Many managed service providers (MSPs) will tell you that they offer network security services—but how do you know that their offerings are actually high-quality and useful to you as an organization?

Your network is one of the most critical parts of your business—which means that any technical issues will come at a high price. According to a study by ITIC Corporation, 81 percent of organizations estimate that a single hour of downtime would cost their business $300,000 or more.

Maybe your in-house IT staff is overworked, or perhaps you simply don’t have the expertise necessary to build a robust network infrastructure. Whatever the reason may be, a growing number of businesses have chosen to outsource much of the heavy lifting to a network services company. Although there are many network services providers out there, not all of them are the right fit for your business. However, just because you’re not an IT company doesn’t mean that you aren’t able to evaluate potential IT partners. Below, we’ll discuss the six most important traits that you should look for in a network services company.

What are Network Support Services? Network support services focus on the maintenance of an existing business network.

A managed network is a type of communication network that is built, operated, secured and managed by a third-party service provider.

Network security services are designed to protect the usability and integrity of your network and data. This includes both hardware and software technologies.

Network management services provide complete support for the management and support processes for Local Area Networks (LAN) and Wide Area Networks (WAN). Services are provided either on-site or remotely

What are IT Network Services? IT network services are designed to facilitate a networks operation. It typically is provided by a server (which can be running one or more services), based on network protocols running at the application layer in the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model of the network.