Good day fellow admins. I just accepted an offer as an IT Administrator for a company that currently relies completely on a MSP. They are looking to bring IT in-house with this new role. I will be the go-to for all things IT. Could use some advice.

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An-Engineer-Mike@reddit

Has the company detailed why they want in-house IT & what they expect to change? You should understand what’s driving this.

Agree with lots of comment made by others about working with the MSP and not trying to be everywhere all the time too.

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AverageMuggle99@reddit

“I am familiar with a lot of different concepts just not really an expert in them”

gif

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Not only that but your expertise fades over time. We used to manage on-prem exchange servers back in the day. Been on O365 for over a decade now. Anyways I came across an Exchange server the other day and realized I don’t remember Jack shit. Things you’re proficient and competent in 15 years ago aren’t super helpful.

Also made me realize how glad I am I don’t work with Exchange anymore lol

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Usual-Chef1734@reddit

Got hurt pal. This will be fun.

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Cashflowz9@reddit

Shoot me a DM if you feel stuck, I can help you talk through anything you may run into.

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thatflacoman@reddit (OP)

Thanks, this subreddit has already been super helpful. I for sure will be posting here a lot more in the coming months and will definitely reach out if/when i need help.

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Cashflowz9@reddit

Yeah NP, I had a friend take over an IT department for a 500 employee contractor. In his case he was more management and not technical and we helped him navigate so whatever you need.

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Unexpected_chair@reddit

Hello, I had the same experience about three years ago. It's absolutely amazing, I am now leading a team of three.

What happened in my company was that I basically cut the support request costs from 250k a year to less than 50k which helped me negotiate my salary. I then had management follow my lead on how to go from the bare minimum to industry standards both in terms of process and security.

I am "on call 24/7" but I made it very clear : I have no obligation to answer since it's not in my contract and people understand that very clearly. So basically I have a call on weekend maybe once in a month and this if for actual emergencies. Please note that I am a very disagreeable person, I say NO much more than I say yes and I would not recommend this "deal" for every person and every company. Also, the people in my company are very nice and dilligent in making sure they don't infringe on my personnal time too much. Because of this, I feel invested, trusted, and part of the future of the company (the CFo also had meetings with me about our 5 years strategy which really tells me "IT is part of the strategy, not a cost center").

If you feel the company is a good match, you're going to have a blast there.

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ASympathy@reddit

Run cat6a instead of cat6. I've been running into some issues lately with the spec not holding up for some AP runs that should be within the correct distance at 5gbps link speed. Don't know anything about your budget, but setups that probably won't get you fired: entra joined windows pcs (teams, SharePoint, one drive) , intune, okta, scepman, crowdstrike/defender paid, Palo Alto firewalls, Juniper mist for switching/aps.

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thatflacoman@reddit (OP)

I'll definelty do some research on this, but cat6a for the entire building not just the APs?

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ASympathy@reddit

You'll probably be fine just doing cat6 for the users, at 1gb. Depends on your workload. Cat6a for runs going at higher speeds.

Something I've also done on my last few built outs that's been beneficial on occasion is running a couple strands of copper along side the fiber between the idf rooms. Normally use it to run management ports back to core, but it can work as a degraded switching route when needed.

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PracticalCar4953@reddit

Get an easy to setup IT Service Desk system from the beginning (ITSM) to help you document your workload, incidents, problems, changes etc. Prioritize wishes from the business with your direct manager in there. Document governance and ownership in the business always ensuring you have a business owner of an application and they know what it entails.

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SeptimiusBassianus@reddit

To be honest there is no need for full time IT at 80 people They should have kept the MSP or get a good one Like other said they might not have budget for anything now Or another thing with me personally in about 6 month to 1 year I would completely fix / rebuild everything and then I would be super bored doing same repetitive tickets on daily basis Boring. I think it’s a wrong move on the company behalf

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Sinister_Nibs@reddit

Do they NEED to change the Cat 5 for Cat6? Tone out the runs, check the length, might be able to save money.

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codeshane@reddit

Expect the MSP to be bitter, possible malicious compliance

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thatflacoman@reddit (OP)

They mentioned in the panel interview that it was the MSP that put together the skills assessment, it had such basic and easy questions. Things like, describe DNS, how to troubleshoot no network connectivity, no really high-level IT questions.

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Camerones1972@reddit

be clear with you bosses about a transition from the MSP for anything you need to support. if the CEO decides to pull the plug on them the day you start, you are screwed.

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thatflacoman@reddit (OP)

They did mention it would be co-managed when I asked for more than they were offering. They also mentioned a 10% yearly bonus and that the long-term plan, 3-5 years, is for this position to transition into an IT Director.

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Rif-SQL@reddit

How many computers are there? What type of business is it? What kind of applications are they running? These are the most important details to tell us. You need to think about providing the information we need so we can give you feedback. How can we advise you if you need CAT5e versus CAT6 cabling unless you understand the application and environment? Is this an industrial warehouse or a video production company?

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thatflacoman@reddit (OP)

There are 5 different companies, the main one is a biomedical company that 3D prints prosthetics. Print jobs exceed 50GBs. Currently about 90 users.

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Xenexo2@reddit

So the biggest thing about MSP businesses is the affordability for the services you get. My advice from experience, immediately start working on replacing those services like rmm, erp, and psa with more affordable tools that the business will see that their decision to do in house was a good decision.

If you need time to discover these solutions, opt in for a co managed agreement with the MSP. It usually means that you get the services still but you handle t1 and t2 issues. T3 usually is handled by the MSP but its entirely what you're comfortable with.

Tl;dr - focus on value rather than trying to prove your own skill set and you'll do fine.

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thatflacoman@reddit (OP)

So i did counter-offer and asked for 100k, they offered 90k, and was told they were already at their max but wanted to emphasize that they also offer a 10% yearly bonus and that the long term plan for the role was for it to transition into an IT Director. They also mentioned they were factoring in that they would still have the cost of the MSP but it will be co-managed.

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Big-Industry4237@reddit

Haha sounds fun if you like the challenge.

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danitadmin@reddit

I became what you are now 4 years ago. Here's my biggest pieces of advice for you.

Set boundaries. You are not working 24/7 and shouldn't be expected to do so. Also make them buy you a company phone, it will save you from sharing your phone number and you can use it for any 2FA logins.
Document everything you do. Having things documented for a smooth transition when and if you do leave will make your life significantly easier.
Do not let your administration/co-workers walk all over you. It's going to be tough to say no in some instances, but they do not understand things the way you do! Exercise the fact that you are the tech authority.
Plan out what you want to achieve for the network. We had nothing when I arrived at my job, I wish I made a solid outline of what I wanted everything to be.

Goodluck!

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Mehere_64@reddit

What are you asking/needing assistance with?

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RandyGfunk@reddit

Exactly. That's me, and for too long. and its a 24/7 Casino !!!!

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6SpeedBlues@reddit

I would add that this is a great time to adopt a couple of default mentalities:

Work your wage. Employment is the exchange of time and skill for money... Don't undersell yourself by working all the time for short money.
Let it fail. It is not your responsibility to prop everything up so that there is no down time. These things have costs. If management won't spend the money, they should get the service level appropriate to what they WILL pay for.

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craigin532@reddit

Totally agree I was the only sys admin at a small medical clinic that did not have a generator they also got frequent power outages They had such a convoluted vmware/san/vsan setup that it took over an hour to bring everything back up . So I would get pinged at almost every hour and the line would be they want to be ready for the morning shift so I need to go in to make sure the system is ready for the AM I finally just stopped and said they made that decision when they passed on a generator they werent happy but didnt really do anything because I carry too many other loads

P.S nothing was ever mentioned in interviews about not having a generator, I just expected that... so dont feel you have to subsidize your employers bad business decisions

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No-Listen1206@reddit

Got to be careful on that 2nd point as sometimes yes it's not your responsibility but even management knows you could of sorted it out quickly and then let them know after because letting it fail would cause issues that could land you in trouble.

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6SpeedBlues@reddit

I'm not advocating for not doing maintenance or being proactive, I'm specifically referring to those situations where you know an issue is on the horizon, you warn management about it, and they say "don't worry about it" or otherwise brush you off.

Write it up, send it to them via email, and state you will let it run as is per their direction but will keep them updated if you learn more information in the future or become aware that anything changes. That's it... Leave it alone and update them if the situation changes. If it fails in the interim, it's on them.

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No-Listen1206@reddit

Okay in that case fully agree

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Darury@reddit

I can't upvote "Let it fail" enough. I have co-workers that complain they need to do 80-100 hours a week to keep things from breaking. My thought is if it requires that much effort, then it's more than a single person can realistically do. You need to demonstrate that you can't keep up with what's expected and they need to either add head-count or adjust their expectations.

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joyfullystoic@reddit

I could never understand this 80-100 hours per week working culture. Is this normal in the US? I worked unpaid overtime and nights when there were real emergencies, so maybe twice per year, but nobody was expecting that from me and at 17:30 laptop was closed and goodbye.

Why do people accept such conditions? It must be because there isn’t any choice?

And I did love my job, I did with passion and did it well, but I have a life as well.

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Thegoatfetchthesoup@reddit

I’ve had the exact experience your warning against, hired as it specialist for a small financial firm roughly 50-80 users and a remote location in Costa Rica. Brought me in. Fired MSP. Had no credentials for the network, hardware or servers. Beyond a shit show. I quit in a very spicy fashion while yelling through the cubical at the ceo after 3 months. Dude was a bald dickbag and deserved every bit of it. It felt great and i have no regrets over it. Only that I accidentally left some personal shit there that I definitely wasn’t showing back up to grab after that LOL items are replaceable. Fuck you frank

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Valkeyere@reddit

Fuck you Frank.

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ullabritafritasmitaa@reddit

Fuck you Frank.

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Arudinne@reddit

Exactly, don't burn yourself out thinking the business will reward you for that. Some places might, most won't.

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jakeod27@reddit

Don’t set yourself on fire to keep others warm

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j2thebees@reddit

That’s going on my whiteboard Monday.

Better part of a decade with a client, pushed hard, kept uptime solid, turned a rat’s nest into a reliable, manageable network, on an absolute spit. Today I began taking instruction from a kid who’s lost as a goose, is a photographer with probably a year or two of play/home programming, who I’m reasonably sure is set to replace 2 people with 35-40 pro years combined, who program in any language, for any platform, network, sys admin etc.

I’ve made good money (for the area), so at least there’s that. They will be hemorrhaging money, starting slowly as stuff fails. But workload and tech depth are immense. It was a happy woodchipper. 😂 Now it’s a circus.

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rcp9ty@reddit

That's going on the company quote board next week. Too many people are setting themselves on fire just to keep some people warm and there's no reason to do so.

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SnooShortcuts4021@reddit

Place I work now, previous solo it admin did 90% of the support work for the business and didn’t let the Msp learn how to support it. I came in and started forwarding ALL requests from users to them. It was bad.

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an_anonymous-person3@reddit

This! Saying stuff like "That server won't last another year" goes in one ear and out the other. Let the MF'er break, then they'll listen. You can show them the email from 1 year ago.

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Low_Consideration179@reddit

NGL broadcom was the thing that made them listen. Got the new hardware and moved off esxi Which had jumped from 350 to 10.7k.

I have learned to start working my wage tho. That was a hard one because of who I am but being on the verge of burnout and I had to do it for my health.

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tdhuck@reddit

I concur with the let if fail. It is not intentional, but just because you are the only guy doesn't mean you have to do the work of 5.

Start slow. Figure out how the current environment is working. Document the network, figure out the ISP contact for support, see if you have an account manager for any IT related items.

Figure out what the expectations are for help requests and on-call. You can't be the IT guy and the HD guy and the on-call guy and the new projects guy.

Does the MSP know about your role? Hopefully they are friendly and not trying to gatekeep to keep themselves on-board. Also, I hope your boss decides to keep them at some capacity once you get things up to speed, which could actually take a year or so, we don't have a lot of details right now.

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krazykat357@reddit

Yup, I'm finally at a workplace where both my direct manager and the engineer I work under are on my side with this. They told me to let things pile up, only work your hours don't put in overtime I don't need, and just coast. We're hoping it gets bad enough that there will be some visibility on our understaffed service dept. It's been great.

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Bogus1989@reddit

AGREED!

I learned the hard way unfortunately.

I made it a point to tell my team new members, when its HANDS OFF, dont touch that dumpster fire.

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manilove__frogs@reddit

On the note of let it fail - cover your ass by doing proper change management, post incident reviews, risk assessments, etc...

Not only will you be more professional doing those things, but it's also proof on paper about workload versus resourcing, rather than feelings about burnout.

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m4tic@reddit

TIL / adding Let it fail to my pack of boundaries.

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Willow3001@reddit

This comment right here is solid gold advice.

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rire0001@reddit

Seriously: These are two of the best bits of advice I've seen in a while. I wish I'd known 'let it fail' back some 30 years ago.

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MidgardDragon@reddit

You will be.

Also how much work is the MSP doing? Will this end up being you doing a full time help desk role as well as sys admin and IT manager? Does the MSP have a good transition plan? If needed are you able to hire a team? What is their budget? A lot to ask.

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thatflacoman@reddit (OP)

Very good questions, and yes it seems I will be full time help desk as well as sys admin and IT manager.

