MSP budgets have ballooned, and rising costs call for more efficient workflows. However, doing so requires breaking established practices, going beyond the confines of exclusive platform deals and dependence on just one solution provider.
Is your MSP ready to take the next step in efficiency? Well, then integrations may be your best friend(s).
Key points of this article:
- A typical MSP environment uses a diversity of solutions to serve their needs (from RMMs to complex security platforms), requiring trained hands and attentive eyes to handle. This contributes to rising complexities, client requests, and costs.
- These operational complexities call for improved efficiencies within MSPs, brought best by streamlining workloads through seamless product integrations built to handle even complicated security tasks.
- The benefits of integrations are many: Lower costs, better flexibility, and top-flight security without few concessions.
- Risks lie in the MSPs ability to prioritize, adapt, and overcome obstacles brought by the changing business environment and threat landscape. At the same time, by having a varied but connected toolset, MSPs can ensure their stability in the chaotic universe of IT service provision.
What are these “integrations”?
Imagine a typical MSP environment. You have your remote monitoring and management tool of choice running simultaneously with ticketing software, the security platform of your choice, something else for automation…the list goes on. At the same time, these tools are all provided by different brands, have diverse UXs, and need exclusively trained admins to use (in an ideal situation).
Sadly, an MSP’s situation is often less than ideal. Managing multiple solutions requiring separate sign-ins within an evolving threat landscape just overcomplicates things. This can lead to gaps in visibility, burnout, and loss of control.
That’s a rather heavy cross to bear. And we haven’t even mentioned the costs and bureaucracy required to procure and maintain these tools. A smart MSP would know that to streamline their operations, they should probably use the least number of solutions possible, perhaps from a single vendor too, to keep their IT systems lean.
Budget-wise this might seem rational, but when push comes to shove, a single-vendor or single-stack strategy limits one’s flexibility (especially while supporting clients with different needs) and may introduce higher costs in the long term. Moreover, it creates a single point of failure, where due to architectural uniformity, a critical flaw could impact the entire stack via a cascade effect.
However, who’s to say that MSPs can’t cherry-pick the best of the best solutions and combine them at their pleasure? That’s what software integrations offer — lower costs, better flexibility, and top-shape security.
Examples of MSP-benefitting integrations
Usually, MSP clients, depending on their footprint or industry vertical, can have vastly different security needs. Your small mom and pop hardware store needn’t establish Fort Knox-grade protection. BUT this doesn’t excuse an MSP from being incapable of serving both at the same time; that’s what flexibility and tool scalability are all about, right?
Ask for help through the ESET MSP Program
A flexible, scalable program designed specifically for MSPs — offering easy onboarding, tiered benefits, and business growth support.
That’s where integrations come in handy. For example, MSPs using the Kaseya VSA X RMM can manage ESET Endpoint products directly from within the solution’s interface without having to log in to a separate console. The same is true for MSPs using the SuperOps PSA-RMM Platform, which can enhance client protection through an integration with ESET Endpoint Security, enabling rapid deployment and automation. The list goes on.
Scalable solutions for diverse client needs
From endpoint protection to MDR, ESET’s portfolio supports MSPs in serving SMBs to mid-market clients with tailored security offerings.
The point is that straightforward MSP workflows take IT admin focus to the right spots at the right time.
Are integrations easy to onboard?
Now, the question is whether an MSP could target individual solutions and integrate them into their platform of choice without any further thought.
See, full integrations usually depend on whether the developer of a module or of a platform has had a specific partnership or strategy in mind. At ESET, our integrations support the most popular platforms, such as ConnectWise PSA and ConnectWise Automate, Datto RMM and Datto Autotask, NinjaOne, Atera, and more.
What’s more, ESET integrations are hassle-free to realize, even for RMMs without dedicated plugins. Seamless integrations with the ESET PROTECT Platform enable centralized management, automation, and streamlined operations for MSPs.
A good idea is to find the solution that fits into your environment, enhancing those attributes that are the least developed. From a security perspective, getting a good, instant overview of the endpoints, with added automation, and on-demand tasking, is one of the better areas to focus on.
Why not to go multi-vendor?
Obviously, there are also some negatives to multi-vendor environments, namely:
- Jack of all trades, master of none: Combining diverse solutions integrated within one platform might not offer the same number of functionalities as their discrete dashboards would, likely creating integration gaps. Moreover, MSPs could find some integrations fall short of their expectations, requiring additional solutions to augment their posture.
- Vulnerabilities: With multiple solutions in use the attack surface slightly expands, necessitating more complex vulnerability and patch management for all the separate agents in use.
- Maintenance and complexity: Managing multiple integrations can quickly become resource-intensive, especially when troubleshooting issues across interconnected systems. Even well-integrated solutions, if not at least semi-automated, demand constant vigilance to interpret and respond to alerts effectively.
In the end, it’s all about an MSP’s priorities, resources, and clientele. Sometimes clients might demand an MSP onboard a particular product to get their business, complicating their internal workflows by necessitating integrations, creating a multivendor environment in turn. A challenging task that, putting MSP flexibility and adaptability to the test.
