The evolution of MSP started in the 1990s with the emergence of application service providers (ASPs) who helped pave the way for remote support for IT infrastructure. From the initial focus of remote monitoring and management of servers and networks, the scope of an MSP's services expanded to include mobile device management,
managed security, remote firewall administration and security-as-a-service, and managed print services. The first books on the topic of managed services -
Service Agreements for SMB Consultants: A Quick-Start Guide to Managed Services and
The Guide to a Successful Managed Services Practice - were published in 2006 by Palachuk and Simpson, respectively. Since then, the managed services
business model has gained ground among enterprise-level companies. As the
value-added reseller (VAR) community evolved to a higher level of services, it adapted the managed service model and tailored it to SMB companies. As the
IT infrastructure components of many
SMB and large corporations are migrating to the cloud, with MSPs (managed services providers) increasingly facing the challenge of
cloud computing, a number of MSPs are providing in-house cloud services or acting as brokers with cloud services providers. A recent survey claims that a lack of knowledge and expertise in cloud computing rather than client's reluctance, appears to be the main obstacle to this transition. ==Types==