your comfort zone, and it wasn’t always mine either. However, I learned over the years that when my team is switched on and performing at their best, we can all achieve more, my clients are happier and business performance increases. Simple right? Perhaps in theory, but you’ll need to avoid common pitfalls to achieve it and that’s what we are going through today.

In addition to this article, I had a little chat with Andy Syrewicze about this topic which you can watch here:

At the most fundamental level, from my experience, technical leaders often don’t talk and engage with teams and people effectively. I call this an “Expectation Exchange”.

It’s simple really, as it is all about communication to the human side of the business. Here’s where most go wrong and practical ways to put it right.

You Keep Your “Master Plan” in Your Head

It’s all very well and good coming into the office every day, but where is the business going from a growth point of view?

By keeping your “Master Plan” i.e The Company Vision, in your head, you will be missing out on inviting your team to be involved in your journey.

By sharing the company vision, helping them to develop the mission, and to understand your core values, will help define the direction of the business and build a strong team with a solid culture.

Your team will instantly feel more included, involved, and will take better ownership of issues and challenges in their day.

ACTION PLAN – Once you have set out your plan at a high level and it is clear in your head, hold an “Engagement Session” with your senior leaders to discuss the direction of the company and also ask them “have we missed anything?”. This will help build alignment amongst your key players with the overall vision, mission, and purpose of the business.

You Put off Setting Individual Targets

Historically, for technical leaders, setting team targets is either seen as too complicated and not necessary and on the back of that usually ignored and not completed correctly.

The trick here is to get everyone singing from the same hymn sheet and apply a consistent Leadership approach across the business.

Constructing and assigning individual targets that align with the company’s Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) will help increase team ownership and enable you to correctly delegate at a lower level to your team. You will then personally achieve more in your day as your “To-Do List” reduces.

This will free up your time and help you achieve more each day; it will give each team member a PURPOSE for their role and will also help to build a consistent approach to cascading targets and accountability.

ACTION PLAN – Again, hold a company KPI and target setting workshop. Start at the top with the key business measures and then connect and cascade these down through your teams and individual departments. Don’t try and complete this all in one sitting. This will take a few goes to get it right!

You Don’t Lead by Example

Self-awareness is one of the most important leadership skills of today.

If you are not consciously aware of your behavior as a leader and you don’t go out of your way to lead by example in the workplace, then you shouldn’t be surprised when your team doesn’t do what you want them to do or perform to your highest standards.

I always challenge leaders to consider the “Shadow of the Leader”. This is about being aware of the shadow you cast in your organization and team. This is a concept that I learned early on in my leadership career and is probably THE most important element to my leadership success.

How YOU show up every day is how YOUR team shows up.

IF you are inconsistent, weak, manage your team rather than lead your team, unprofessional and trying to be everyone’s best friend, then they will think that it is OK to also behave like that.

However, if you live by your company values and are seen as strong, confident, accessible, friendly, approachable, professional, and purposeful, then this behavior will also be practiced by your team and you will even start to see this flow into the way they deal with your customers.

ACTION PLAN – As a senior business leader, periodically take a “Check-In” on your own behavior and persona in the office. The easiest way to do this is when you start to feel stressed or frustrated with a situation, take a step back, breathe and be conscious about how others see you handle this situation. Quite simply, take the time to be self-aware of your actions and perception by others.

You Ask Poor Quality Questions

It’s all very well and good asking your team “If they are alright?”, letting them reply and then going about your day. But how do you really know that your team is OK?

Correct applied employee engagement is at the heart of every good leader, making sure people are involved in the decision-making process, promoting a great culture of inclusiveness, and being fair is a key area for you to focus on.

When I had a big team, communication was at the heart of how I increased my team’s performance. By holding well-structured, meaningful meetings, asking great questions, and doing what I said I was going to do, was pretty much my Bible to leadership success.

Ultimately, practicing these small behaviors yourself will help build trust and gel together a great team of people to help you achieve more each day.

ACTION PLAN – Take a check-in on when you meet and how you communicate with your team. Again, improve your awareness of others’ needs and make sure that your actions are consistent with what you are telling others. In short “do what you say you’re going to do”.

