We look after your IT so you don’t have to.
We usually know there’s a problem before you do, and we’re fixing it in the background before it ever reaches you.
One agreement. Your whole IT function.
Blue Arc IT Solutions is a Canberra-based managed service provider, with staff availability in Sydney, Melbourne, Albury-Wodonga and Adelaide and clients across the country. We take on the day-to-day running of your IT under a single agreement: the service desk, your servers and endpoints, your Microsoft 365 tenancy, your backups and your security baseline.
One agreement, one number to call. We respond to you just as your own in-house IT department would, without you having to build and manage one.
Managed IT services from Canberra, delivered nationally: what's covered
No tiers to choose between and no per-hour surprises for anything covered by the agreement. Everything below sits inside your standard Managed IT Services agreement, across the metro areas we serve and their established surrounds.
Proactive
Things you never have to ask for.
- Software updates and security patches
- System health checks, with automated self-healing of common issues before they interrupt anyone
- Backup monitoring, with periodic test restores
- MFA audited and enforced, phishing-resistant where possible
- Service desk triage aligned to ITIL, using automation and AI where it genuinely speeds things up
Reactive
Day-to-day support.
- All user management: onboardings, offboardings, changes, password resets
- Connectivity and network troubleshooting
- Repair or replacement of standard hardware components, with the part itself quoted separately, or preferably covered by manufacturer warranty
Account management
Included in the monthly fee, with a dedicated account manager.
- Capacity planning against actual utilisation
- Technology roadmapping tied to where the business is going
- All meetings, discussions and high-level guidance
- Knowledge sharing, business improvements and the general tips that come from seeing what works elsewhere
Blue Arc IT Solutions has been an exceptional partner for our digital services.
Their dedication, responsiveness, and commitment to understanding our business needs set them apart. They go above and beyond to ensure exceptional service and value for money.
I highly recommend Blue Arc IT Solutions for anyone seeking top-tier managed services.
What's included, at a glance
We know prospects like an honest comparison, so here's ours: everything above in one table, plus exactly where application control and the rest of the Essential Eight work sit. Green means it's already in your agreement.
| What you get | Included | Add-on | Security uplift |
|---|---|---|---|
| Service desk, unlimited remote support (business hours) | ✓ | ||
| Onsite support, ACT region | ✓ | ||
| Priority-based response targets | ✓ | ||
| Endpoint monitoring and patching | ✓ | ||
| Server monitoring and preventative maintenance | ✓ | ||
| Backup monitoring and tested restores | ✓ | ||
| Microsoft 365 tenancy and identity administration | ✓ | ||
| Baseline industry security standards implemented and maintained | ✓ | ||
| Staff onboarding and offboarding | ✓ | ||
| Capacity planning and technology roadmapping | ✓ | ||
| Centralised mobile device management | ✓ | ||
| Microsoft 365 backup | ✓ | ||
| Security awareness training and phishing simulation | ✓ | ||
| After-hours support | ✓ | ||
| Essential Eight and DISP readiness assessment | ✓ | ||
| Essential Eight Maturity Level 1 and Maturity Level 2 uplift programs | ✓ | ||
| Application control, a key component of any successful Essential Eight alignment | ✓ |
Security uplift work is quoted as its own engagement rather than a base-agreement tier, see security and compliance above for why.
What's not included
To keep the agreement priced honestly, some things sit outside it and are quoted separately. Most are projects rather than support:
- Hardware, software licences and subscriptions
- Infrastructure overhauls, including network redesign
- Cloud migrations
- Major software or operating system upgrades
- Bulk device rollouts and fleet replacements
- Security framework implementation needing specialised software or configuration, such as application control or a SIEM
- IT policy development
- Specialised consultants, such as network architects or developers
- Formal or extensive training, as opposed to the ad-hoc help our team gives every day
We fix-price projects wherever we can. Where there are too many unknowns to do that honestly, we say so in the proposal rather than after.
Security and compliance
The ASD Essential Eight (internally, we call it the bare essentials eight, though that joke evaporates the moment an assessor's in the room) is the baseline most Australian organisations are now measured against, whether by a prime contractor, an insurer or a government client. For Defence Industry Security Program (DISP) members it isn't optional: since Defence closed out its Top Four assessments in November 2025, every DISP member is required to achieve and maintain the full Essential Eight at Maturity Level 2, across the corporate ICT systems used to correspond with Defence.
We take organisations from wherever they are towards Maturity Level 1, and where it's required, further to Maturity Level 2, through our Essential Eight Uplift Programs. Both are scoped and quoted as their own engagement, separate from your day-to-day support agreement, because the remediation work involved varies enormously by environment.
From day one, working alongside Blue Arc IT Solutions has been fantastic.
They consistently provide prompt and outstanding support in every aspect, and the depth of knowledge within their team is truly impressive. There hasn't been a time when I doubted that any challenge could be handled by the team at Blue Arc.
Their expertise, responsiveness, and commitment to customer success set them apart, and I would highly recommend them to any organisation looking for a reliable MSP.
Assessment
A structured review against all eight mitigation strategies, delivered as a written gap report with a prioritised roadmap. Fixed fee, yours to keep either way, and available even if you're not already a managed service client.
ML1 and ML2 Uplift Programs
The remediation identified in the assessment, whether that's reaching Maturity Level 1 or going further to Maturity Level 2, quoted as its own fixed-scope project once we know what your environment actually needs.
Maintenance
Controls drift, staff change, software changes. Defence's own wording is achieve and maintain, not achieve once, and we build our ongoing reassessment around that.
