A skilled Managed Service Provider (MSP) delivers ongoing, proactive IT management spanning monitoring, maintenance, support and continuous improvement, typically under a recurring agreement. The aim is to reduce downtime and risk by managing your environments day to day.

‘Breakfix’ support is reactive: when something breaks, you call and pay per hour or per job. It’s a service that may suit small technology environments, but it often leads to unpredictable costs and recurring issues because underlying problems aren’t managed continuously.

Most MSP agreements include some combination of service desk support, monitoring, patching, endpoint/device management, backup oversight, and security controls (depending on the plan).

Items that are often excluded or scoped separately include major projects and migrations, new builds, hardware purchasing, and some afterhours coverage, unless explicitly included. The simplest way to compare providers is to request a clear inclusions/exclusions list.

MSP pricing varies based on users/devices, support coverage, security requirements, cloud footprint, compliance needs, and whether you want fully managed or comanaged services. Providers may price per-user, per-device, with tiered bundles, or on a tailored agreement. 

To compare pricing fairly, validate what’s included, what’s excluded, and the service levels you’re committing to. 

Look for clarity on the following: scope, priority definitions, response versus resolution targets, support hours, escalation, reporting, security responsibilities, and exit/offboarding terms.

A strong Service Level Agreement (SLA) makes it easy to understand what happens when something goes wrong, including how quickly the provider responds, how incidents are escalated, and how performance is measured.

Some MSPs offer 24/7/365 support, while others provide business-hours support with after-hours coverage for critical issues. “Urgent” is usually defined by business impact, such as a major outage, a security incident, or a critical system failure. Before choosing a provider, confirm coverage hours, how incidents are triaged, and how after-hours escalations work.

Switching MSPs typically involves discovery and documentation, access/credential handover, asset and licensing inventory, security baseline checks, and a controlled transition into steady-state support.

To minimise downtime risk, look for a provider that can explain their transition plan clearly: what they’ll validate first (especially backups and security), and how they’ll manage change control during onboarding.

Yes. Sometimes referred to as “co-managed” or “hybrid IT support”, this form of support lets your internal team retain ownership of specific areas while an MSP provides additional coverage, specialist capabilities, or tooling.

For example: service desk overflows, monitoring, patching, cybersecurity, or projects. The key for a successful partnership is defining responsibilities clearly to ensure nothing is duplicated or missed.

Brennan combines managed services delivery at scale with measurable customer experience outcomes (including a world-leading NPS), plus in-house capability across key IT domains, including advanced networking, cloud and infrastructure, data and AI, and security.

When comparing MSPs, look for a provider that can show performance metrics, explain how they deliver day-to-day, and demonstrate depth of experience for escalation and complex environments.

Absolutely. Brennan provides 24/7/365 service desk support and 24/7/365 security monitoring, with Brennan’s Major Incident Team ready to respond to major system outages or attacks.

Yes. With onshore hosting solutions, policy-aligned architecture, and secure cloud environments, Brennan can ensure your systems, services, and data remain under sovereign control, offering the scale, skills, and service maturity to match global players, with the agility and commitment of a trusted Australian partner,  

If you have specific sovereignty requirements, key considerations should include; where data is stored and processed: who can access and administer systems: how those controls are governed and audited.