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anonymousITCoward@reddit

Ok, from an MSP stand point... this is kind of bad... if you're planning on keeping the MSP around you need to know this... your MSP is YOUR force multiplier, they should be your helpdesk, and and assist you with the larger projects. You need to keep your eye on the bigger picture and dictate the relationship, not the other way around.

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-DementedAvenger-@reddit

As the IT Manager and Sysadmin who works with our MSP, this is how we have it set up.

I’m the ideas man, the project scope guy, the tell-them-how-to dude. They do the grunt work, but my dept director and I are the eyes-on and boots-on-ground people for the company. Obviously the MSP wouldn’t know how or what to implement without guidance, so we make sure they’re in-the-know with what we need.

We have on-prem and cloud stuff to handle.

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AllOfYourBaseAreBTU@reddit

This. Try to think of yourself as the IT manager. Try to make sure the MSP is still the servicedesk and responsible for the day to day maintenance.

Become the enabler to help elevate your companies infrastructure by focusing on the quality of it all, future planning, security, helping users by training, not by fixing their problems.

Try not to push the buttons yourself but be the one who decides what buttons should be pushed.

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jakeod27@reddit

I can’t say this enough. Push to keep some sort of MSP as Helpdesk. Maybe look to get quotes. At the end of the day this is for you and the company. What happens when you go on vacation?

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IllPerspective9981@reddit

+1 for this. I started in my current company as the sole IT person as the IT manager. I don't have a practical technical background (my background is IT project management then various leadership roles). I do have a good understanding of IT, but I'm not a network engineer/developer or anything like that. Our MSP is crutial to me. They continue to be our helpdesk and run projects. For example, our MSP is currently running a project for me to migrate our current hybrid AD+Azure environment to pure Azure. This requires several people at the MSP with various specialties.

A key benefit of this, even if I was "technical", is that I have access to a wide range of experts on a fractional basis that I couldn't replicate internally without a team of about 10 FTE that would be extremely underutilized. The MSP costs me (including project work) about the equivalent of 1.5FTE. I'm now the CTO/Head of Technology and we have a very small IT team that does software dev (Saleaforce, mostly) in-house, but even with that we have an external partners who we lean on for additional expertise.

OP, I would try and get this role reframed as the IT manager. If you are expected to take on the entire function of the MSP I honestly think you are setting yourself up to fail. Try and get all the right expectations locked in ASAP or you'll be blamed when things get shakey. My view is every business should be using an MSP, at least in some capacity, until you're at a size where you can employ full time experts in every area where you'll need it on a regular basis. As a rough guide (caveat - these numbers could change dramatically depending on the nature of the business) I'd say about 1-2 IT employees for every 50 or so staff. So brining IT entirely in-house probably doesn't make sense for most businesses until you have at least 200-300 staff. Even then you should be engaging outside experts for specific needs. Even Fortune 50 companies don't do every element of IT in house

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jakeod27@reddit

Absolutely unsustainable to be Helpdesk and running IT projects at the same time. It’s ok for short term. But 1 to many pings in the middle of setting up SSO for hr is going to drain the shit out of OP

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aCLTeng@reddit

This is currently how I run my org's IT. I lead and make decisions, I step in to help coordinate big issues, and otherwise do a revenue producing role besides.

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derango@reddit

Part of the first things you're going to want to do is to figure out if there's any budget for expanding the team before you get rid of the MSP. Otherwise you're going to be 24/7/365 support for everything which isn't sustainable.

You probably need at least one other person minimum, preferably 2 to effectively deal with a company around the size you're talking about if you're bringing everything in house.

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New_Drive_3617@reddit

This is solid advice. One individual can either be helpdesk for up to 50-75 people or administer a server/service farm up to potentially 100+ servers (if they're familiar with DevOps concepts). Not both. Each of those is a critical role and needs backup. Rather than completely oust the MSP, your plan should be to have some sort of support contract where you get a discount hourly rate for paying for some bucket of hours every month. You *will* need them.

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DistributionFickle65@reddit

Ummm get all the training you can get from the MSP asap because these partnerships can go south in a hurry when internal IT is hired. Good luck!

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Philly_is_nice@reddit

As others have said, you're gonna need to have an understanding of that relationship, and what your management wants that relationship to be as well as when. You're also going to need to have an understanding of that contract as it's written. If you two are committed for another 8 months that's 8 months of runway to build this out in a way that makes sense for you to manage.

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timechild03@reddit

If they're getting off the MSP, make sure to communicate not having at least one or two people on your team is major risk. The ol' gets hit by a bus / wins the lottery scenario.

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changework@reddit

This is a problem. You can’t work towards or even form proper goals if you’re working all roles.

“Bringing IT in house” isn’t a goal. It’s a statement of solution to something else, like cost reduction or implement compliance standards.

Have a heart to heart with c-suite as to why they made this decision, not what they think is the solution.

Make a list of ordered priorities. “Grilling rid of the MSP isn’t something that should be on this list, because then what? C-Suite is going to be a constant source of the A/B problem. It’s more up to you to figure out how to navigate it without becoming the blame chicken. Iykyk.

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Steve_78_OH@reddit

Yeah, my buddy is the sole IT for company of around 50 people, and he's always available. A number of us went on a cruise this past summer, and he spent at least a couple hours every day WHILE ON THE SHIP online working on stuff.

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Azadom@reddit

I had to leave my first and only sysadmin job of 3 years because the entire company operated with no budgets. Even $399 new or refurbished computers would result in wincing as if spending money was physically painful.

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Bogus1989@reddit

i once got an offer to upgrade a doctors practice, I was in negotiations with myself internally if i was even gonna do this (he didnt know this)

Now when I do some project or some contract like this all on my own. I purposely undercut any other offer he would get. I expect to be compared.

I literally had to blink a few times to see his response….

🤣this mfer was talking about upgrading parts in the systems he had. Shit was 15 years old.

He needed to update it because he would be required to use electronic healthcare records soon…

Thats what I just did to 4-5 hospitals, and my day job revolves all around that.

2 more conversations with him….oh hell no. Blocked him.

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trebuchetdoomsday@reddit

how many endpoints are you managing?

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thatflacoman@reddit (OP)

Currently about 80 users.

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Bazzatron@reddit

Mate, you're gonna smash this role.

Time to trade in your imposter syndrome for incredible con artist syndrome.

Congrats on the new job, this is gonna be one hell of a project to put on your resume for the future.

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trebuchetdoomsday@reddit

that's manageable! was just concerned about an MSP pulling their help desk team and suddenly you're overwhelmed. implement some kind of ticketing system ASAP if it doesn't already exist (which could be as easy as email to Teams channel -> Power Automate to tasks).

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SystemGardener@reddit

Oh you got this OP! You’re more than qualified for such a role and will absolutely crush it.

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BrokenPickle7@reddit

100% this, you need an MSP as a backup for when you cannot be available

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dcsln@reddit

There's a lot of good advice here and I'll probably duplicate some of it. But I encourage OP to read the whole thread.

I was in a similar position, many years ago. Tech business with \~30 staff had an MSP for end-user and office network support and they wanted me to take it over. I asked for an export of all the open tickets, and the MSP gave me a stack of paper printouts. Otherwise, they were decent at the hand-off, giving me their limited documentation and credentials. The open tickets were 90% very easy problems to solve, so I felt pretty good about my capacity to handle their work.

Some recommendations:

Be extremely clear about what you're doing and (more importantly) not doing. Non-technical people will have a poor sense of what's easy and what's difficult, what's cheap and what's expensive. You'll have to explain the difference, probably more than once.

You can't solve all the tech debt right away - that might take a year or three and that's probably okay.

Figure out a way to stay in sync with your boss and - assuming it's not the CEO - the rest of the business. IT priorities should be driven by business priorities. Don't assume you know what needs to be fixed first. Some old systems/services/etc. should be retired. Some need to be maintained forever. As brand-new staff, it's basically impossible to tell which is which.

Over-communicate and over-document, for yourself and for anyone who tries to help you in the future. Maybe that's the MSP, or someone who was kind-of-IT before.

Find ways to standardize to make your life easier - i.e. one laptop make and model for all staff.

Are they keeping 4-year-old computers around for "less important" staff? Get those things replaced with new or nearly-new gear. They're wasting staff time, and they'll be wasting your time when they break down.

Find the unofficial-IT person/people. Who do folks ask, when they can't print, and they don't want to wait for the MSP? Buy them a coffee or a beer or whatever and ask them to help you get up to speed. Semi-technical folks can be a blessing or a curse - try to get them on your side.

If you can, be a ray of sunshine. Embrace the chaos with a smile. You're excited to be there and excited to help people solve problems. It's easier - and almost a stereotype - for new-IT-person to come in and say "This is all wrong!" Even if it's all wrong, try not to be that person. Try to stay positive as long as you can - it will help folks get used to you and trust your advice.

Good luck!

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TheCaptain53@reddit

Is the Cat5 cable currently in place not fit for purpose or having issues? Given that the vast majority of devices are Gigabit interfaces or slower, and Cat5 supports Gigabit, there's probably no reason you need to swap the cabling. It's really expensive and you probably won't gain much.

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thatflacoman@reddit (OP)

I was told it is an old call center and it is what they had in place. The company i am signing on for does 3D printing of files over 50GB. Sounds like they are ready to make the upgrade, just want me to look over the proposals to make sure they aren't throwing in extra stuff and over charging.

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TheCaptain53@reddit

Now that you've been hired, this is your domain. If they're making this expensive upgrade, and it will be expensive, you need to make sure you're getting value.

Take a look at the 3D printers you'll be running - can the Ethernet interfaces on them even negotiate any higher than 1000BASE-T? What about the user's machines? Has testing been performed on the existing infrastructure to determine exactly what you can get out of it? It would be like a car garage buying out an existing garage and ripping everything out before even checking if the car lifts already in place can do the job or not - sounds like madness. This is the same. You might find yourself in a situation where the infra is totally fine and you can save your company a ton of money, already establishing yourself as valuable.

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RudePrior2220@reddit

Exactly. What is their use case what hardware are they using.

Are people working locally (ugh), with clouds tools or on a share? If you need 10G (maybe not that, but in 2-5 years) replacing all cables night make sense.

If you just work with something like fusion then probably not. Depending on the building situation it might actually be easy to add or replace in the future.

Also fibre is so cheap these days and depending on the server infrastructure you should look in to that as well.

There will probably more printers added in the future. So being more flexible to location of ports would be most important to me. If that's easy, then replace when you need. Easy to do yourself as well.

Also make sure that you ask for help (meaning additional staff) early enough. Being the only IT guy sucks, because these days everything depends on the IT department. And the risk is that they'll rather ask you to fix something than getting outside help, because you are already paid.

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SaucyKnave95@reddit

Oh my God, dude, you so got this it's not even funny. You're me, 24 years ago (almost to the day), interviewing for an "IT Manager" position which at the time seemed way above my ability. It turns out it's just a title that encompassed everything I already knew how to do. It sounds like it's the exact same for you. What's different is that I had zero credentials to my name other than a college degree whereas you have credentials, certifications and the like.

Step in, take charge, make it your own. New building and all. And I can't stress this enough: have HIGH confidence, or at least fake it. They are hiring you to be THE IT department. You have a chance to define your own legacy and reshape the company. It's right there; take the reins and don't look back!

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weischris@reddit

Don't get rid of the msp. Keep them on a time and material based as needed. I've been the lone wolf and sometimes you need someone more experienced to bounce ideas off.

Also make sure the off boarding is at least 90 days. Get as much historical info as possible.

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SeriousSysadmin@reddit

First of all congrats on the new role. From your comments it sounds like you’ll have a lot on your plate. As someone that now works for an MSP, I’ve been in your shoes and can appreciate the challenges ahead of you. First thing first, I’d get in front of your leadership and have them understand that you’ll need time. Depending on how large the company is that could be a month or a year, it depends. I’d also get a good grasp of how large/complex the environment is. If you’re the sole guy for an office of 20 people then sure you could probably manage. But you still may need help with things not in your skillset. At the end of the day I would ask what the priorities are for the business, align your goals with those as best possible, and set reasonable expectations with yourself and management.

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Fit_Indication_2529@reddit

Learn the lay of the land before touching anything.

Build a complete picture of what the MSP manages. That means:

Get copies of all contracts, credentials, configurations, and network diagrams.
Ask for exports of Active Directory (if any), M365/Azure, backup configs, firewall rules, and DNS settings.
Check what’s under warranty and what’s managed through vendor portals (Dell, HP, Meraki, etc.).
You can’t reclaim control if you don’t know what they’ve actually got their hooks in.
Build relationships before burning bridges.

The MSP is technically still the IT department for now. They can either make the handoff smooth or make it painful. Play nice, learn their systems, and only start pulling back control once you’re confident you can maintain it.

Establish a baseline and start documentation.

Inventory everything, users, devices, licenses, servers, network gear, internet circuits, software, and vendors. Use PowerShell or tools like Lansweeper or PDQ Inventory to speed it up. That inventory becomes your first real map.

Use the new building as your test run.

If they’re re-cabling and moving, get involved early, review the proposals and make sure:

They’re using CAT6 or better, with proper labeling and patch panels.
Runs are certified and tested.
There’s a network closet with proper power, UPS, cooling, and rack layout.

This gives you a controlled environment to start shaping your infrastructure standards.

Set expectations with leadership.

