– MNJ Technologies, a midmarket-focused IT solution and services provider, announced today that it has earned a spot on CRN’s 2020 Managed Service Provider (MSP) 500 list in the Elite 150 category, representing providers focusing on large on- and off-premises data centers. It is MNJ’s third appearance on the list in the last four years, capping a year that included ongoing expansion of the company’s managed services portfolio.

Today MNJ’s managed services span managed SD-WAN, managed VOIP, managed storage/backup, managed IaaS, warranty/patch/vendor management, remote monitoring and managed telephony services reflecting the firm’s status as a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC). The pairing of SD-WAN and CLEC capabilities enables a consolidated bill for SD-WAN, switching, wireless, and bandwidth and connectivity services as well as one-stop troubleshooting for all networking services.

One factor fueling MNJ’s growth in the managed SD-WAN category is last year’s opening of a unique vendoragnostic SD-WAN demo lab. The facility allows customers to test-drive Cisco, Cloudgenix, Fortinet, Meraki, Oracle, Silver Peak and Versa solutions to identify the best-fit solution for their specific traffic priority requirements and growth initiatives.

New services being added this year include managed Direct Connect to AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, enabling point-to-point connections from MNJ’s data center to any of the three major public cloud providers. Benefits include improved performance for relevant workloads compared to multi-stop routing over the public Internet, cost savings achieved by minimizing bandwidth needs, and increased security resulting from fewer points of vulnerability.

“Managed services have become a cornerstone of our growth over the past few years, particularly with the rise of SD-WAN as an important connectivity solution for organizations with multiple sites and the need for customers to outsource installation and management services to ensure that their connections are always up and running,” said Ben Niernberg, Executive Vice President at MNJ. “It continues our commitment to identifying the best hardware, software and services to solve each customers’ business challenges and help them keep the lights on so that they can focus on driving their bottom line.”

CRN’s annual MSP 500 list identifies North American solution providers that deliver operational efficiencies, IT system improvements, and a higher rate of return on investments for their customers. The list is divided into three categories: the MSP Pioneer 250 who are focused primarily on the SMB market; the MSP Elite 150, large data center-focused on- and off-premises where MNJ appears; and the Managed Security 100 made up of off-premisesfocused, cloud-based IT security services.

The MSP 500 list will be featured in the February 2020 issue of CRN and online at www.crn.com/msp500.