MSP Tier One Counts 10 Years Serving Charity

Just yesterday MSP Today brought you a story of how the International Rescue Committee (IRC) stopped managing its own e-mail, and turned to MSP Datapipe for help. Switching to an Exchange managed service lets IRC focus on helping after natural disasters, during wars and in its ongoing efforts to protect the health of those less fortunate.

The Arc of Howard County, a non-profit in Maryland, looked for service provider help over a decade ago and found it in Tier One, a Washington-Baltimore IT consultancy. The two are now marking ten years of working together.

Like IRC, Arc wanted to focus on its mission rather than IT grunt work. “We’re not technology people, but we need technology to fulfill our organization’s purpose and objectives,” said Susan Askew, associate executive director of administration for Arc. “Tier One Technology Partners just takes over and takes care of all of our IT needs.”

It wasn’t always that way. For the first nine years of the relationship, Tier One played a support role, helping out the Arc IT department. In the last year or so, Tier One really is the IT department, using its “fully outsourced Managed IT Services Program to replace the need for a full-time resource,” the MSP said.

Arc of Howard County, now in its 52nd year, has respite care, residential and day programs, and support for individuals and families.

The group started as a parent support group, all volunteer, and today helps over 1,000 people.

Virtual Benefits

Technology changes a lot in ten years, and Arc moved from dedicated technologies to virtual, with the help of Tier One. The current infrastructure is based on server workhorse Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisor. This platform handles remote access, accounting and file and print services, among others.

Tier One also handles security, managing anti-spyware, anti-virus and the firewall.

On the networking side, the MSP takes care of Wi-Fi, and installed a VPN that supports Microsoft Terminal Services.

Finally, Tier One serves as the help desk for Arc.