Let the CEO know (politely) that bringing IT in-house isn’t just flipping a switch. It’s a staged process, assessing risk, building infrastructure, and training staff. That honesty buys you time and credibility when things inevitably need more than “a quick fix.”

Stack some small wins early.

Fix visible pain points, slow Wi-Fi, printer issues, onboarding automation, etc., to build trust and momentum for bigger projects later.

Watch out for hidden landmines.

You’ll probably uncover things like:

Expired SSL certs.
Backups that don’t actually restore.
“Temporary” admin accounts that are permanent.
Licenses registered to the MSP.
Inconsistent naming conventions or ancient GPOs still haunting the domain.

[-]

PM_pics_of_your_roof@reddit

As a sole IT guy with no real MSP support. Sometimes good enough will have to do.

Also it’s easier to roll out new and not spend hours troubleshooting a small problem. Printer fucking up and it’s got paper, toner, and new drum? Fuck it, junk that fucker and get a new one.

[-]

Il_Falco4@reddit

You will be fine. Especially in house you have a good chance to do it right and be able to analyze deeply.

This is also the con, you might be asked to do things at every moment. My advice: Take the gig and see where it takes you. Follow your feeling.

[-]

unholy453@reddit

Don’t sweat it. I honestly loved when I was the one man shop for smaller companies.

[-]

acousticlegend@reddit

I am currently the solo IT person for a company of 80ish people with an msp backing me up. There are a few pros and a few cons. Some of the positives is I control my day to day and my own planning. The projects are all my design and I write all of our processes and procedures. Like we currently use Jira for tickets because I saw it and liked it. I also can get familiar with the users and know more of what they are trying to do as well as their skill level and work around that to find them solutions. A few down sides are everything is my responsibility and I do mean everything. Some random website goes down and I get to listen to people being upset that I can’t control the whole internet. Also, scheduled maintenance downtime is the same thing as a system failure. I also have to spend a good amount of time fighting shadow IT where the users signed up for some service and never mention it exists until it fails and I’m expected to fix a system I’ve never heard of and have no access to. My company has been really solid in supporting me and keeping an eye on me so I don’t burn out and work myself to death and I have the full support of our executive team. So like most jobs there’s good and bad.

[-]

KickedAbyss@reddit

So, if you want to impress a C level while also doing a damn good job, start by filling out a NIST Special Publication 800-37 self audit.

I'm not joking.

You 100% will have blank sections. Those are areas for improvement and results in a gap analysis of your current environment vs where you want to be.

Go another step further and find a NIST specific to your industry. For example, NIST IR 8183 is a cybersecurity framework focused on the manufacturing industry.

I started my last job with my boss on vacation so I spent the first week going through it, and quickly got a lay of the land purely from doing that.

[-]

BonusAcrobatic8728@reddit

Congrats the new gig. Some things to focus on early: document everything you discover about their current environment (even if it’s all via the MSP at first), map out user accounts, devices, and permissions, and try to shadow the MSP while they’re still involved. Write up simple SOPs for onboarding/offboarding since you’ll be the IT point person now

With the move to a new building, make sure you review where network drops are going and ensure the proposals include redundancy and proper labeling. Plan for both current needs and some future growth.

Bringing IT in-house is also a great time to consolidate tools. Manual device tracking and onboarding can get messy fast, especially if the MSP has been doing things ad-hoc. Automating stuff like device management with something like Primo will save you hours and help with compliance, especially if you’re going to be a team of one. Also, look into integrating with HR systems for smoother provisioning.

Don’t underestimate the value of basic security hygiene: document admin creds, enable MFA everywhere, and set up monitoring early. And lean on this sub for advice, tons of us have gone through similar transitions.

[-]

Lord_Ewok@reddit

S x a x

[-]

majkkali@reddit

I was in the exact same situation and agreed an IT manager job. But after 2 months I’m starting to see the cracks. The whole company is dysfunctional and chaotic. HR don’t follow official processes I’ve implemented, Finance keep asking about every single purchase and license and I also agreed 2/3 hybrid working model yet now they’re pushing for 4 or 5 days in office. They also hired me as an IT manager and told me specifically to deny any IT support requests because these are handled by an external IT support company. So I did that and focused on more important things like designing processes, improving cybersecurity, implementing systems, vendor collaboration, etc. But now they’re saying I should do everything IT. So yeah, kind of weird. And I warn you so that it doesn’t happen to you as well. Obviously I’m going to stand my ground and stick to the agreed responsibilities but it’s not looking great. Just do a very diligent research about that company. Hopefully yours is different.

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No_Promotion451@reddit

Welcome to limbo there's still an opportunity to turn back and flee

[-]

kevvie13@reddit

Find out what your users are using, and how. Find iut the gaps in operation, practice and in security. Find out their operation challenges.

Most importantly, what they wish the final "inhouse" team.

Create a roadmap. Estimated cost per phase.

Design your in house team. Propose to lead your inhouse team as a director.

I think you need an ERP lead to take charge of your applications need. Based on your expertise, leas the infra team.

My proposed team structure. Lead or at least senior engineers for Network, Systems, EUC, ERP lead, system analysts.

Profit.

[-]

an_anonymous-person3@reddit

This is a little obvious but I felt like saying it. Get in contact with that MSP almost immediately. They'll eventually lose that place as a client when you take over of course and probably aren't happy about it. It makes you the "bad guy" but oh well. I'd work on getting in good spirits with their management or team and ask (or beg) for any and all documentation they have on your new job's infrastructure and all. I'd get access to their ticket system and see what they've had come through. It will give you tons of information and give you a solid start to learn what you inherited.
Eventually, you'll be "kicking them out" of everything too.

[-]

pm_me_domme_pics@reddit

Eh sounds like a small customer, any reasonable MSP would motivate and help handing off a lot of support tasks to OP. Most of these businesses are better off using an MSP as well as inhouse IT to just manage the relationship

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reader4567890@reddit

No they wouldn't. MSP's are profit driven companies - if there's no incentive, then there's rarely any point to do more than the bare minimum.

That sounds brutal, but it's absolutely reasonable. You put your focus in areas that grow the business. An outgoing customer is not that.

Source: 25 years in MSP's from helpdesk through to pre-sales architect (now out of the MSP side entirely).

[-]

SirGidrev@reddit

And also once you start asking for this stuff the MSP is going to know what’s up. Do you best to always be on their good side

[-]

bigredone15@reddit

Every decent MSP's dream is to have one guy in-house who actually knows what he is doing.

[-]

Flatline1775@reddit

Oh man...unless they actually had a good MSP get ready to be saying 'What the fuck?' a whole lot.

[-]

WeAreAllinIt2WinIt@reddit

And don't expect the existing MSP to have any idea of why they set it up the way they did.

[-]

reader4567890@reddit

Or desire to help if they know they're being ditched.

I was at an msp for decades - they're driven by profit. Remove that incentive and no fucks will be given because they'll refocus on the clients they have a good relationship ship with, and more importantly, make money. There's no shame in this. They're not doing you dirty. They'll rightfully prioritise their interests.

I had no qualms walking away from clients that took the route of going fully in house. Not my problem once that decision was made (although I would help those teams where we had a great relationship, who were obviously forced to walk away - heck I still do with some people, even though I'm now out of the MSP game).

[-]

Centimane@reddit

At least when the person who's supposed to replace them asks.

[-]

reader4567890@reddit

Getting rid of an MSP is like removing your safety net.

You absolutely need to keep some form of support contract with them (or a different one if they're shit).

I worked at a place that cut off their MSP and it did not go well. The first time we had a problem with a system we were lacking skills in, we had had to go crawling back, and the msp rightfully charged us through the roof to help (Solaris Sunray when it was still a thing).

An MSP should be an extension if your support team. They have a wider pool of resources and, more often than not, direct contacts within the likes of MS, Oracle. Broadcom, etc.

By all means look to start bringing things back in house, but do not understand any circumstances, back yourself into a corner where you are solely responsible. When a business says they want to bring things back in house, what they actually mean is that they think they can save costs by entirely removing a relationship with a third-party. A slow motion disaster in the making. Clarify this hard with your new employer - if that's what they want, take the job in your situation, but don't stop looking elsewhere.

[-]

nowandnothing@reddit

Coming from someone who has been a solo IT person for a company with about 60 people, only about 40 of them being "IT users" (its a factory in a manufacting company, not everyone needs IT access) for the last 12 years, I have LOVED it. I got the job because the owner of the company wanted an on site IT person, its pretty much been my dream job.

I am even currently looking into putting all of the infrastucre on the cloud, bare metal servers in Azure, windows cloud pc's, thin clients on desks, all without a MSP, I am raw-dogging it and I couldnt be happier.

Over those 12 years, yes there has been times when I felt like I am 24/7, BUT its a really great company, I love it.

Also I have ZERO professional certifications, I was even the least quailfied person at the interview and I still got the job. Although I have a 30+ year IT careear under my belt, so I do know what I am doing.

Not gonna lie, what you have described sounds like a dream project, I would love to do something like that. My first step would be to find out what they have as an infrastructure, is it all cloud? anything local and work out from there, you will probably need some bare metal servers, active directory domain controllers, which depending on what the MSP hosts, you should be able to make a hybrid setup and start bringing it in house, so you dont have to start from scratch. Although even with a network of 80 people wouldnt be that hard. You would just have to create a new forest/domain, create user accounts and put all of the pc's into the new domain, work out the file access rights. But if you can go hybrid to start with, that would make it easier.

I will probably get downvoted, but I cant help the fact that my job is brilliant and I would be excited to get my teeth into a project like this.

[-]

Ill-Barracuda9031@reddit

Order the Internet for the building today.

[-]

PleaseDontEatMyVRAM@reddit

Do it Yesterday actually

[-]

VERI_TAS@reddit

lol this is so true. Why are ISP's so damn slow?

It's even worse if you need to port over phone numbers.

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ASympathy@reddit

Accounts payable might 'forget' to pay the bill, and if the isp turns off the circuit you need to start the whole process over from the start

[-]

Ill-Barracuda9031@reddit

Verizon refuses to email invoices and sends late notices via snail mail, lol

[-]

jortony@reddit

Or migrate to a new PBX

[-]

quasimodoca@reddit

Document everything! Map maps of your infrastructure. Keep track of all of your users, permissions and access rights. Maybe someone here can give some recommendations on what software to use for this.

[-]

elduche1337@reddit

A lot of doomers in chat but this should be the top comment. I skimmed the rest of the comments until I got to this one. Yes the task you are taking on is big but don't view it as a negative view it as an opportunity to challenge yourself. Reach out if you get stuck. Good luck and enjoy it you'll likely only get this experience once.

[-]

Viharabiliben@reddit

Make sure backups are working. They will save your ass someday soon.

Make sure you have all the passwords

Document everything

Document all the problems and an estimated cost to fix each

Prioritize what needs fixing

[-]

SnooShortcuts4021@reddit

Reach out to me, I am a solo IT for a 100 person company that relies on an MSP.

That being said. First thing you need todo is determine what the work load/effort is. Maybe there’s not a lot of day to day support, but it starts snowballing really fast. Are they keeping the Msp to subsidize support?

Use this time to scope the network, infrastructure, support, IS development and equipment state.

Most likely it’s all old and you’ll be dealing with headaches all day with old shit. I am. Someone here thought they’d buy all vga/display port only monitors and now we’re going to new machines where none of the new systems support vga. Easy fixes but just annoying because your budget isn’t going to huge so you need to penny pinch everything.

Depending on the next 12-24 strategy and the industry it can get out of hand really quick.

[-]

Worldly_Ad_3808@reddit

First thing, congrats on the job! It’s tough out there for sure.

Second. Do not let them burn you out. I work in infosec and I am constantly on extremely small teams. I’m talking me and my manager maybe one other guy to back me up and it’s ROUGH to find a balance between what you need to do, what you CAN do, and what your management expects of you. You have to manage their expectations of you just as much as you have to balance your own expectations for your role and your capabilities so that you can keep going at full capacity long term.

[-]

netmc@reddit

Most things have already been said. Ideally you should go co-managed with the MSP, especially if you are the sole person. Often times, the MSP will have a RMM and a ticketing solution that you can utilize. Why create your own when you can leverage what the MSP has? I work at a MSP and we do this with a few of our clients. We, the MSP, take care of things like monitoring and patching and free up time for the on-site person to handle the relationship and hand holding of end users. It might be that you need to switch MSPs. That's fine, but you need a backup. You can't do it all yourself. There are more demands on IT today than there was even 10 years ago. 1 person cannot do it all.

For your build out, make sure that all drops have 2 connections at minimum, or the number you will need for the drop +1. Make sure none of the runs exceed 100 meters, and make sure that all drops are terminated AND properly labeled AND tested before the vendor gets their final payout. We've come in behind vendors that claim everything is done to find that have the ports aren't terminated properly, some have pins swapped, and the labeling is missing or wrong. Verify that this is done right. Don't forget ceiling drops for APs.

If the building layout is such that a home run to the central wiring closet is not possible, make sure the sub closets have fiber runs along with an empty chase between them and the main location. You don't want have to come back and add extra drops later, and you don't want small 5 port switches everywhere. Yes, it costs more to do this, but at some point, a wire is going to get a nail through it or chewed on by a mouse or something that will make it not working and that extra drop will save you. It's much more likely though that a network device that wasn't thought of before will suddenly be needed. Make sure the switches are managed. There is no sense in not using a managed switch in today's world.

