Fighting the “break-fix” model is a core story in IT. Break-fix means waiting until something stops working before fixing the problem. But the problem with break-fix is that IT teams spend an awful lot of nights trying to fix catastrophic failures with last-minute solutions, while the entire business comes to a standstill.

MUCH better are systems where the IT department can proactively perform maintenance and repair work. They should be alerted as early as possible when something is wrong. RMM is all about providing the IT department with data and early warnings when system status deteriorates.

In the early days of RMM, building such an early warning system required extensive infrastructure and expertise to connect all of a company’s devices. The early RMM solutions could provide some information, but were inconvenient to install and operate. Only large enterprises could afford such proactive IT with remote monitoring. Small businesses, however, were left behind without these enterprise tools.

In the last decade, RMM has grown and matured. Protocols for establishing connections and a lower cost for maintaining connections have made RMM affordable and scalable. Small businesses can now take advantage of RMM solutions directly or engage managed service providers (MSPs) for remote support.