You Assume Team Development is Just About Bigger Businesses

Now that you have everyone aligned and you have built a good level of trust and rapport, it’s time to really develop and coach your team to become a high-performing team.

Whether you have a small or large team, it doesn’t matter, they all need coaching and support.

Everyone in business needs guidance and they are going to look to you to provide this for them. The secret formula here is CONSISTENCY within you and your senior leaders.

Make sure everyone has goals, a development plan, and plenty of opportunities to voice their opinions, either as a group or on a 1:1 basis. Also, showing the individual members a career path is also important to let them know that you are investing in them as much as they are investing in you and the business.

ACTION PLAN – Schedule time in your calendar to develop your team, create a plan, share it with them, whether it be 1 or 2 people or 10 or 20. Then set regular meetings to check in on progress and follow up with them individually.

Need some guidance on what training to have your team look at? Check out this article on the top certifications for MSPs

Summary

As I mentioned, this isn’t rocket science, but you must have a PEOPLE PLAN if you want to build a great team to run your amazing MSP Business.

By avoiding the items above and focusing on the tasks one by one and not trying to do them all at once, will make a huge difference to not only YOUR DAY but also the performance of your team.

Interested in other MSP leadership articles? Check out our C-Suite-focused articles here!

Have a great day and it would be lovely to hear how this article has helped you.

The post 5 Mistakes MSPs Make When Building Technical Teams appeared first on Altaro DOJO | MSP.

2020 was a year that will go down in history as a difficult one for most of us, but in the MSP world, there were some silver linings, according to a survey we conducted in February. As it was an unprecedented year, we’ve seen many changes in the MSP market, with some MSP’s finding opportunities for growth. The biggest driving factors for this growth have been remote work and increased adoption of Microsoft 365 tools.

Here’s a summary of the positive discoveries from  our MSP survey:

• 60% of MSPs increased cross-selling 3rd party apps to manage Microsoft 365
• 87% of MSPs growing their Microsoft Office 365 business thanks to the pandemic.
• 2 in 3 MSPs found that Microsoft 365 helped them and their clients work better remotely

The most interesting discovery we’ve found is that 87% of the 325 Managed Service Providers (MSPs) surveyed told us that they saw increased Microsoft Office 365 business last year. See the sources of this extra revenue below:

Sources of increased revenue in 2020 for MSP’s

We conducted the survey between February and March to gauge the effect of COVID-19, and the subsequent shifts of employees increasingly working from home, on MSPs’ Microsoft Office 365 business.

But before we dive in any deeper into the data – a bit about you guys. Who answered our survey? Most of our respondents are located in North America (47.7%), Europe (46.5%) and Australia (3.7%). The vast majority of the people who answered have been in business for a significant amount of time, with nearly three out of every four (72.6%) having been in business for over 11 years. Talk about staying on top of your game. The fact that a similar percentage (75.4%) has 10 employees or fewer, might be a contributor to the success of these MSPs.

Here are more interesting discoveries from our survey:

Do you offer your clients email security services?

As a substantial chunk of the workforce of many companies moved to work remotely from different home offices, the need for email security increased, and the vast majority of MSP’s surveyed jumped on the occasion to offer email security services to their clients.

Microsoft 365 is a great platform to earn more recurring revenue. Do you do any of the following for your clients on Microsoft 365?

The majority of MSP’s have found new opportunities for revenue growth from Microsoft 365. Offering solutions for email security was the most frequently quoted source of recurring revenue, followed by offering help with email inbox management and training.

The increase in remote working gave my business more support volumes

More implementation means more work to support them, right? Well, according to the respondents, it does, but perhaps not as overwhelmingly as you’d think. 67.1% have said they either agree or strongly agree that support volumes have increased, while 27.4% declare that the volume of requests hasn’t changed that much.

70% of MSPs reported increased revenue from remote working

As organizations scrambled to move their teams to remote working, and as some industries were being decimated by the recession that came along with the pandemic, there were other sectors that just shifted gears to ensure business continuity for all, thriving through the chaos. Our industry was clearly one of them – in fact, 70% of MSPs said that they saw an increase in business when their clients shifted to working remotely.

