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Management service provider InteQ Corp. is poised to launch a new infrastructure management service designed to help lower the cost of managing applications and the infrastructure that delivers those applications.
The Billerica, Mass., MSP, which is still working off an infusion of $57 million in funding last spring, hopes to convince IT administrators to turn over day-to-day performance and availability management of key enterprise applications from vendors such as SAP AG, Oracle Corp. and PeopleSoft Inc.
“They are giving up a little more control in problem resolution because we provide the technical support of that application already in place,” said Bob Flaherty, vice president of service management strategy at InteQ. “But the customer still has control over implementation and business processes the applications enable.”
The new InfraSolve subscription service goes beyond typical monitoring services that provide monitoring, problem notification and reporting. Using IT Infrastructure Library methodologies for service delivery, InteQ follows consistent processes for resolving problems. “When something happens in a customer environment, we handle it in the same way each time. A lot of it is automated, and lot of corrective actions can be automated as well,” said Flaherty.
InfraSolve provides remote application infrastructure management, problem diagnosis and resolution, and reporting at a cost that InteQ officials believe is lower than what typical IT operations can provide.
One early adopter agreed the service can lower costs and at the same time improve service quality. “It is an excellent value. There is no way I could do what theyre doing without having to spend a lot of money,” said Tom Riemer, director of information systems at South Shore Mental Health Inc., in Quincy, Mass.
“The cost-to-value ratio is extremely high,” he added.
The new service builds on InteQs existing InfraWatch remote monitoring service, which provides monitoring, escalation and notification. InfraSolve covers the applications and the servers on which they run, databases, networks, and other components that deliver the applications.
InteQ competes most directly with MSPs such as StrataSource Inc., which was recently acquired by SevenSpace Inc. But its biggest challenge isnt competitors, but surviving a market that is slow to develop, according to Mark Nicolett, research director at Gartner Inc., in Stamford, Conn. “There were expectations that it would be a fast growth type of market. With all the changes weve had recently, its going to be a long, slow slog [to build a customer base],” Nicolett said.
InfraSolve is available now. Pricing depends on the number of manageable objects covered by the service. A typical application and its components could cost $25,000 per year.