Good luck.

[-]

DesrtBunny@reddit

Best advice I can give you is take the job and start looking for another one right away, those type of companies are on a cycle, we need an MSP, too expensive we should bring it in house to fix the issues, IT is too expensive we should outsource it to an MSP and the cycle starts all over again.

[-]

localareamang@reddit

Sounds like a great opportunity. No advice but encouragement — good luck!

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Thick_Yam_7028@reddit

Oh god. You are caught in the middle. Be pushy. Be confident.

[-]

Assumeweknow@reddit

Renegotiate with the MSP once you get your footing under you. Basically, figure out what they do well, and what they don't. From there, do everything they suck at in-house and or coordinate it so your MSP actually can service you properly. Hybrid models honestly work the best overall. Let the MSP bring in shared resources that would cost too much in house. And, you focus on the higher CIO level activities and the final white glove.

[-]

braytag@reddit

You'll be fine

[-]

TxTechnician@reddit

They want a unicorn:

https://youtube.com/shorts/7DPmhNjFOtw?si=2nGiOPt0ncsH83PD

I got a vid where I show a bunch of open source tools to help manage your IT.

Get a help desk app ASAP.

Peppermint.sh is a good FOSS solution. Easy to setup.

[-]

Chihuahua4905@reddit

slight brain dump incoming...

Get what hours you are expected to provide support in writing. Stick to those hours. If you need to do stuff after hours, get it documented by HR/Management.

Help HR and Management to develop protocols for staff to follow when it comes to IT matters, including an SLA that shows what type or time frames are attached to various issues.

For example, if a staff member wants a new mouse because theirs is the wrong colour, that ticket falls in to the low importance category.
Response time to ticket of 3 business days, resolution time of 5 working days.

If a pc isn't working, that's medium priority.
Response to ticket in 6 hours, resolution in 3 business days.
A working day is defined as Mon to Friday, 0900 to 1700.

Detail everything, be pedantic. Imagine you're a lawyer and you're drawing up a contract. If it isn't in the SLA as something you'll support, then it doesn't get looked at by you.
If Molly-Beth finds the toaster isn't working, it isn't your issue. That is Facilities/Maintenance, go see them.
Include in house software if there is any.

Get staff made to read and sign the protocols indicating they understand what they have read. Reason for this to follow.

You NEED a helpdesk asap. Said helpdesk should be accessible by staff in at least these ways.

via website - staff need to fill out the forms and submit.
via email - staff can send an email to helpdesk@company and the helpdesk will make a ticket.
via phone - set up voicemail to send the message as an attachment to the helpdesk email so it gets converted to a ticket. Staff can call and leave a message that gets converted to a ticket for you.

Having the above available to staff means they have zero reasons to call you or contact you directly for any issues, because I can guaran-fucking-tee you that staff are fucking persistent at using every means of contact OTHER than the approved methods when it comes to support requests. They have a pathological aversion to using helpdesk, its unreal.

This is why you get HR to make staff read and sign the document. When Debra calls you directly at 7 am, before you had your first coffee, due to he being unable to print, and you check your RMM to see he pc hasnt been restarted in 9 weeks, she's tried nothing and is all out of ideas (ignoring the document that HR made her read that said you MUST restart your PC before contacting IT) it changes from an IT issues to a HR issue, because you're going to call HR and tell them about Debra and her incompetence and get them to educate Debra.

Have backing by the c-suite so that unless there is a ticket, no work is done. This includes the c-suite, they love to jump the queue, fuck'em, they can follow the same protocols as the regular users.

Get a decent RMM.

Have a look at action1.

Document, document, document everything. A person far smarter than I said "The shortest note outlives the longest memory."
Take notes on EVERYTHING you do. OneNote is handy, I also use Bitwarden for note keeping.

Mute your phone outside of support hours. Get used to doing this now, I had more issues doing this than I care to admit, but its critically important for your mental health.

Good luck in your new role.

[-]

Bright_Virus_8671@reddit

Is this me ? Lol thanks for the advice and memories bro

[-]

Chihuahua4905@reddit

Yes. I'm you from 2036. Make sure you put that lotto ticket in, and stay home on 17th Feb 2033.

[-]

geegol@reddit

If you’re going to be the soul IT guy, good luck. You’re going to be on-call 24/7. You’ll be the technical contact for everything on site. I would escalate a bulk of the tickets to the MSP though and anything that needs on-site eyes would be on you. But if it’s something that could be done remotely, have the MSP handle it. Try and get them to use the MSP for as long as possible as they will help you a lot.

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Fast-Mathematician-1@reddit

You need credentials to all of it. Any documentation and contacts and contracts for all equipment, hardware, and software licenses out there.

Also, you need to align with the leadership and set expectations. Ticket times will change after hours need to be defined, and you'll need to set a patch and down time schedule. You may need to replace equipment or upgrade it over time if the MSP was lazy.

Long and skinny, you're eating at your desk for the next three months. You got this, bud.

[-]

IWASRUNNING91@reddit

You can do it!

I'm doing far more with far less experience and knowledge, you got this!

[-]

WaldoOU812@reddit

Sounds a lot like my first official IT job.

Fwiw, here's what I'd tell my former self, if I could go back in time. These might not be relevant to you, but these would have applied to me:

Learn the environment. Don't automatically change everything right off the bat. Even if it's something that's obviously stupid, there might be something critical that depends on that stupid thing. Find out why the vendor has configured things a particular way or at least let people know what you're changing before you change it, schedule down time during non-business hours if you have to and have a way to back out the changes if things break.
As an addendum to that, learn what the critical systems are. What's going to generate a call to you at 2am? Concentrate on stabilizing those.
Set boundaries early! I'm ambivalent on whether this should be the 1st or 2nd point, after "Learn the environment," but what you allow people to do now is what they'll do from now until the day you quit. If you pick up the phone 1 minute after your shift ends, that'll eventually become half an hour after, then two hours after, then calling you in the middle of the night for stuff that's completely unimportant. Also, make sure to push back. If you're getting a call after hours or without sufficient time to fix an issue before end of day, ask if it's an emergency and don't be afraid to let them know it isn't really an emergency and that you'll get to it the next business day. Obviously this is going to be tricky in a new environment, but if you don't do this immediately, your users will eat you alive and you will never have any peace.
Overcommunicate everything. Make sure your boss knows the gist of what you're doing, even if he doesn't understand it. Make sure to let everyone know that you are working, that you're making progress on whatever projects you're working on, and especially concentrate on the value of what you're doing. You need to be your own cheerleader. Personally, I tend to feel that whenever my boss asks me how I'm doing on a given project, that means I've failed because he should already know.
Btw, by "cheerleading," what I mean is not, "hey, look at me," but more, "hey, check out this cool project that I'm working on that could really help the company!"
Also, on the flip side, DIVE ON THE GRENADE. If something goes bad, own up to it immediately. You need to be the first person mentioning how you screwed up and you need to be honest about it. The first person to tell the story usually controls the narrative, and if the narrative is that you screwed up, whatever explanation you provide is going to sound like an excuse and CYA. On the flip side, if you're the one who volunteers that you accidentally rebooted some critical system, anything after that has a tendency to sound like people just being douchebags and piling on.
When you make changes that are going to incur downtime, make sure everyone knows that you're changing them and when the downtime is going to happen. Overestimate how long it'll take. If you think it'll take five minutes, let them know it'll "probably take between 10-20 minutes, but could be as long as an hour." People will be fine with systems coming up earlier than expected. Longer downtimes make enemies and degrade your reputation with the business. Under-promise and over-deliver.

[-]

WaldoOU812@reddit

Also:

Make "friends" with the important stakeholders or at least get your name out there and let them know you're there to help. Build trust and rapport with them ASAP. Again with the cheerleading here, btw.
Leave your ego at the door. If you find out the vendor is f'ing clueless (mine was), learn how the company feels about them before you decide to pitch them out the door. Also, they might have some information about some critical piece of infrastructure that isn't documented anywhere, so don't burn bridges.
Concentrate on learning the politics early. Might not be quite as relevant to you, but I quickly encountered the challenge that if *I* wanted to change something, it would be vetoed, regardless of the need. If I wanted to call the vendor in, I had a blank check (despite the fact that the vendor had no clue whatsoever). So in my case, there were quite a few "political" tech support calls where I'd call him in to "monitor and coach me through fixing X," whatever "X" was. Of course, in every instance after the first month, he was just sitting there and learning from me.
Keep your boss happy. Also, try to show value as soon as you can. Like, "hey, we spent X dollars on tech support calls with the vendor and also incurred Y expense due to downtime on these systems that occurred on a monthly basis, but I figured out what was causing those issues and we haven't had any downtime since."
Document where you disagree with the vendor (if you do) and make sure your boss understands why you're disagreeing. Depending on their relationship with the vendor, if the company is used to dealing with them and especially if they trust them, they might tend to blame any problems on you. The outside vendor in my case was a complete con artist who didn't know *anything* about AD, DHCP, or even basic server maintenance. He just knew how to B.S. people.
On the flip side, if the vendor knows certain systems, you may wish to have them show you how to maintain those systems. That's potentially a double-edged sword, though. Any systems that people know you know how to fix are systems you're going to be called to fix. Some of those might be better left in the vendor's hands.
A note on vendor relationships; you've been in long enough to realize this, I'm sure, but my biggest lesson in hotel IT (and, to an extent, IT as a whole) is that my biggest challenge in IT has never been the technical side. It's the vendor relationships. Good vendors will make you look good. Bad vendors can get you fired. Know when to cut bait, and again; overcommunicate.
If you need to clean up a lot of mistakes & misconfigurations, go slow. In my case, the hotel was used to the network crashing "2-3 times a week," so when I wanted to fix everything immediately, I made a lot of enemies. I was lucky to have one friend on the executive committee (the food & beverage director) who wasn't a tech, but who was at least tech savvy enough to understand that I knew my shit and that things had to be done to stop the network from crashing so often. I was also lucky enough that the GM liked and trusted me enough to keep me on board (although it was very touch and go that first year).

Sorry for the long post, but this is all stuff that would have helped me quite a bit, 25 years ago, and I hope it helps you.

[-]

Ironfox2151@reddit

The real skinny of it... Admining is more people focused then it is really technical focused. At least I think today it really is.

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WaldoOU812@reddit

In a one-man shop, absolutely. 100%. Even in my role now, where I'm a 2nd or even 3rd tier of support, there's still a lot of personal interaction. At the level where you're routinely helping people directly, it's much more common.

And I eventually learned that it doesn't matter how much work you do. It matters what your boss(es) think about the work they see you doing.

[-]

donalhunt@reddit

Just start the day with a prayer...

gif

[-]

red_plate@reddit

You’ll be fine but in my experience of working with companies that trade out their IT stack either too or from different providers or in house I would guess they are a pretty needy bunch that also undervalues IT services. They may set lofty expectations for you. If you need a job and the pay is right I’d take it but be ready to jump ship before you get burnt out. Also I’d be willing to bet my left eye that they won’t expand their IT department beyond you especially if you can pull it off by yourself.

[-]

Introvertedecstasy@reddit

Create a plan. Approach it slowly. Under promise over deliver. Document, document, document.

Great opportunity to make everything awesome and come out looking like a rockstar.

And, great opportunity toto burn yourself out and have a bunch of animosity.

They don’t know what’s wanted and needed. It’s up to you to advocate for yourself in this situation. Boldness to ask for what’s wanted and needed will be a huge boon. This is not a time to be meek.

Most importantly. Have fun. Create it to be fun and enjoyable while you “work”

[-]

woohhaa@reddit

Review the contract with the MSP and understand what the terms are around termination, providing documentation, and knowledge transfer. Hopefully there are stipulations around those subjects so you aren’t left high and dry.

[-]

ProfessionalEven296@reddit

You're shafted. Do NOT cut the MSP lose for at least a year
Congratulations, but you have a lot of learning ahead of you - IT and Politics.

[-]

olbeefy@reddit

I've done this for a companies before and it will be great experience for you. While I don't think you're automatically "shafted," you will need to make sure the company understands that the MSP can't go away for sometime and you WILL need to hire extra help down the line. Get this in their head from the very beginning.

Find out if the MSP knows their time there is limited, do NOT tell them if they aren't. Figure out what they were doing well and what they weren't. They have serious knowledge capital that can help you down the line. Don't throw that away. Many MSPs struggle with simple things like onboarding/offboarding if they don't have folks on-site. Meet people around the company and see what they'd like to see done.

Setting up a new location can be kind of fun and you'll learn a lot. Generally, you'll want to know how many "drops" (ethernet runs) they'll need and don't be afraid to have them run redundant cables. You should also figure out how much each place charges for drops and compare.

You'll likely need outside help from vendors (like places that run the low-voltage) and vendors that can quote you for new equipment that they might need. If it's a large building, learn the difference between MDFs and IDFs and how they connect to each other. Figure out what your ISP options are in the new spot and if they want to have redundant connections.

This subreddit is usually more than happy to help with stuff like this and tools like ChatGPT are your friend. Good luck!

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Liquidfoxx22@reddit

The MSP will quite quickly figure it out - we've got a customer that started doing the same. It started off asking how to do this and that, taking little bits in house as they learned the tools, before becoming less and less responsive before finally cutting off our monitoring tools without any warning or response to requests to turn it on.

