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Due to the multitasking nature of their profession, IT technicians seek ways to speed up the delivery of their assignments.

That is why today we are going to focus on the use of IT technician tools and, specifically, on:

• What is an IT technician?
• Why are software tools important for an IT technician?
• 7 types of tools every IT technician needs.

Let’s start with a short definition.

What Is an IT technician?

An IT technician is the professional who provides hardware, software or network support.

This includes the installation of devices and network equipment, such as printers, servers, cables or routers and the management of the respective softwares.

A more experienced IT technician may further take on the supervision of cybersecurity and IT security status of a company, as well as the smooth operation and maintenance of overall IT infrastructure.

For the execution of the above tasks, IT technicians make use of software tools specially adapted to the needs of each business client and its IT infrastructure.

But, why is the use of specific IT technician tools so imperative?

Why Are Software Tools Important for an IT Technician?

It goes without saying that the importance of IT technician tools varies according to their type and the way they are being used.

However, the following four benefits emerge in every case where IT technicians decide to include software tools for the processing of their daily tasks.

Project management: More often than not, software tools help IT technicians to record and control their sub-tasks and process for the execution of a larger project. At the same time, they allow IT team members to connect through the same tool platform and coordinate their tasks.

Therefore, IT technician tools organise and centralise IT service management facilitating the smooth operation of an IT team,

Automation: Moreover, as we mentioned earlier an IT technician’s profession includes a high degree of multitasking. Bearing in mind that most of these tasks need to be executed simultaneously or in rapid succession, the major advantage of IT technician tools is that they can accept execution commands and, afterwards, run the execution without the need of human intervention.

In that way, IT professionals can provide quicker and more effective IT services.

Performance monitoring: At the same time, IT technician tools usually integrate features that indicate whether IT tasks have been carried out and any potential problems encountered.

This contributes to the assessment of the outcomes of IT work and, thus, serves as a basis for finding new more efficient solutions.

Direct IT support: Lastly, many IT technician tools incorporate a communication platform where IT expertS and their business clients can interact.

On this platform, the client can submit a support request to the technician and the technician in turn either resolves it or guides the client on how to handle it independently.

Therefore, the communication between the two parties and the provision of IT support becomes more direct.

Having considered the above mentioned benefits, we can now proceed to some important types of software tools that IT technicians need to facilitate their daily operations.

7 Types of Tools Every IT Technician Needs

The 7 types of IT technician tools we will be mentioning are the following.

Type #1: RMM tools

The establishment of remote service provision and communication necessitates the use of remote monitoring and management tools (RMM tools).

This kind of tools enables IT service providers - either in-house or outsourced -  to remotely access and manage your IT elements in a centralised and unified manner.

Example: N-able N-sight was voted as the no1 RMM software for 2022, serving as a complete MSP solution combining remote monitoring & management, remote access and ticketing and billing features. N-able N-sight allows

• Attended and unattended remote access,
• Automatic scheduling and tracking of IT actions,
• IT service management via mobile app for IT technicians,
• IT asset discovery and management, and
• Patch management.

Type #2: Network security tools

Network security tools make up for another category of necessary IT technician tools.

Network security hinders the infiltration of malicious actors to your network and, thus, prevents the installation of malware or the deployment of other types of cyber attacks.

Some examples of softwares that could be added to an IT technician’s toolkit might be

• Anti-malware softwares,
• Firewalls,
• VPN,
• Anti-spam filters,

etc.

Examples: Malwarebytes stands as a great option of a network security tool. Malwarebytes uses a multi-layered defence model so as to

• Prevent your users or devices from being profiled by malicious actors,
• Block malicious web hosts,
• Defend against exploitation, and
• Establish protection technologies against heuristic and behavioural malware.

At the same time, GFI KerioControl stands as a 2-in-1 solution combining both firewall and VPN services for small or medium sized businesses. More specifically, GFI KerioControl

• Monitors incoming and outcoming data packets,
• Filters web data and their content, and
• Protects your IP addresses when connecting with other devices or networks.

Type #3: Asset management tools

Moreover, it is equally important for an IT professional to make use of IT asset and inventory management tools.

Such IT technician tools keep record of IT items that constitute a business IT infrastructure and monitor any possible changes in their status

Example: Two great examples of IT asset management tools are N-able N-sight and GFI Languard.

As mentioned earlier, N-able N-sight detects and manages all existent and new IT assets that are linked to your network, while also serving as an RMM tool.

In a similar way, GFI Languard collects and groups all elements of your network which can be later on monitored via a console dashboard.

Type #4: Patch management tools

IT asset management can be further enhanced by the installation of a patch management tool.

Patch management tools track the status of your IT assets and, later on, identify and fix the patches detected on your apps or softwares. In that way, they prevent patches from being exploited as “points of entrance” for potential cyber attackers.

Example: GFI Languard is a highly versatile option of a patch management tool. It is compatible with both mobile operating systems, namely Android, macOS and Windows Phone, and a variety of computer operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows, macOS & major Linux distributions (e.g. Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Ubuntu, Suse, CentOS and Debian).

In particular, GFI Languard

• Collects and groups all elements of your network,
• Identifies and corrects patches automatically either centrally or through “agents” on individual machines, and also
• Scans for non-patch-related vulnerabilities providing more complete cybersecurity solutions.

Simultaneously, as another IT technician tool Lastly, Ivanti Neurons provides both on premises and cloud patch management options. Ivanti Neurons

• Tracks down all known patch exploits,
• Classifies patches by risk through the integrated Vulnerability Risk Rating (VRR) tool, and
• Uses insights from crowdsourced social sentiment data and anonymized deployment data to help IT professionals avoid failed patch deployments.

Type #5: Document management tools

Simultaneously, when business clients of an MSP keep a voluminous inventory of documents, it is imperative for their IT service provider to use document management tools.

Document management includes both the automated collection of files used within a company and necessary file analysis so as to detect possible errors or bugs contained.

Example: N-able Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) monitors the documents used by the users of the company and carries out automatic file analyses. More specifically, N-able EDR provides

• Real-time file analysis through time-intensive recurring file scans,
• Identification of suspicious patterns or changes in the files stored within the network by using integrated machine learning and advanced artificial intelligence (AI), and
• Notifications for possible threats and takes over threat management even automatedly.

Type #6: Data backup tools

Data backup tools are another  worth mentioning type of IT technician tools.

They automatically create backups of your data, ensuring the preservation of your data against any destruction or change due to e.g. user error, physical destruction of the device or cyber attack.

In that way, such IT technician tools can efficiently protect you from data breaches and their burdensome consequences.

Example: N-able Cove Data Protection is a cloud-first data backup tool used for the protection of over 600,000 devices worldwide. The features of N-able Cove Data Protection include

• More frequent backups that guarantee 600% higher performance than “photographic” backups,
• Data damage recovery by executing both total and one-by-one scannings, and
• Long-term archiving of non-usable data (without additional charges).

Type #7: Ticketing and billing tools

Last yet equally important, ticketing and billing tools serve as a platform where business clients can immediately file a request for IT support to IT teams. In turn, IT teams can get directly notified, resolve the request, and issue a bill for the services provided through the app.

This kind of IT technician tools allow professionals to provide direct IT support and oversee the pricing of their services.

Example: By ordinary, ticketing and billing tools are integrated as a feature on other softwares of a different functional specialisation.

For example, N-able N-sight, GFI KerioControl, GFI Languard all include ticketing or billing portals to facilitate the communication between IT experts and their clients.

In conclusion, we realise that although each IT technician tool type serves a different goal, all eight have one thing in common; they can upgrade day-to-day the working life of IT professionals.

Closing up with that final point, let’s sum up what we discussed overall.

Now Over to You

In general, we referred to what IT technicians do, why it is important for them to use the IT technician tools, and also 8 types of tools every IT technician needs.

In this context, we realise that there is a large variety of softwares, amongst which IT professionals must select the ones that adjust to the services they wish to provide.

That is why Orthology guides you through the process of choosing, testing and configuring the right IT technician tools for your IT team and the needs of your business clients.

Therefore, if you wish to deploy the right IT technician tools as an IT service provider, don’t hesitate to contact us to get all necessary information!