Remote work impact on MSP revenue

This might sound obvious to most, but other industries that should have seen their budgets remain the same went the other way, such as the 52% of UK companies who said that they were reducing marketing budgets.

MSPs working with Microsoft Office 365 were paramount in facilitating this shift to remote working, in fact over half of the MSPs who answered our survey (55%) said that they saw an increase in implementation business for Microsoft Office 365.

MSPs increased their business with the help of Microsoft Office 365

Two thirds of MSPs surveyed felt that Microsoft 365 helped them (and their clients) transition smoothly from office-based working to remote working, and they largely agreed that this transition gave them increased business opportunities, matching the findings of our survey last year, in which 76.6% of respondents had predicted that remote working would be the biggest generator of revenue during the pandemic.

Impact of Microsoft 365 on remote work

Overall MSPs agreed that remote working made it easier for them to upsell extra solutions to their clients. Support volumes increased, too. Over two thirds of respondents told us that they had increased support volumes over the course of the pandemic.

Overall the survey showed quite a rosy picture for MSPs. Over the course of 2020 MSPs implemented more Microsoft 365 solutions than ever before, with clients flocking to collaboration tools like Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint (Cloud).

Most popular tools deployed by MSPs

Revenue streams around Microsoft 365

We also tried to understand some of the ways in which MSPs can generate recurring revenue from Microsoft 356 deployments. This is the holy grail of most businesses, so we’re hoping that you can take a look and get inspired by what you see. 91% of the people who answered the survey told us that they offer email security solutions.

Email security solutions are also used by two thirds of MSPs to generate recurring revenue, whereas around half of MSPs who answered told us that they earn recurring revenue on email inbox management. Some other services that you could think about offering your clients should include training services, process automation, setting up databases and help with specific tools, such as programming in Excel and project management in Planner.

Increased revenue opportunities from third-party tools

MSPs also saw increased revenue opportunities from the availability of third-party tools to manage their clients’ Microsoft Office 365 deployments, such as Altaro’s Office 365 Backup for MSPs.

These tools help both MSPs and their clients to have increased peace of mind, and it is clear that businesses are seeing the value in them: 85% of MSPs use secondary tools to enhance clients’ 365 setup, and 84% of MSPs who chose to go with third-party email security solutions also set up third-party backup solutions for their clients, showing that the opportunities for cross-selling these two services is very high.

How MSP’s manage Microsoft 365

Microsoft and MSPs throughout the pandemic

We also surveyed MSPs about how they felt that Microsoft reacted to their increased needs during the pandemic. The general sentiment was neutral. MSPs felt that their relationship with Microsoft didn’t really change last year, which is actually just what a brand would want to hear, as it shows consistency. MSPs were, by and large, satisfied with the support quality and response times they received from Microsoft, too.

Full data access to MSP Survey Results

If you’re interested, you can see the full data here.

The post 70% of MSPs saw increased revenue as companies work from home appeared first on Altaro DOJO | MSP.

Do you offer your clients email security services?

Where is your business based?

How long have you been in business?

What’s the size of your MSP?

In 2020, your clients used more products from the Microsoft 365 suite than they did in 2019.

Based on what you saw with your clients, which of the following Microsoft 365 tools saw the biggest uptake in 2020?

Which secondary tools do you use to manage Microsoft 365?

Microsoft 365 is a great platform to earn more recurring revenue. Do you do any of the following for your clients on Microsoft 365?

Out of the following, which gave you increased business with Microsoft 365 in 2020 (if any)?

The rise of remote working has given you more Microsoft 365 business

Microsoft 365 helped you and your clients adapt to suit a remote-first working environment

The increase in remote working gave my business more support volumes

The increase in remote working made it easier for me to upsell other solutions, such as email security solutions

I’m happy with the quality of support I receive from Microsoft as an MSP.

My relationship with Microsoft was better over the past year in comparison to previous years.

I’m happy with the reaction time of Microsoft’s support during the pandemic.

The post MSPs | How was Microsoft’s Response to the Pandemic appeared first on Altaro DOJO | MSP.

At Ignite 2020, Microsoft announced a new Lighthouse solution for Microsoft 365. Designed for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) this offers a central console where you can manage all your Microsoft 365 (M365) clients in a single dashboard. In this article we breakdown what was announced and why this is a big deal for MSPs.

