Industry Glossary
Understand the language of our industry with definitions and explanations
All Terms (51)
A
B
Backup and Disaster Recovery
Combined backup plus orchestrated restore capability designed for fast recovery.
Bring Your Own Device
Policy that allows employees to use personal devices for work.
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
Holistic plan and tooling to keep a business running through an outage and recover after.
C
California Consumer Privacy Act
California law granting consumers rights over their personal data.
Change Management
Process for proposing, approving, and implementing changes safely.
Channel Partner
Company that resells, integrates, or delivers a vendor's products to end customers.
Co-Managed IT
Service model where the MSP works alongside an in-house IT team rather than replacing it.
Conditional Access
Identity policy engine that enforces access rules based on user, device, and risk signals.
E
Endpoint
Any device connecting to the network: workstation, laptop, mobile, or server.
Endpoint Detection and Response
Endpoint security that detects, investigates, and responds to suspicious activity on workstations and servers.
Entra ID
Microsoft's cloud identity platform, formerly Azure Active Directory.
Extended Detection and Response
Security platform that correlates signals across endpoints, identities, email, and cloud.
F
G
I
Incident Response
Coordinated process to detect, contain, eradicate, and recover from a security incident.
Information Technology Infrastructure Library
Best-practice framework for IT service management.
ISO 27001
International standard for information security management systems.
IT Channel
Ecosystem of vendors, distributors, MSPs, and resellers that delivers technology to end customers.
IT Service Management
Framework and tooling for managing IT as a service.
M
Managed Detection and Response
Outsourced service that combines detection technology with human analysts to investigate and respond to threats.
Managed Security Service Provider
Company that delivers security services (monitoring, response, compliance) on contract.
Managed Service Provider
Company that delivers IT services to clients on a recurring contract.
Market Development Funds
Vendor funding earmarked for partner marketing activities.
Master Services Agreement
Umbrella contract that governs the ongoing relationship with a client.
Microsoft 365
Microsoft's bundle of productivity, identity, and security cloud services.
Microsoft Azure
Microsoft's public cloud platform.
Microsoft Intune
Microsoft's cloud-based endpoint management platform.
Multi-Factor Authentication
Authentication requiring two or more independent factors.
P
Peer Group
Curated, confidential group of MSP owners who share financials and operating practices.
Playbook
Decision-driven procedure for handling a class of incident or workflow.
Professional Services Automation
Platform that handles ticketing, time tracking, billing, and project management for service businesses.
R
S
Security Information and Event Management
Platform that aggregates logs and security events for analysis and alerting.
Security Operations Center
Team and facility that monitors security events and responds to incidents 24x7.
Service Level Agreement
Contract clause defining promised response and resolution times.
SOC 2
Audit framework covering security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy.
Statement of Work
Document defining scope, deliverables, and price for a project.
T
V
The directories and information on this website are compiled from sources we have periodically reviewed and accumulated over time. While we strive to keep content current and accurate, details may change without notice due to vendor updates, changes in publicly available information, or other factors. As a result, we cannot guarantee that all information is complete, current, or error-free. We recommend verifying critical details directly with the applicable vendor or source.