The issue is that they absolutely do not have the skill set to manage their entire infrastructure, and we're fairly sure that most of this drive has come from their CFO who wasn't happy about how much we were billing them, seemingly unaware (or ignorant) of what we were doing, giving them visibility of their infrastructure that they don't have the tooling to see themselves.

We still don't understand why they'd cut off our remote monitoring, especially since they've got a long contract that they're still paying in full for!

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olbeefy@reddit

A lot of places I've seen that are happy with some aspects of their MSPs will keep that relationship in place for things like infrastructure. You already have people that know what you need and it's stupid to break that relationship for no reason like that customer did.

Any good MSP will realize when they're maybe not the right fit for a customer but there are so many aspects of IT that people won't want to hire internally for, it's just common sense to keep things professional. You never know if the people they bring in will fail spectacularly and they come crawling back.

Don't burn bridges on either side.

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Liquidfoxx22@reddit

We're definitely not burning bridges, but the fact they've cut off our monitoring tools has turned us into a break/fix MSP. We have no ability to be proactive about anything anymore.

We'll still be there if they call on us, we're contractually obliged anyways, but we definitely see this as the beginning of the end.

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itskdog@reddit

We have a team of two for a workforce of 150 at a school. For the last 7 years we've kept our old MSP around on their lowest tier which is 20 hours annually + remote-support-only as a sort of 2nd-line support. They also do our annual asset audit for us as well and appear to have better contacts at Microsoft than we can get hold of.

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Liquidfoxx22@reddit

This customer is a team of 4-5 covering several hundred users. They had zero skills to cover their infrastructure, they were handling all end-user and LoB stuff while we managed everything that ran it all.

We did all their projects for them, annual infrastructure audit and upgrades etc. Curious to see how the relationship plays out because a lot of their infrastructure is up for renewal in the next 12-24 months.

They were hit by a big cyber attack a few years ago after they powered up and ran an EoL VM which was open to the Web which we'd explicitly told them several times to cut off... But hey ho. That was an expensive time for them. I'd like to say they'd learned from their mistake, but I found another one they'd powered back up too "because the business needed it". Clearly hadn't learned that much!

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spanky34@reddit

I'd argue to keep the MSP on indefinitely just at a reduced number of hours/support tier. OP will want to take time off/vacations. Having an MSP to backfill you while you're gone is important or you're getting phone calls while on vacation.

When I was in a similar spot about a decade ago, I kept them. Well, dumped the original one I took over for and found a new one.. but still, had an MSP backup. They'd audit the environment once a year. We'd have a discussion about future plans/goals to make sure what I planned on implementing was something they could support. They had keys to the kingdom if needed while I was on vacation. It ended up being a great business relationship still. They barely had to do any work, made about 5k/yr for doing less than 12 hours of work a year.

When I left for a bigger environment, the business had an easy transition into the hands of the MSP.

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progenyofeniac@reddit

Was going to say #1 first and foremost. Ideally the MSP contract could be reduced to either hourly billing on an as-needed basis, or at the very least review usage after 6-12 months and cut the cost drastically.

But someone in OP’s position is likely going to need some support from the MSP for quite a while, maybe permanently. And there’s nothing wrong with having them as backup support!

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DegaussedMixtape@reddit

I'm on the MSP side of the world and can offer some advice. ALL one-man IT teams should have an MSP as a backup unless the company doesn't rely on computers for daily operations. As others have pointed out, you don't want to be in a position where you can't take vacation or sick days. Seriously, what happens when you are camping/flying/sleeping and mail flow breaks or a major application goes down?

If your boss is just sick of paying MSP bills, which it seems like he is, then find a way to reduce them without fully cutting off. There are two types of MSPs in the world, those who have fixed rate monthly billing and those that charge time and material. Find one that will only bill you for time and material if the existing one won't or can't. Only call them if you are completely stuck and need help or going to be out on vaca. The MSP also is very likely providing remote monitoring, AntiVirus, patching and other core services. If you end your relationship with them, you are going to have to build all of this out which is fine, but not something that you are going to want to do on month one.

If you do get to the point where you are eliminating the MSP completely, set really clear boundaries around what happens when you are on PTO or getting a 6am call after staying up until midnight doing work the night before. Are the calls going to the guy who doesn't know what AD is?

Congrats, this is a huge opportunity for you and your career, just please listen to a lot of the advice in this thread. If you don't think about these things in advance and talk about them with leadership, you will end up getting screwed by it.

I don't even have to ask what you are getting paid to know that you aren't getting paid enough to be working 24/7/365 as a personal technology problem solver for a business owner. Do not let yourself feel like you owe them that type of accountability.

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BisonThunderclap@reddit

Yes. You'll really want the extra hands as you learn what's broken with the environment and the staff you'll need to support it.

Also, probably best to pitch this to the MSP as being the "on-site" help if they're not already aware of the company's intentions.

While most are professional, I've seen plenty that will obstruct this transition anyway they can, including holding the passwords hostage.

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ScrambyEggs79@reddit

My best advise is just take the time to get the lay of the land. Don't make any changes immediately outside of anything critical. I've seen quick changes go south many times - things may not be ideal but be the way they are for a reason. Slow and steady.

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thewebsiteisdown@reddit

This. Observe what REALLY needs to be done. Since the C suite is technology illiterate you will do yourself a favor by understanding the entire business need prior to making changes to infrastructure and servers. In a company that small you will get crazy asks. Know when to save them from themselves.

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MrManhoso@reddit

80 is simple.

as other people have mentioned, I would keep the MSP around and negotiate for10 helpdesk tickets a month or whatever.. Did you review how many tickets a year your company had on average? Who will be responsible for projects? What about licensing and the other crap that is usually tied specifically to MSP's?

I would find the contract ending for those and find something more affordable or better.

make sure there is a complete knowledge transfer and find out when the contract ends so it can be renegotiated.

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tamaneri@reddit

That is far too large an environment for one employee. Godspeed.

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Antique_Grapefruit_5@reddit

If you don't feel like you're in over your head, you're probably in the wrong lake. This is the best, and most rewarding, way to learn. Let's be honest, it's hard to be proud of what you do when you're a tiny cog in a big machine. It may be a dumpster fire, but it's your dumpster fire. Congratulations!

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BlueHatBrit@reddit

Be careful, this isn't just an administrator role, this is a manager / executive role. If the company doesn't realise that, they're either extremely small, or they're not sure what they're getting into.

You're going to need to either hire a few people to help you, or hold onto the MSP but reduce the contract scope. You're also going to need to understand the budget constraints and businesses expectation of their IT systems. What happens if something goes down at 3am on Saturday morning, are you being woken up, an MSP, someone else, or does it just wait until Monday morning?

You need to be speaking to the CEO about how they see you fitting into the leadership of the company, because you're going to be needed across everything in the business at some point. Are you negotiating priorities and managing them? If so, can you say no to another C level? Who are you reporting to, and what are the success metrics they're expecting?

If you're looking for an IC role, and the busiesses is expecting to replace an entire MSP contract with just you - it had better be a very small company.

My advice is: * Get a really clear picture of the expectation, who you report to, and what the full extent of your role will be. * What are they looking to gain by leaving the MSP? If it's better service and someone who understands the business then great. If it's just "cost saving" then you need to know how much they expect to keep spending to make sure it's realistic. * See if you can speak to some of your would-be peers in the business to see what they are expecting from the change, and what issues they have right now.

Only take this job if it'll be well resourced, the expectations seem deliverable, and you actually want to be a manager (even if it's just a self manager fighting your own corner and speaking up to the business).

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OkOutside4975@reddit

Package your products into ideas (ex method 1, 2 and 3). Find out the price. Estimate each. Then approach. Don’t say things like Active Directory.

Say we have three choices and here’s there cost. CEOs aren’t tech experts and always need translation into simple ideas.

It’s phrasing, not tech skills.

You have to plan your choices in a forecasted model against where the company is headed. It’s fine to leverage existing providers, infra, or projects. It’s also fine to make ones you are comfortable managing instead.

They don’t care if it’s easier or harder just what the bottom line is. Rarely do they ask what’s under the hood and even then it’s more like “typical industry best practices and trusted software commonly used today in the market such as Microsoft products and cloud services.” Notice I didn’t say AD.

When you plan your choices estimate your time. Is this more than you can manage in a week? Month? Quarter? Year? That helps you gauge any vendors or MSP work.

You have to make sure you work on the critical stuff keeping the ship sailing forward. Use your certs to leverage staff or outside council.

I’d upgrade WiFi over cables too but that’s just me. No one wants to jack anything in when you can one click Unifi WiFi.

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Exploding_Testicles@reddit

An MSP just for a level one helpdesk is very helpful! Freeing you from password resets, assistance with HW order, and other dumb end user stuff. Allowing you to have time t9 focus on projects, MIs/CIs, and other infrastructure work.

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dont_remember_eatin@reddit

Go in knowing that you're more than just "sole IT grunt." The job will involve so much more than that. You are not just a sysadmin, you are now likely also:

- IT project manager
- Chief information officer
- Chief cybersecurity officer
- Office furniture consultant
- other duties as assigned, but for real

You will need to pay extremely close attention to your communication. Managing upward is more challenging when you don't have a manager to filter the things you'll inevitably want to rage about. Be prepared to explain things in business lingo, NOT tech lingo. That is, when you are seeking approval/budget/downtime for a project, you will need to explain things in terms of business impact. How will a project save money, or reduce downtime, or improve productivity, or improve data security, or whatever? If they want the tech details, those are optional upon request, but never lead with that.

You should also ruthlessly document everything you're doing and be prepared to provide a quick summary if asked, because the old routine where things running smoothly = you aren't worth your paycheck is real and you need to have evidence that your paycheck is why things are running smoothly.

Have someone outside the company you can vent to who understands your work and can empathize. It will help you stay sane at work to have a pressure valve for the inevitable frustrations you will face. A standing date/activity with this person or people will, whether it's beers in the garden, a hobby you share, sports, gaming, whatever.

I hope you're getting paid adequately, because the job of sole IT grunt is almost always the work of at least 2 that the company doesn't want to pay for.

Sauce: wife is in this position. Hear about the non-tech-related challenges all the time. And I wind up being unofficial consultant/sounding board on a lot of things. I half joke that I'm going to present a bill for consulting hours over the years to the company if she ever leaves or gets laid off.

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aluminumpork@reddit

Office furniture consultant is too true.

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clo20@reddit

Don’t forget facilities coordinator… bc IT things plug into walls (therefore walls are IT), and suite is made of walls (therefore suite is IT).

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aluminumpork@reddit

If it’s a smallish company, it can be a really good gig. If enjoy having your hands in everything, and you embed and familiarize yourself with the business, learning to tailor your goals/projects to real problems, it’s incredibly rewarding. Be a people person, have conversations, be humble, don’t assume you know everything about a department’s processes; you can become not just a cog or cost center, but an integral part of the company.

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After-Vacation-2146@reddit

You’d be baller joining the MSP. They have a team they can split work between. You are now the entire team. Good luck.

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DefinitelyNotWendi@reddit

Replace the entire MSP with ONE person. Hope you don’t like days off. Or being “on call” 24/7. Get at least one or two people on your team.

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HuevitoXD@reddit

Documentation

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Zahrad70@reddit

Learn the politics.

Understand the business and the revenue stream first and foremost. That is the CEO / owners’ boss. Frame everything you do in service to it.

Identify the political power players. 80 people? Success here is likely to be more about personality and fitting in with the cool kids than anyone would reasonably expect. Which may be flatly impossible, because you weren’t in Jimmy’s third grade class and that’s the unspoken hidden criteria. Regardless, you have to know who listens to whom on what if you want to be effective long term.

Introduce change slowly and carefully. Start small and far, far away from key revenue components and things that personally affect C-suite leaders, and perhaps their directs.

Finally have a three year plan, backed by an exit strategy that doesn’t necessarily depend entirely upon it. Small companies are fragile at best, and viciously fickle at worst.

Congrats and good luck!

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MyAnnurismSpeakstoMe@reddit

Documentation. On everything

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JPDearing@reddit

Some thoughts….

Bringing IT in house can have advantages. If ALL they are trying to do is save money by getting rid of the monthly MSP bill, this might not go well. I’d suggest you try to find out if they are open to either expanding staff to a second person (basic help desk stuff, password resets and the like) so that you can concentrate on keeping the infrastructure running. The other option is to keep the MSP on, but in a different role, either they handle all the Tier 1 stuff or they be your backup and be the Tier-3 for those things you need help with.

We had the second scenario at a place I worked at. We (4 of us) took care of the day to day stuff. I also took care of day to day server and other infrastructure stuff and it was good to know that I had a “bench” of techs at the MSP I could lean on for help puzzling out odd things we’d occasionally. As someone else mentioned, the MSP can be a force multiplier.

Finally, the MSP must have some kind of a runbook for your company. They need to share that with you. That will be documentation of what’s in place, hardware and software inventory and some kind of password manager for things like Service Accounts, etc…

Good luck!!

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thatflacoman@reddit (OP)

Thanks for the response. One of the headaches they mentioned is anytime they have a problem such as account lock out or password reset, they have to send an email to the MSP and sometimes it can take days to get a response. So does not sound like the MSP is a good go-to for help desk issues.

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Grrl_geek@reddit

But if you're not around...! Someone has to pick up the slack!

