While companies in general continue to limit their hiring internally, the Department of Labor report shows that they are turning to outside contractors, solution providers and MSPs for their technology needs.
IT services firms are hiring. That’s the latest from the U.S. Department of Labor jobs report released today, which provided some encouraging news for folks in the channel.
For the fourth straight month, the DOL recorded gains in IT services jobs. IT employment in general has also experienced growth over the last three consecutive months.
But it’s the services spike that should brighten the channel’s spirits. Of the 7,600 new jobs created last month in the IT market, 6,900 of them were in management and technical consulting services and computer systems design and related services, according to IT industry analyst firm Foote Partners, which broke down the report.
Judging by that data it’s clear that while companies in general continue to limit their hiring internally – that fact is borne out in the broader DOL report – they are turning to outside contractors, solution providers and MSPs for their technology needs.
“We can expect to see hiring of technical and management specialists by services firms picking up further in the first quarter of 2010 as demand continues to expand,” said David Foote, CEO and chief research officer at Foote Partners, in assessing the jobs report.
Uptick around managed services and consulting can be felt across the channel, with many solution providers predicting a turnaround year. Kevin McDonald, executive vice president at Alvaka Networks, an MSP in Irvine, Calif., says 2010 looks bright – especially for solution providers that emphasize services and consulting exclusively. That’s where the jobs are flowing.
“We sell some product if the client really wants us to, but in general, we are all about delivering top notch consulting and support services,” McDonald said. “If a firm is making significant amounts of their gross profits on software and hardware margins, my advice would be to consider a career change.
Smoke testing is a term used to describe the testing process for servers after patches are applied. 
Estimating an average time for patching servers and PCs can be a bit tricky. It can vary from one month to the next, depending upon the number and complexity of the patches released by your software vendors. You must consider all versions of operating systems and have a complete inventory of all your application software to do this job correctly. Our experience has shown that manual patching of systems takes on average of about 1.5 hours each.
This is a basic cost calculator for you to compute your typical monthly cost for patching your servers, PCs, laptops, tablets and associated application software. It also forms the basis for you to begin calculating your Return on Investment for software patching, or for comparison with alternatives to the manual process of patching operating systems and application software—such as Patch Management as a Service, also known as Vulnerability Management as a Service.