There isn’t much to go on, apart from a Microsoft blog post, and a short breakout session from Ignite 2020 but the concept is very interesting, especially for MSPs managing clients with high numbers of M365 users and frequent onboarding.

We have also covered more on Microsoft Ignite 2020 – check out our analysis on Satya Nadella’s keynote.

What is Microsoft 365 Lighthouse?

It’s quite straightforward – it’s a single place to onboard new M365 clients, monitor their compliance state across different metrics, and standardize automation and auditing across all of your clients. It relies on the MSP having set up Delegated Access Permission (DAP) with Global Administrator permissions in their client’s tenants and devices being enrolled in Intune.

Device Compliance across five clients

What Does Microsoft 365 Lighthouse do?

In the preview, there are three main areas of focus, starting with device compliance. You can see what policies are applied to devices in each client, how many devices are compliant at each client and you can compare policies across clients.

Compliance policy list

The second solution on offer looks at threats across all of your clients and the protection status of Microsoft Defender Antivirus on all Windows 10 devices. This gives you a single console to see whether there are any active threats, which devices have it deployed and if there are pending actions (scans, required OS updates, reboots etc.) as well as if there were threats that were blocked or quarantined. Also, you can see Conditional Access policies across clients.

Threat management dashboard

Finally, you can manage user access management across all clients. Resetting passwords, blocking access, setting up delegated access to a mailbox or OneDrive for Business, adding a user to a group is done in a single pane of glass. This one feature could be worth it for many MSPs, today you either have to create custom PowerShell scripts to automate these tasks or login to each client’s individual management portal to do this.

As Microsoft gets feedback from MSPs participating in the preview, expect more features to be added such as the ability to see M365 service health across different clients and support requests.

Is Microsoft 365 Lighthouse a Gamechanger for MSPs?

As an MSP I find the concept intriguing but given the scant information, I’m cautious. Microsoft will need to add a lot of features to make this a worthy competitor to existing MSP management solutions on the market. But that may not be their aim, at least not initially, it might just be an additional tool to make it easier to manage multiple M365 tenants in a standardized way.

Further, I find the focus on Microsoft Defender worrying, many MSPs don’t use the otherwise excellent Endpoint Detection and Response tool due to its high cost. I’m really looking forward to seeing how this service evolves over the coming months.

If you’re an MSP and you’re interested in trying out M365 Lighthouse when they expand the preview you need to fill in the form.

More info on Microsoft 365 Lighthouse

Are you looking forward to Microsoft 365 Lighthouse? Let us know in the comments.

The post Microsoft 365 Lighthouse – Simple M365 Management for MSPs appeared first on Altaro DOJO | MSP.

We are excited to announce the newest member of the Altaro Backup family, Altaro EndPoint Backup for MSPs!

Altaro designed this solution to simplify backup for an organization’s on-premise and roaming Windows desktops and laptops. With an increasing number of employees working remotely, there has never been a greater need to ensure that offsite resources are regularly backed up. Altaro designed this product for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) as a solution they can offer to their customers and centrally manage through the Altaro Cloud Management Console. Altaro EndPoint Backup is also free for MSPs for internal use (for up to 10 licenses).

As an MSP, you should view this as a new opportunity to offer a valuable service to your customers and protect their business, especially during this time while more of the workforce is connecting from home. Even though they may try to enforce group policies to only store data on their network or in the cloud, end users often store some files locally on their laptops and PCs. This means that this data can also be lost or damaged due to physical disasters, loss, theft, or cyberattacks. Now MSPs customers can help with that through Altaro EndPoint Backup.

Trial & Licensing Altaro EndPoint Backup

The first step to evaluate Altaro EndPoint Backup is to visit the sign-up page for a free 30-day trial. This allows MSPs to test this out in their own environment and prepare to deploy this highly scalable service to their customers. There are no restrictions on the number of users or tenants, and the MSP must provide their own MS Azure cloud storage for the backup files.

Altaro EndPoint Protection is licensed per user as a monthly subscription, with a minimum of 10 EndPoints per month across all an MSP’s customers. Altaro’s outstanding 24/7 support is part of the package.