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0x0000ff@reddit

What is a server engineer? Those words don't make any sense together. Stop chucking the word engineer on things just to sound cool.

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DarraignTheSane@reddit

I'm going to warn you - as I think others are in this thread, and having been in your position - is that what you're really there to do is be this company's:

CTO / VP of Technology (depending on titling structure)
IT Director
any intermediary IT management titles
Sysadmin / "IT Administrator" (the title they actually gave you)
Helpdesk Manager
Helpdesk Analyst Tiers 1 through 3
... and literally anything else they throw at you - Database Engineer, (LOB software) Manager, (LOB software) Application Support Tech, Grand Printer Guru, etc.

They have no internal knowledge on IT, and wouldn't even know if they're being taken advantage of by this MSP. They need you to be the organization's advocate for all things IT.

Since they're also titling you Sysadmin, they're putting you on the respective 'short leash'. Whoever you report up to will be using you as one (hopefully more trusted than not) opinion on what decisions the org makes, IT-wise.

Budget (the efficiency of spending their money) is always the first and foremost concern, with effectiveness (of IT systems, solutions, etc.) sometimes but hopefully not always taking 2nd in the priority list. Stability of those systems / solutions can also cost them money which is when they're going to notice, and security will sometimes take a back seat to all the rest. You'll need to be the advocate for how security can save & protect their "money" / assets, yes sometimes at the cost of some inconveniences (extra login steps, etc.) and some spend.

I'm not necessarily warning you away. You'll likely learn a lot, hopefully from how well the MSP is properly handling everything... but be prepared for it to be learning from yours & other's mistakes and learning how to properly manage an environment through trial and error (and more mistakes).

Get everything you can out of whatever learning experience it is, negotiate for more pay & title increases insomuch as this org can provide, then switch jobs for greater pay & title increases when your experience warrants it.

[-]

BarryMannnilow@reddit

Looking for opportunities. Used to single handedly managed help desk, hardware imaging, lifecycle management, cell phone bills and devices for 300 users at 12 manufacturing sites.

PM if you need any help or just to catch up!

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Thegoatfetchthesoup@reddit

All I can say is. Good luck. Things aren’t as they seem, they never are.

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crunchomalley@reddit

I’ve seen this too many times.

They’re looking to cut spending so they want to get rid of the MSP and bring in a single IT person. You already said it when you mentioned that you will be everything from helpdesk all the way through server maintenance.

It is doubtful they will allow you to hire anyone to help and they will expect you to be a jack of all trades and available at all times. The reason I’m saying this is because I lived that hell for about eight years, begging for help, no budget, and vacation meant you just don’t come into the office.

Sorry to sound so negative about it, but that’s exactly what’s getting ready to happen. These little piece of shit companies do it to guys all the time.

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BlackFlames01@reddit

Did you leave that toxic situation? If so, what did they say / do?

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crunchomalley@reddit

Yes, I did back in 2010. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. I work for a company now with a team of engineers, and my skills are light years ahead of what they were back then.

When I handed in my resignation letter they were surprised that I wasn’t just overjoyed to be allowed to work there. All I know is this, after I left it took three people to staff their IT department. I took care of over 40 restaurants of one franchise, 23 of another franchise plus the corporate office and all of the field management.

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BlackFlames01@reddit

That seems like an impossible, stressful situation. I'm glad you're in a better place now and appreciate you sharing your story.

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tch2349987@reddit

I’ve been there too. It all depends on how much you can automate things and how well compensated you are. I was compensated well so I didn’t mind maybe helping here and there after hours. Seems like OP does not have much experience so it will be a huge learning curve for him and he’ll also have to spend time outside of work hours learning how everything works.

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NightOfTheLivingHam@reddit

install adobe reader

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tch2349987@reddit

LOOOOL

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thatflacoman@reddit (OP)

LOL, this is something they mentioned when they were talking about licensing in the panel interview.

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NightOfTheLivingHam@reddit

https://wiki.bibanon.org/Tales_from_IT

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just_some_onlooker@reddit

Set clearly defined limits.

Good luck

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genxer@reddit

This otherwise you’re going to have 10pm Word questions that are not at all urgent.

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Buddy_Kryyst@reddit

If they are going in house and dropping the MSP for you to be the one man shop. Plan no for how you'll handle sick days/holidays - I'm to busy putting out this fire to fix your mouse moments.

You don't want to be the single point of failure.

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Altruistic-Hippo-749@reddit

Make sure that you tell them you need a team to replace an MSP and if they don’t let you build one, just leave them to it

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Aggravating-Nail3987@reddit

Contact me.

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clo20@reddit

Everyone’s made great points. Keep the MSP, start basic (patch-protect-inventory), and go from there. Unless MSP has done a good job, you’re prob looking at a lot of basic best-practice standardization work. Imagine a farm in the old West… put a wood fence around your field, find the cows, get them into the fenced field, close the gate. Then start improving. You can DEF do it. CONGRATS!

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RCG73@reddit

First question to ask. Why are they switching from cat5 to 6. I mean yes there are reasons to do so, but do they apply? Typical office tasks won’t be improved by spending that budget on cable. If budget doesn’t matter who cares. But if it’s 6 year old desktops vs cat6?..?

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genxer@reddit

Yep. We’ve got a ton of cat5e for desktops. I am not seeing a huge reason to upgrade

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rire0001@reddit

Sounds fine; actually, sounds plush, depending on the salary. Remember Google and chatbot AI's are your friends. Given that you would be the sole IT person, you have the power to set your 'best practices' for the company, including extra time to consider proposals and whatnot.

Only downside - at least until you establish yourself - is after hours emergencies. Once you establish an operational process though you can streamline (refuce) the after hours shit.

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Duke_Cedar@reddit

-Always have a spare, whatever, device prepared.

-If you have a small company, use Unifi products. great quality and the uniformity throughtout your network makes life so much easier.

-Put your domain/s in the cloud and use site to site vpns or site magic with Unifi.

-Prepare to get saturated with calls for users who don't know their logins and passwords. You would be surprised at the people who can't remember passwords from 20 minutes ago.

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chestertheracoon@reddit

I'm in the same exact boat except this is my first gig out of college lol. I do have some cyber certs and practice on my home lab, so on the technical side I felt strong coming in but being the single POC for all things tech is tough.

Most people in my org don't really know what I do, they think its mostly L1 Help desk stuff which is definitely part it it but they don't see all the backend stuff(network, IAM, automation, logging/monitoring, patching, etc)

Its a lot.

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Impossible-Milk-2023@reddit

Oh boy

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tch2349987@reddit

Haha it’s going to be a good learning curve for OP, either he survives or leaves but the amount of experience he’ll get might be worth it.

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Impossible-Milk-2023@reddit

I‘m only a junior myself. So i don‘t really have a lot of experience. Someone with a lot of seniority is probably able to pull this off if they‘re capable. But right now i couldn‘t even imagine moving everything from the msp to on prem… especially if the msp is uncooperative because they‘re losing the contract (i don‘t knwo what kind of msp this is).

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tch2349987@reddit

He’ll have to spend a good chunk of time documenting everything. MSP might hand him some network diagrams and that’s about it.

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PappaFrost@reddit

I'm detecting light imposter-syndrome. You have a DEGREE, and FIVE professional certifications! You are LEGIT! Congrats on the new job, they are lucky to have you!

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qlz19@reddit

Number 1 word of advice: RUN!

They will never be happy and will just constantly threaten to bring back the MSP. Especially when they realize that they still have to spend a lot of money on their own tools et cetera.

Run as fast as you can

Or come back in a year or two when you are burnt out and they are back at an MSP

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yodo85@reddit

As somebody working at an MSP seeing this often happening, it is a pain for me to give you this advice: convince your boss that you still need the MSP for “expert analysis” in case of complex issues. Meaning: you need the MSP to CYA (cover your ass) when you messed up. We have some customers like that and I HATE these situation but when I was in his (local IT responsible) feet it would be the ideal situation. But not all MSPs wan to be your little bitch.

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SayNoToStim@reddit

I found myself in this role and burned out in 6 months, I quit with no notice.

Set boundaries early, get your duties and assigned responsibilities clearly laid out, and do not give anyone your personal phone number.

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noblejeter@reddit

Just turned an offer down that was a similar setup to what you’re describing, sounds like you won’t have much downtime and be overworked and/or taken advantage of. Going to in-house means they’re attempting to cut costs. You may learn a lot but suffer in WLB, good luck.

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brokensyntax@reddit

Always concerned that things like this are part of the on-again-off-again cycle.
Nice to be on the ground floor.
Make yourself an excel sheet or similar document with a list of all the projects you see in need of being done.
Get yourself a ticket tracking/project system setup.
In your excel sheet, you can make tabs for each project's information.
That should be things like, technologies included, assets needed, assets on hand, on-going maintenance requirements etc.
When a project is ready to be initiated, it goes into the ticket tracking system. Make sure you understand the best way to do this in your chosen ticket system. (Many have some form of project ticket, that can have additional task tickets assigned to it.)

This gives you an at-a-glance document for stuff above-and-beyond daily operations that needs done, or has been completed.
The first project should probably be your DR and BCP documentation.
Supporting documents likely include: - Network configuration (Switches and Routers)
- Patching schedule (Port-to-Patch, Patch-to-Infra Systems, etc.)
- Data backup plan details

Since you are now the effectively Sr. Director of IT, expect to have to talk to the CEO semi-regularly about the business' needs, ROIs, TCOs, etc. as they pertain to the project list, and day-to-day.

Other than that,
Play nice with the MSP until you have enough staff to replace them.
"Enough" depends on the number of systems, services, and users, you must support.
I suggest not less than 4 in most scenarios (Though with 80, a skeleton crew can be successful. Preference should be for 2 needed any given day to field emergent issues, and 1 needed for pushing projects forward, reviewing documentation of fast-changing stuff, equipment audits, etc., and room for one person to be off sick/vacation/etc. if you end up with someone sick while someone is on vacation, you still have 2 people yay!)

Don't forget to check what current SLAs are with the MSP, and what the user experience on response times has actually been.
And, make sure that opening a ticket is EASY, and the information is accessible.
Webportal+Email agent at minimum.
And remember, if it isn't in a ticket, it didn't happen, so if you work something on a phone-call or desk fly-by, make sure to open a ticket behind it.

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djaybe@reddit

How many users, locations, and what industry?

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No-Joke-5048@reddit

I’m the sole IT person in the company and going through the modernization phase. While I am working consistently up to 45 hours per week, with better part of 5 hours per week doing project prep work that cannot be done during business hours. It’s temporary now so that my work load will reduce. Also, we do have a compliance aspect of things too so the testing had to wait until everyone is gone. That being said, my boss keeps tabs on me and asks “when are you planning on taking a day off?” Just looking out so I don’t burn myself out. I would keep your comments/opinions to yourself for the next 90-120 days and just document stuff. Write up stuff that’s going well and other things that should change. Look to have another person there with you. I had a hit by a truck scenario and it was not fun. It changed how I work…. A lot more emphasis on documentation- network maps, general information (carrier info, reasoning on why things are setup that way) and anything that could help someone walking into you not being there. DR plans are great too and testing them. I’ve been a help desk guy, worked for MSPs, been a consultant, worked in house, worked at a DR/BC data center and managed it for 2.5 years, before becoming an IT manager.

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Valuable_Skill_8638@reddit

The raise would have to be fucking enormous on top of that it would require me in a office and that shit will never happen.

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West_Prune5561@reddit

What are the dimensions of the company?

How many endpoints?

How many servers (physical/virtual)?

Is email on-prem?

How many sites?

What are they paying you?

What are they paying the MSP?

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JRmacgyver@reddit

I relocated to another conine and took a job below my skills, this is you change to build things the way you see correct

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noitalever@reddit

Not in any order:

Aim to give slightly better SLA than the msp. They weren’t there 24/7 to change batteries out of keyboards instantly, you are not either. You can always get quicker and faster later.

No matter what the CEO says, if you are giving a little better service than the msp, you will have time to learn the specifics of your network.

Find out why they were looking to replace the MSP. That’s obviously the most important metric to meet.

Set expectations realistically. Make sure they understand that we’re replacing an entire team of people with a very broad experience with one person that has very specific experience will be better eventually, but you can’t be an expert in everything immediately.

If it’s at all possible, take that MSP to lunch on the Company dime, and make friends with them. He will need their tribal knowledge for quite a while. Maybe set up a one year period where you can have bankable hours on a break fix model to ask them questions or get their help with certain things if it gets hairy.

Internally, you should set aside time every day/week for certain tasks. Don’t react to email 24/7 fires will either find you or burn out, and everyone is urgent to themselves. You’ll quickly find out the people you actually have to keep “happy” and it is definitely not all 80.

Take some time and document everything. Figure out what everything does before you start fixing or over hauling anything.

Even with a full-time MSP there had to be some people that were boots on the ground, find those people buy them lunch make friends with them. Make them your fans. Keep them happy. They were the squeaky wheel reason you were hired in the first place.

Make sure they understand that the MSP did not use your production network as a testing ground, and you shouldn’t either. It’s OK to get some equipment to play around with and do upgrades on. And for all that is holy, make sure that you understand your backup processes and they’re thoroughly tested. Protecting that companies data is the first and foremost. If you can always get the data back mistakes carry less blood.

Have fun!