What we assure, and what we don't
We assure that the Essential Eight controls within scope are implemented, monitored and evidenced, that configuration drift is detected and reviewed, and that the evidence you need for an assessment exists and is current.
We won't assure you that you'll never have a security incident, and no honest provider can. What we can promise is that everything that can reasonably be done is being done, that the controls are effective, and that when an assessor asks you to prove one, the proof exists.
Blue Arc IT Solutions is experienced supporting DISP member organisations and familiar with the requirements. We're based in Canberra, with onshore staff around the country. If you're preparing a DISP application, or a prime contractor has told you what you need before you can bid, start with the assessment.
Multi-factor authentication and identity controls sit right at the centre of both ML1 and ML2. See how passkeys meet the Essential Eight Maturity Level 2 MFA requirement for the detail.
Microsoft 365, properly run
Most organisations buy Microsoft 365 and then run it by guesswork. Licences sit unused after staff leave. Sharing links go out to anyone with the URL. Nobody's certain what happens to a departing employee's files. We run the tenancy as a managed system, not a set of accounts.
Included: tenancy and identity administration, onboarding and offboarding, and licence review and reclamation. We audit and ensure your environment is protected by MFA, and where possible, the most phishing-resistant MFA available.
Microsoft 365 Business Premium is our minimum. It's not an upsell, it's the licence that makes a defensible security baseline possible: device management, conditional access, and the identity controls Essential Eight Maturity Level 1 depends on. If you're on Business Standard or lower today, that's the first conversation we'll have. See is Microsoft 365 Business Premium enough to manage Macs and iPhones? for how it applies to a mixed fleet.
AI readiness
Most of the AI conversations we're having with clients right now aren't about which tool to buy, they're about whether the environment underneath it is safe to turn loose. Copilot and similar tools surface anything a user already has access to, which means they expose every oversharing problem in your tenancy at once.
We audit permissions, sensitivity labelling and licensing before anything gets switched on, so Copilot answers from the right documents rather than a spreadsheet someone left in the wrong shared folder years ago. If AI adoption raises broader Privacy Act or AML/CTF questions for your business, see our guide to AI for Australian business.
Not sure where you actually stand? Our free AI Readiness Check gives you a straight read in a few minutes, no sales call required.
What it costs
We price per device by default, because that keeps the cost of extra hardware visible to you rather than buried in a headcount number. Does per-user billing make more sense for you and your organisation? Let's discuss it. Servers, firewalls and other network hardware are named line items, and your cost scales with your device count, environment complexity and security requirements, not a one-size number.
Security and compliance work, the Essential Eight assessment and Uplift Program, is its own separately scoped engagement rather than something bundled quietly into the base agreement, so the price reflects the work your environment actually needs rather than an average.
We'll give you a firm, tailored number after a short discovery call, not a range that moves later. For a sense of how Canberra IT support is typically priced, see our guide to how much IT support costs in Canberra.
Deloitte's 2026 Global Technology Leadership Study puts average technology investment at about 6% of revenue, rising towards 8% over the next two years, and its 2023 edition placed business and professional services above the cross-industry average at 6.58%. That's the whole technology budget, licensing, cloud, hardware, projects and the people who run it, not a managed services fee. Worth knowing which line your agreement with us sits on, and what the rest of the budget should be doing. Source: Deloitte Global Technology Leadership Study.
Switching to Blue Arc
Switching providers always sounds scarier than it actually is. Nobody enjoys a big-bang cutover, so we don't do them: we start with a full audit of what's actually running, not what the network diagram claims is running, then move you across in stages quiet enough that most of your staff won't notice it happened.
Frequently asked questions
How do you charge for managed IT services?
Per device by default, because it keeps the cost of extra hardware visible to you rather than buried in a headcount number. Does per-user billing make more sense for you and your organisation? Let's discuss it. Servers, firewalls and other network hardware are named as separate line items, and mobile devices are only billed when you want them managed under our device management add-on. Every agreement is quoted for your specific environment: get in touch for a tailored proposal.
What's not included in the agreement?
Hardware, software licences and subscriptions, and project work such as infrastructure overhauls, cloud migrations, major upgrades, bulk device rollouts and security framework implementation like application control or a SIEM. We tell you before something falls outside the agreement, not after.
Do we have to sign a long contract?
No. Our standard agreements run month to month, with the specific exceptions set out in our terms and conditions.
Is your service desk based in Australia?
Yes. Every member of our service desk and support team works onshore in Australia.
We're a DISP member. What do we actually have to do?
Since Defence concluded its assessments against the Top Four in November 2025, every DISP member is required to achieve and maintain the full Essential Eight at Maturity Level 2 across the corporate systems used to correspond with Defence. That's all eight mitigation strategies, not just the Top Four. Defence assesses this through a questionnaire aligned to Maturity Level 2, followed by a point-in-time assessment. Start with an assessment so you know where you stand before Defence tells you.
Can you take us to Essential Eight Maturity Level 2?
Yes, through our Essential Eight Uplift Program: application control on workstations and internet-facing servers, phishing-resistant sign-in, privileged access management and centralised logging. It's scoped and quoted as its own engagement, separate from your day-to-day support agreement, because the work involved varies enormously by environment. Start with an assessment.
Will cyber insurance cover us instead of doing the work?
No. The Australian Signals Directorate is explicit in its Essential Eight maturity model that an organisation using risk transference, such as cyber insurance, to justify not implementing an entire mitigation strategy is assessed at Maturity Level Zero for that strategy, and for its overall Essential Eight implementation.
What happens in the first 30 days?
We start with a full audit of your environment before we touch anything, then move you across in a planned, low-drama switch rather than a big-bang cutover. See switching to Blue Arc for how that works.