Questions to Ask Your IT Provider Before Contract Renewal

Your MSP contract is up for renewal. Switching providers sounds worse than staying. So you're about to sign.

Before you do, ask these five questions. The answers will tell you whether your provider is maintaining your infrastructure or just keeping it alive. These are the same questions I walk through in an MSP audit.

"Can you show me the last restore test?"

Not a backup report. Not a green checkmark in a dashboard. A restore test: someone actually restored data and verified it was complete, consistent, and usable.

Good answer: "Here's the restore test from last quarter. We recovered the file server in 3 hours and 12 minutes."

Bad answer: "Backups are running every night. We can see them in the portal."

"What's our actual recovery time if the server goes down?"

Not the SLA number. Not the marketing slide. The measured recovery time from the last test or the last incident.

Good answer: "Based on our last restore test, full server recovery is 4 hours."

Bad answer: "We'd have you back up within 24 hours."

"What changed in our environment last month?"

Every change to your infrastructure should be tracked. Untracked changes are the primary source of drift.

Good answer: "Here's the change log. We patched 12 servers, replaced a failing switch, and updated the VPN firmware."

Bad answer: "Nothing major. Just routine stuff."

"What does our environment look like compared to six months ago?"

This is a drift question. Configuration drift is what turns a stable environment into a fragile one.

Good answer: "Here's the baseline comparison. Three items drifted. Two were intentional, one wasn't."

Bad answer: "Everything looks the same."

"If you got hit by a bus tomorrow, could someone else take over?"

Your IT environment should be operable by any competent technician. Not just the one person who built it five years ago.

Good answer: "Here's our operational runbook for your environment."

Bad answer: "Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere."

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What the answers tell you

If your provider gave strong answers to all five, your infrastructure is probably in solid shape. Renew with confidence.

If two or three answers were soft, your MSP may be keeping things alive without actually maintaining them. An outside assessment documents your environment, tests your recovery paths, and creates the baseline your MSP can maintain going forward.

That's what the Infrastructure Health Check is for.

Five questions. Two minutes. Take the self-assessment.