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gingernut78@reddit

I work for an outsourcer. Expect when you lift the covers for it to be….special….

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Such_is@reddit

if it’s anything like my workplace - you don’t need to know much, just be friendly to ceo. then you can get away with knowing nothing and doing nothing

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Embarrassed-Ear8228@reddit

I was in a similar situation, but I inhered an old building with CAT5E with oxidized RJ45 wall jacks that we had to fix one by one.. I would recommend going with CAT7 if you are doing it new - doing it right and future proof it for the next 20 years. Other than that, start slow and move everything to Azure/EntraID, get rid of your on-prem servers as much as you can, only leave networking equipment. this will secure your sanity when you go on vacations!

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sonotyourguy@reddit

This is going to be a lot. I was the sole IT guy for a medical practice that started with 15 providers and 50-60 staff people in three buildings to 25-30 providers and almost 200 staff people across six buildings and three campuses across the metro area. My backup was an MSP for about six months that had been serving the practice before they hired me. Then, they hired the former owner of that ISP as the CTO, who essentially acted as my backup. And eventually a junior sys admin when they realized that even two of us weren’t enough support.

So, the first questions you have to ask is what applications are they using. Are their applications served in-house, or via the Internet (Office 365), how much data is backed up each night. Who is their ISP? What backup systems are in place? If they are strictly windows? Do they have an Active Directory structure and GPO in place? Do they have a security structure? Are they growing? Do people work from home? What kind of authentications systems are they using for remote connectivity?

I’d hope that the MSP they had has all this built and documented. Once you see what they already have, you need to make sure that you can keep them safe and/or rebuild them when needed. Then, you can apply monitoring systems to help you keep track. Then start improving processes and implementing things that will make their lives and your maintenance easier.

Also, don’t forget that you are the main dude who deals with anything electrical or electronic. If they need a projector setup for group presentations, you’ll be called. When they need help with the speaker system and lobby music, you’ll be called. When the CEO gets a new Bluetooth speaker for his office, you’ll be called. If the ice machine in the break room stops working, you’ll be called. (Make really good friends with the facilities manager asap!)

It can be rewarding, but it can be a PITA sometimes too. I used to get to work at 6am sometimes and not leave until 8 or 9pm. I had to change flights multiple times because there would be some big thing on the date I had plan to leave town. I’d get call sat all hours because some c-suite or doctor wouldn’t know who else to call. But I also had a lot of autonomy, and the CEO and CTO trusted me. So that made my life a lot easier. They mostly provided the strategic directions and asked for new technologies, negotiated contracts and support for large things; and I just implemented things.

The biggest challenge though to all of this for me was that they never had a real data center. We had a converted closet that housed our servers and main switches and routers; that had to have ventilation and cooling installed into it as the company grew.

It’s a tough gig, can be very rewarding, will definitely make you learn things, teach you how to be flexible, and how to get things done.

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imnotabotareyou@reddit

Take it. But keep looking.

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GhostNode@reddit

I would suggest seeing if they would entertain keeping the MSP on board to some degree. It can be really nice having a second set of eyes on tools, upgrades, new technologies, etc. Additionally, you are going to want to take a vacation now and then, and having an arrangement where they can oversee critical infrastructure, or supplement to Helpdesk, will keep your phone from ringing while you are off

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XL426@reddit

Don't burn out, know your worth and value your time off. You're always going to want to learn, grow and make stuff better but 2am is the time for sleep

Look at the exit terms of the contract with the current MSP. Get access to everything you need ASAP - ideally before you serve notice so they don't hold you to ransom for any reason.

Get your domain names off them if they have them

Develop a comprehensive asset management regime internally - get all documentation from the old MSP. Snipe IT is great for all of this

Look at security from day 1. It's easy to believe it's been looked after until you start peeling back the onion

Don't be afraid to ask questions and admit you don't know the answer - it's all about how you get the answer that matters

Good luck!

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AndreiWarg@reddit

Ngl if I were you I would ask for two people to work under you. One a straight up support person to do the day to day stuff and grow to do better things, the other to handle networking and more difficult problems.

You will have a fuckton of work already and will have to go into a lot of meetings, prepare a lot of projects and do a ton of presentations. Particularly if the company does well and decides to expand.

Being a trio also allows for sick days or any PTO that comes up, and it will come up sooner or later. You don't want to be in a position where you can't take a leave for a few days without people bombarding you.

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huenix@reddit

Two big suggestions from someone who has been there.

1) Document everything. Do not do a single piece of work without a ticket. There are tons of opensource ticketing software. When someone asks you for something, ask what the ticket is. And document that you worked on it and what you did. This builds institutional knowledge and allows you to quickly refer for repetitive issues that maybe there is a systemic fix.
2) If you are running production servers, create and follow a change policy.

The goal of sysadmin roles is to do the work so there is no more.

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Al_the_Alligator@reddit

I would lobby to keep the MSP on so not EVERYTHING falls on you. Establish a good relationship and work with them.

This could be a trap, mindset "The MSP charges me $100k a year, I can do it cheaper in house." Nevermind the MSP is bringing all the software licensing for security tools etc.

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Tx_Drewdad@reddit

So sysadmin pay for a director position?

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Savings_Art5944@reddit

You got this!

When I first started in IT, I joined with no certs. Our Department was 3 people for over 2000 endpoints. It was cake back then. I would love to be Head IT with 1-2 people for such a small Company. Congrats.

I would start with getting direct reports from your MSP and see what you are paying for. Inventory everything and make sure the reports match.

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MunchyMcCrunchy@reddit

I could see them maybe scaling back on the MSP, but you won't be able to manage infrastructure and 80 users on your own.

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djgizmo@reddit

IMO, unless you have the ability to have 3 people in IT (you and two others) keep the MSP on board for all level 1 issues.

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polYtoXX@reddit

I‘m curious - what benefits they expect from exchanging Cat5 cables ??

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Crim69@reddit

Hey there, I was in a very similar position and still sort of am. Interestingly I am the 90th employee and just did the office setup, though it's not my first rodeo doing that project. Here are some lessons learned as we have grown to 200+ in my 8 months here:

1 - Get a helpdesk person as soon as possible or you will forever be seen as just the password reset and onboarding guy instead of a technical admin.

2 - Build strong relationships with executive management. You will need to office politic but also present yourself as a leader both in your mannerisms and appearance. It will go a long way to getting your ideas approved. This is more important than replacing Nancy’s toner.

3 - Outsource what you can within budget. Do not try to be a hero and do every technical thing. You have limited time and 10 people waiting on you with their bullshit but to them it's a P1. Have an office setup to do? Work with a vendor to source the rack, switches, APs and to install it and stand up the initial network. Simplify where you can. Get Merakis so your admin duties for maintaining the office network is simple and doesn't require you to cram in networking knowledge you don't have on a single weekend.

4 - After the initial period of chaos has passed, focus on solving business problems, not spending your time fine tuning the exact minutia of your “good enough” MDM config. What is your backup strategy, business continuity plan, what needs to be done for a cyber security insurance vendor to actually cover you?

5 - Tickets, tickets, tickets. I have a whiteboard behind me with a single message, “submit a ticket”. People still don't do it. Enforce the behavior or you'll forever be subject to walk ups, lunch interruptions, getting pulled aside while trying to just take a damn piss. It will also help you point at numbers (and useful ones as you build out reporting) so management can appreciate headcount request.

6 - Work hard but rest well. Some weekend work and overtime just comes with the territory but pace yourself. Not everything needs to get done today, tomorrow, next month or even this year. Prioritize based on risk first and then impact (what makes you seem valuable).

7 - Decide on device and peripheral standards early and stick to them. Sometimes you might not have a choice. I walked into a full Windows and Android environment. 8 months in I am finally getting to deploying MacBooks and iPhones. But choose what makes your life easier as an admin and stick to your guns - though upper management will always be an exception within reason. It is what it is. You will need brownie points.

8 - Do not give ground on support over the phone. As in do not have an IT number that can be called where people expect you to pick up. You will never know peace. Ticket only. If you have to call because someone doesn't have network access for remote troubleshooting, use the company provided phone. Make it clear that you are not going to provide call in support to anyone (unless it's the C suite, leaving that to your discretion) to your direct manager. If they disagree, keep looking for another job on the side. Ignoring this is an express ticket to being on call 24/7.

I haven't even managed to do everything I've listed, it’s on-going but how I'm approaching things seems to be on the right track. I have 1 helpdesk analyst and will likely hire a sys admin with windows/m365 expertise next so I can focus on reducing risk for the business. Developing a strong relationship with the COO in my case paid off as he went to our CTO and convinced him to give me headcount and a raise. The solo experience is a fucking nightmare but you don't have to stay solo if you're savvy and the business is growing.

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Bl0ckTag@reddit

I'll mirror what some of the others have said. Take your time, and do not cut the MSP loose until you have a full understanding of the environment and the keys to the proverbial castle(all credentials for access to all systems).

I went through a similar situation when I started my new position 6 tears ago. The key is to be very transparent with your CEO/direct report supervisor on timelines, and dont be afraid to have them intervene if you are facing resistance.

Depending on the size and scope of the org, you might find yourself in a continued relationship with the MSP in the long run to augment where you might be lacking while you take your time in understanding and building your team.

I great first step would be to meet with the MSPs engineers that have knowledge of the org and get a lay of the land. Ask about network diagrams, what technologies they have in place, and what pain pointa/repeated issues they've been seeing. Just, whatever you do, do not outright say you are moving IT in house. They will have the feeling thats what's happening, but you dont want to give them any reason to start acting defensive.

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VL-BTS@reddit

Sit in on everything they'll let you, especially the new building. This will help you get to know their approach to planning ahead, unforeseen expense, downtime, workplace environment, and so on. It will also let you contribute in ways they wouldn't think of, because they're not a tech guy. So you might not end up with an IDF on the first floor, under a second floor mop sink closet.
Try to work with the MSP, if possible, and choose what you will GRADUALLY take control of, and responsibility for. I'd advise to start with something you understand completely, so you have an idea if they're feeding you BS about their work on it. Then, pick another aspect, and take over gradually.
Make it clear there WILL be times you need to hire a contractor or other third party. Maybe that's not true, and you never will. But prepare them for the possibility. HOWEVER, let them know you will do so when it is more cost-effective and more helpful, than taking those projects on.
See if they are willing to hire temps, or temporarily reassign existing staff, to help with occasional projects; possibly a Facilities staffer w/ some electrical or electronics knowledge. It'll help you plan your projects.

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icebalm@reddit

Hrmmm.. This really depends on the MSP. Some will play dirty when they realize they're losing a client. Some won't care and will stay professional.

To be safe I would tell them that you're being onboarded to take care of Level 1/day to day things, that way you can get all the knowledge out of them without them being too hostile. Keep them on board for a little bit because you're going to have to rely on them in the beginning as you won't have all the knowledge. Then transition away once you get your bearings.

The big thing I would watch out for is being on the hook for 24/7 on call. Put your foot down and do not accept that shit. On call = working, and everyone needs down time without the looming threat of having to switch into work mode at any second.

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KareemPie81@reddit

By bottle of lube, the MSP is gonna fuck you raw

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RestartRebootRetire@reddit

I was in this situation for a year replacing an MSP.

Plenty of good advice here but I would add:

Gain a complete understanding of the backups and make sure you have access to cloud backups after they MSP is gone, so you may need to start moving stuff to your own cloud if they don't allow that.

Find out what licenses they took over and figure out what you can take over. Their security stack, for example, might vanish and you may not have access to the same products at similar cost.

Try to figure out what processes the MSP does that will carry over or not, and make sure you've got a grip on everything before you pull the plug.

As someone else said, unless it was a good MSP (they exist, apparently) be prepared for a mess with things like disabled Windows firewalls, Everyone Full Control, etc. MSPs have high turnovers and so they through the inexperienced grunts at problems and those grunts use blunderbuss techniques to fix things.

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frAgileIT@reddit

Start with an inventory of everything. Next make sure you fully understand everything you’re transitioning from and to, verify whether you have any external integrations that will tip over when you migrate, and take it one day at a time.

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CornBredThuggin@reddit

Before you cut off the MSP, you need to have a conversation with the MSP as to what they do. You want to look at ticket count, patching, security, and backups. I wouldn't drop the MSP until you have a good grasp on what your infrastructure looks like. MSPs can be tricky. Some of them do a great job. Others not so much. You don't want to take over to find a mess that you'll have to find time to fix as well as doing all of the desktop support.

You will also want to establish procedures for after-hours support. If you're a one-man shop, you'll want to make sure you have someone to be around when you take time off. Because the last thing you want to happen is for a server to go down while you're on vacation.

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denmicent@reddit

I’ve done similar. You’re going to want to know what is the MSP currently doing? Get logs and records of everything, don’t just take their word for it.

What is the most critical pain point for the business, right now?

What’s your budget?

Whats the transition plan from the MSP?

Once off the MSP, is it just you, or do you get a team?

If no team, what’s on call look like?

Who do you report to? That’s important to know, because you should be considered senior management more or less and have a say in things from a tech standpoint.

Where does the CEO want the company to be in 1, 3 and 5 years? Do you have the budget and backing to do these things?

Who handles after hours calls, currently?

Those are a few things.. I can probably think of more

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Final_Tune3512@reddit

Just make it known that you only respond to P1 after hours and outline what a P1 actually is so they understand.

