Editor's Note: Technology Partners is a regular column written by members of the  Information Technology Solution Providers Association.

An improving economy could be a mixed blessing — good for your business, but tough on your IT department. Most SMBs have survived by downsizing staff and getting by with existing equipment. So today, they have tiny IT departments, old software and an outdated, inefficient network infrastructure.

In the past, small companies had only two options for solving these problems: hire additional staff or go without updated technologies. Outsourcing was affordable only to large companies. The good news is the cost of outsourcing has been falling steadily, and a new brand of IT providers targeted to SMBs has cropped up. Now smaller firms can hand off as many IT functions as they like.

There are two distinct approaches to consider:

• Outsource the entire IT department via utility-based computing
• 
  
  
• Outsource specific IT functions that cause them the biggest headaches

While utility-based computing is an old idea, it’s back in a new form that’s particularly attractive to small, growing companies. Firms taking advantage of the utility computing model offload the burden of owning, managing and maintaining a technology infrastructure to an IT services provider. They have access to the same applications, data and Internet services. But instead of buying the hardware and software needed to make these services a reality, they pay a monthly subscription fee based on the specific features needed. Because the subscriber provides only a PC and a connection to the Internet, it’s simple to add new employees or physical locations to the network. Several IT service providers now offer this option to their SMB clients.

Utility computing attracts companies that:

• Add offices or employees regularly, but don’t want to deal with the technology hassles of getting new users up and running.
• 
  
  
• Risk quickly outgrowing their current infrastructure and need a complete, cost-effective update of their technology assets.
• 
  
  
• Have mobile workers who need access to all the computing resources from any location with a network connection.
• 
  
  
• Outsource several IT functions already and want to offload the entire IT burden.

But utility computing is not for everyone, including: