Within reason, as much or as little of the functionality of a computer in an office environment can be run over the network. Managed services allow for distributed processing – for example, the hassle of running vastly expensive programs in terms of processor usage can be handled by the managed hosting service. The internal networking capacity is freed up for other uses that relate to a company’s business or serve its needs better. Bandwidth capacity is increased on the network itself; further bandwidth is provided between the hosting service and the customer’s network, allowing far more ready access to all of the services an office worker requires.

When managed services are outsourced, it is likely to reduce overhead in other areas too. Fire safety mechanisms that are geared towards saving lives rather than costly and delicate circuitry and hardware may be used at a company’s offices. The hosting location will house the safety mechanisms to ensure that everything is physically protected. Further, they may have measures in place to make sure files and data are backed up should that location have a similar emergency. The requirement of fans and cooling equipment is no longer a necessity to keep the servers running to optimum efficiency at the company’s offices. Only health and safety requirements now need to be met regarding providing a comfortable environment in which the employees can work. In the event of a power outage, loss of electricity may result in loss of business. However, it would be far worse to lose an entire customer database, or details that have taken a long time to compile, or the work of two months, than just the few hours’ work of one day. A hosting service has not only the wherewithal to hold important company data, but will often have a power generator that will kick in in the event of a loss of power from the electricity grid.