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AdministrativeAd1517@reddit

Took a role just like this after being cut from my last company. Sounds familiar.

I’ve been here for a bit and I can absolutely say that you will feel overwhelmed. Definitely make sure that management wants to grow the IT department. Get an idea of what their plan is. Are they going allow you to push for more help, if so what’s the timeline on that. Get a decent plan together once you know your environment clearly enough.

Have it down how and when you go to remove the MSP from the environment, make sure that more hands will be hired during or even before the MSP is off boarded.

Definitely follow people’s guidance here about keeping them around for a year before you edge them out completely. Something’s I found after being in your shoes the last two companies is if they are a good MSP/haven’t screwed up too badly. You can keep the relationship going with them and offer that you contract projects out to them that you do not have the staff for.

That said 90 percent of the time there’s a reason CEOs decide they want in house support and that because MSPs just don’t provide very good support due to over working the crap out of their teams.

Do expect that once your finance team tells the MSP they are being cut it will be radio silence. If they have the MDM under their control get that shit out immediately while they are working with you. I’ve had MSPs ghost me entirely and have to get legal involved. Not fun.

Congrats on becoming an MSP ripper outer. It’s not a fun job but it gets better when they leave and you have control over your environment. Good luck!

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stuartsmiles01@reddit

Keep the existing msp or migrate to a new one but don't expect everything in house as you'd always be the person 24x7x365. (And that's not realistic for 1 person).

You, and everyone else needs to have cover and holidays.

People need cover, and you need ability to sort changes and have relationships with the users and cover & escalation for incidents & support.

Retain the msp's relationships for backups, patching , servers, printers, remote acess and network kit / buying as they can sort procurement through processes, and you focus on the people and their needs.

Use external contractors for cabling as they do it all day every day, take their advice on drops required in different areas, and get them to test everything on installs and document everything for you.

Keep going and make sure there is buy in for what you're looking to do, and have a budget about what things will cost so there's no surprises that expectations are overthe top compared to the budget (and extra people, training, cover & support).

Good luck.

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medfordjared@reddit

Congratulations. This is a great position for you with your background and you will have a tremendous opportunity to grow your skills and learn on the job. You may back into expertise in some areas, but what is being asked of you is to be an IT generalist, which means you will need light understanding in many areas.

Someone in this thread talked about getting the lay of the land and I agree. Start to gather up as much documentation as you can: contracts, what end-users are using, understanding their IT usages. Have any consultants or contractors left behind any documentation. The biggest risk is upsetting the users day-to-day and creating 'noise', so understanding who they are and what they are doing is important before advancing changes.

You should also understand the 'eventually' of bringing things in-house, and find out what the CEO's priorities are OR if he wants you to decide what those are, and the schedule to do those things.

The good news is that AI is your friend. People are going to hate that I have said this, but I spent a lot of time in my early career reading man pages, googling for research, breaking and fixing things, etc. Lots of that can now be accelerated through AI, and you can even use AI to develop project plans and executive-facing information.

Good luck, but I would say you are on the right path for career development and your skill set in 5 years will be in the sweet spot that a lot of companies recruit.

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purefan@reddit

I would think into clearly defining what the MSP is doing right now and work out a transition plan, it may take 1~2 years depending but it gives you milestones to show towards your superiors.

Along the way more areas will likely pop up, its hard to see progress if all just keeps working, so make sure to give yourself wiggle room and generous time frames

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S3xyflanders@reddit

Run Cat6a for your access point network drops. You may not need it today but you will eventually do it while you have the ability to do it.

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gaybatman75-6@reddit

I'm a somewhat solo admin in a weird role and the things I've learn amount to this: set boundaries and maintain your off time, make a basic list of obvious overhauls that are needed, and take your time addressing that list. You don't need to burn out fixing every out dated thing immediately.

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civiljourney@reddit

You're going to crush this. Use your knowledge and get to work getting an inventory and general assessment. Implement the policies you need, and get buy-in from the CEO before you do it.

Go over everything with the MSP to understand why they've done things the way they have, and don't be afraid to lean on them to get your changes put into place

Take it slow, and keep your hours at a max of 45.

Be quicker than the MSP to respond to support requests, but don't be constantly on top of it, because it will set unrealistic expectations early.

Figure out who the movers and shakers are in the organization, learn about them, befriend them, and figure out some ways to make their lives easier.

Never panic.

Good luck and congrats!

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iamLisppy@reddit

I would make sure to have a plan to not be the ONLY IT person if the goal is to have in-house IT. Why? Because you will burnout if they rely on you.

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Gubzs@reddit

From someone who has done sysadmin for a company that has grown from 100 to 600 people in 6 years:

1) Set reasonable expectations early on. Do not get in the habit of working on your time off. It's easy to set boundaries before it becomes expected of you. Once you let it happen, you're cooked.

2) Your most important word is "no", and your best justification is "technical debt". You have a lot of responsibility, and that means you also require a lot of authority to meet your responsibilities. You are the expert. You are paid to be the decision maker for a reason.

2) Set up a free ticketing system, and get supervisors on your side early on. IT needs tickets to track the status of many issues at once. No tickets means worse support. I recommend putting up helpful posters with the help desk address around workspaces.

3) Homogenize mobile devices. Do not combine BYOD with company devices, do not issue both Apple and Android. Pick one. Allow exceptions for leadership staff. Again, technical debt will bite you here. Streamline the business where you can.

4) Get a list of common job titles, sit with leaders, find out what they have for hardware, what needs are being met, what needs aren't being met. Get lists of new things to trial. The goal is to have a standard issue hardware list for each position. This is very helpful financially and politically.

5) Automate everything you safely can. This goes without saying but it's important.

6) Draft an official IT security policy and posture for your org. This will save your ass if someone else does something stupid.

7) Document business continuity plans in event of unforeseen disasters, including something happening to you. Power outages, network outages, weather disasters, cyber security incidents, etc. Print them out, give copies to leadership and keep one yourself.

Some things I've learned to do anyway.

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bawireman@reddit

I did this for many years and I'll say this...good luck.

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I_cut_the_brakes@reddit

I do internal IT for an org a little more than double your size, but we have 4x the IT Staff and still leverage an MSP for some things.

It is possible, but you're probably going to be logging some long hours. I would ask for helpdesk to be managed by the MSP for some time until you are able to build a team or at least get settled in yourself.

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VERI_TAS@reddit

I saw in another post you mentioned you'll be managing about 80 users. While that's a small amount, I'd still highly recommend pushing to hire at least one (in a perfect world, two) low-level tech(s) before getting rid of the MSP. As the Admin, you should be focusing on improving the systems, not resetting user's passwords all day.

In addition to that, your first focus is gaining access to anything and everything that the MSP has access to. Get admin access, request all documentation that was created, etc.

Next order of business is audit. Review permissions, what apps are being used, age of workstations and other systems, cybersecurity posture, etc.

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ZobooMaf0o0@reddit

How big is your company?

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thewillowsdad@reddit

Good luck OP, you have had some good advice already here. They moving everything to the cloud ? Wish I could get something like this

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thatflacoman@reddit (OP)

Actually it sounds like they are looking to setup everything on-prem or at least hybrid. Obviously M365 and I hope they stick with EntraID. I feel like most of this will be determined using my recommendations.

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Hoolicool75@reddit

One thing to keep in mind is building a strong IT foundation look into the network architecture and make sure it scales with their growth. Also, don’t forget to document everything from the start those systems will get more complex as you go! If you're taking over from an MSP, be ready for an info dump (or lack of) from them as well. Keep an eye on backups and security; it’ll save you tons of headaches later.

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spaceboi77@reddit

How many users?

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im_back@reddit

Ask if there’s a budget for an assistant. What if you are sick? What if there are simultaneous issues that have near equal importance? if you can’t get an assistant, ask your boss what happens if you get hit by a bus? Redundancy is like insurance, everyone complains about paying for it until they need it.

Get any documentation from the msp and start an “incase of death binder.” Get all passwords. Get all data about the network, dhcp schemes, which systems have static ips, any Vlan info for printers, VoIP, etc. knowing about nvrs and cameras could be critical if theft/shrinkage occurs.

You are moving into a new facility. What upgrades besides cat6 are planned? New hires? If so, you’ll also be prepping their tech. Besides the os, what is their standard software load (or do they even have one?) Who are their equipment providers and is there any non standard approval process.

What is their five year plan? Besides a new shop will there be new markets? Growth? If you know where they are heading, you can plan accordingly.

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KameNoOtoko@reddit

With only one person the goal is not to get rid of the msp or other support vendors. The goal of your role should be to help manage the vendor interactions and msp. You may want reduce their services but bringing everything for 80 users in house to a single admin is going to burn you out majorly. The context switching required go from troubleshooting the firewall to then jumping on an end user PC to look at an Excel formula is brutal and will take its toll.

This is where you look to an msp to do you monitoring/patching and your monthly maintenance so that you can be freed up to work on the business initiatives to drive positive change for the business. It is harder for an msp to come in and build automation and process refinement but they can come in and do the same maintenance they did for a hundred other clients that month.

If you can't swing that then best of luck and just document everything and be up front when tasked with projects about realistic time frames. Set personal boundaries for when you are and are not available. 24/7/375 just because you are the only IT is not feasible and should not even be considered. Of course we always need to respond system outages but if a user call me about a spreadsheet outside of business hours I WILL not help them and WILL discuss boundaries with their manager. Just because they choose to work late does not mean I did.

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CptZaphodB@reddit

Oh god this sounds like the place I just left. Good luck. It's gonna be hell.

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Kcamyo@reddit

When you say it "heavily relies on an MSP", what does that cover? In my past, they handled our Network infrastructure since we were hybrid but everything else from endpoint management to cyber security was handled by us. Be prepared that this will end up being mostly IT Support and Onboarding, pretty much the things that the MSP cannot do remotely, you will have to handle. I am only saying this in case you don't end up working in infrastructure if that's what you're hoping for.

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BoltActionRifleman@reddit

You could tell them running cat6 instead of 5e is a waste of money unless they actually need it, which chances are they don’t.

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Hot_Sun0422@reddit

Haha. Damn are you about to experience some shit.

Personally, I wouldn’t cut the MSP loose. I manage a 3 man team and I still use a contractor to help with projects. As a 1 man team, you’re already understaffed. Enjoy not having any vacations and enjoy on call 24/7/365.

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crashorbit@reddit

Write up a transition plan. An LLM chatbot can give you an outline to start with.

Get as much face time as you can with the engineers in the MSP as part of a transition plan. Negotiate a way to escalate to them or another on a per incident basis.

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thatflacoman@reddit (OP)

I think this is something that helped set me apart from other candidates. I used ChatGPT to help me put together a 6-9 month transition plan and then printed it out and handed out copies at the second round panel interview. They loved it, even though they didn't understand most of it.

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Zedilt@reddit

Start defining a IT strategy for when the transition plan is completed.

For example, If the company is going all in on Office 365 in the future. It might be better to just implement Teams Calling now, than spending a lot of time moving/learning an old calling system just to replace it with Teams later.

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SammichAffectionate@reddit

Don’t have personal experience with taking IT back over from an msp, but I worked both internal and msp. I would first get the higher ups expectations of timeframe with MSP because it’s probably not realistic.

When is contract renewal and what is actually in the contract? Because, in the next contract you drop or change. They probably have their “hooks” into everything, idp, workstations, email, servers, security. Might be ideal just to go co-managed for a while as you formulate a plan.

Make sure your higher ups ask for all admin passwords, accounts, and documentation. They may charge you, but oh well. You should really start in a discovery, verify you have access, and take note what software and services they license to you because you will need to migrate away from it.

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BloodFeastMan@reddit

Start by cultivating positive relationships with not only management and top management, but normies as well, regardless of their level of expertise. You can't imagine how far this goes or how important it is, especially since they've always depended on outside help.

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Perpetuity_Incarnate@reddit

In 2025 I find the most important skill I have as a sys admin is communication and establish relationships. This will help when you give answers that they don’t want. Instead of being IT just don’t want to help. It becomes he does what he can so he means it and wants to help but is unable.

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BloodFeastMan@reddit

This will help when you give answers that they don’t want.

Someone they like and trust telling them something, as opposed to some condescending person that they feel is talking down to them. This goes such a long way.

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gadget850@reddit

Ensure you have all the access info from the MSP.

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kingpoiuy@reddit

Oh a new building? That's a dream situation! Currently i deal with 20 year old infrastructure and I wish i could redo it all!

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Real-Patriot-1128@reddit

Might want to mention the need to hire an additional you. Explain how you would back each other up and cover for sick/vacation days. If truly intent on migrating away from msp, you need the infrastructure (staff) to do it.

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MrClavicus@reddit

Use the MSP and vendors to the absolute max. Managing a handful of good vendors can help you get an absolute ton done.

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Skorn42@reddit

Be transparent about your goals and initiatives. Make sure C-suites questions are answered in non-buzzword IT jargon.

Explain why support contracts are important. They are to help reduce the amount of time something is broken or not performing properly, not because you’re lazy.

Create documents for projects you work on for yourself. Future you will thank past you for this when you have to remember a detail on this system you haven’t touched in a year.

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1spaceclown@reddit

Get your hands on the MSP contract It should outline what they are responsible for. Then inventory your environment to understand what all you will support. Make a plan with this and any other pertinent information.

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dogcmp6@reddit

Run.