What Is a Security-centric Approach to RMM?

Security services play a vital role in establishing a service provider as a trusted partner by helping clients keep their data safe and their business running smoothly.

While many MSPs want to make security an integral part of their daily management and monitoring routine, they often run up against a lack of time, resources or internal expertise to adequately stay ahead of the rapidly changing security threat landscape.

Remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools offer a well-established means for making it easier and more efficient to keep up with the demands of supporting many customers by allowing MSPs to automate tasks, provide remote IT support, and more. Time is money, and time saved on these types of tasks is money made for MSPs.

However, RMMs become even more valuable when they are used to enhance the level of security provided to customers. By incorporating security features such as built-in security assessments, the ability to manage email accounts and the ability to streamline security patch management from a centralized platform, a service provider can offer higher service levels to customers, and create business growth opportunities for MSPs and MSSPs.

A Security-centric Approach

A security-centric RMM helps service providers roll security tasks into daily application and system management processes. This enables MSPs to more easily fit these vital security-related responsibilities into the day-to-day management of other service offerings without adding resources or increasing internal expenses.

For example, Managed Workplace is a security-centric RMM. The solution centralizes management of common security-related tasks and enables MSPs to assess and address security risks for all of their customers. The solution can also be combined with other integrated security solutions like endpoint antivirus to help MSPs offer a full platform of security offerings that will benefit their clients. A particularly powerful feature of the solution is its built-in Site Security Assessment, which helps service providers periodically review and identify vulnerabilities in a customer site, suggest steps to address those risks, as well as to continually demonstrate value to their customers.

Why It’s a Must-Have

For MSPs, leveraging RMM that incorporates security monitoring offers a number of benefits:

Small to midsize businesses (SMBs) are increasingly the target of cyber attacks (nearly 70 percent experienced such an attack last year, according to the Ponemon Institute), and most of these companies lack the internal resources to properly protect their applications and data. This represents a major opportunity for MSPs. However, many MSPs face the same challenges as their clients when it comes to staffing. They don’t want to spread their support team too thin, but hiring more employees to manage security services hurts profit margins.

An RMM tool that incorporates security monitoring and management can help these MSPs grow their businesses without absorbing additional costs or over-taxing their existing staff, while also providing reliable security services to clients.

Security services is a growing opportunity, and one that MSSPs have already realized. Using a security-centric RMM tool to offer more security services may be the ticket to boosting growth for established and fledgling MSPs alike.

Neal Bradbury is Senior Director of Business Development for Barracuda MSP, a provider of security and data protection solutions for managed services providers, where he is responsible for generating greater business value for the company’s MSP partner community and alliance partners.

This guest blog is part of a Channel Futures sponsorship.