Altaro EndPoint Backup Free Edition

As an added incentive, Altaro EndPoint Backup offers a completely free edition for MSPs to use internally for their own organization for up to 10 endpoints a month (excluding the cost of cloud storage).

Configuration is also easy using Altaro’s GUI-based wizard.

Getting Started with the Altaro EndPoint Backup Cloud Management Console

Altaro provides backup solutions for Hyper-V and VMware virtual machines, physical Windows servers, Microsoft Office 365, and now Windows EndPoints. These easy-to-use backup solutions have become popular amongst MSPs as they can customers centrally manage all their customers’ different backups using the Altaro Cloud Management Console (CMC).

The first step with Altaro EndPoint Backup is in fact to sign up to the CMC. This provides a single pane of glass to perform all configuration, monitoring and management of the EndPoint backups.

Next, perform a one-time installment of the Altaro EndPoint Manager on one of your  VMs or servers running Windows Server 2016 or 2019, then connecting the services. The Altaro EndPoint Manager stores all configurations and backup policies set up in the CMC for customers’ roaming and on-premise. The subsequent screenshot shows an admin registering this backup utility.

Configuring the Altaro EndPoint Backup Locations

Managed service providers must configure and manage their own Azure Cloud Storage Account which provides the backup storage location for their customers. This can be done in any Azure site using the affordable Azure General Purpose v1 Storage Account, although higher tiers can also be used if a faster recovery speed is needed. The MSP may also add native Azure storage enhancements, such as encryption or geo-replication to ensure that multiple copies of the data are backed up and available in the event of an Azure site outage. The billable cost to customers for each service tier is defined by the MSP. Once the Azure Cloud Storage Account has been configured, it is registered to the Altaro EndPoint Backup service and can be used as a backup location.

Creating an Altaro EndPoint Backup Policy

Altaro EndPoint Backup lets MSPs to create different backup policies which can align to different service offerings. Each plan allows you to define which user directories and file types to include (or exclude), the Azure Cloud Storage Account to use, the backup frequency (ranging from 1 to 42 hours), the backup schedule, backup retention, and network bandwidth throttling.

Installing the Altaro EndPoint Backup Agents

Every device which you are protecting with Altaro EndPoint Backup must have a lightweight agent installed. This can be done via a script remotely (recommended) or manually on any PC running Windows 7, 8.1, or 10 (x64 only).

Restoring a Backup from Altaro EndPoint Backup

Altaro EndPoint Backup also makes recovery easy for MSPs to quickly get their customers’ data restored. Through the Altaro Cloud Management Console, admins can restore the backup to the user’s machine (the original EndPoint) or to a secure location on the corporate network.

The recovery can be from a full backup or individual files can be granularly restored. The Altaro Cloud Management Console shows the status of backups and recoveries across all users. 

Start your Free Trial Now!

Altaro EndPoint Backup is a great addition to the growing suite of reliable backup solutions we have on offer. It was a highly requested service from our current customers who prefer to have one vendor covering all their backup needs and this release is an important step for us to achieve that goal.

We hope that you are ready to start offering Altaro EndPoint Backup to your customers. Start your free trial now!

Remember that this solution is also completely free for MSPs to use internally for up to 10 EndPoints per month, so check it out now!

Read the full press release about Altaro EndPoint Backup for MSPs

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COVID-19 has caused unprecedented effects on the modern world. Entire national economies are being rewritten to account for the losses in business and lives, with some industries being affected more than others. We have been asked by many of our partners for advice on how MSPs can respond but the best way to understand the situation is to gather data from those affected. So we set up a survey for MSPs to give their feedback so we can learn from each other and help steady the boat through these tough times.

COVID-19 Survey for MSPs

The main aim of the survey is to determine what impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on the managed services sector, how have MSPs responded; and what is the outlook for the industry. 13 key questions were asked to a wide range of MSPs on how their business, profits, operations, and staff have been affected by the pandemic and associated lockdown measures. The participating MSPs comprise a fully international sample but the majority from the US and Europe.

The State of MSPs During COVID-19 – Survey Full Results

Infographic

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