Not in-house, for most MSPs. Genuine 24/7 coverage means overnight shifts, weekend rotation, holiday cover, and enough trained analysts to absorb sickness and turnover without a gap. That is a staffing structure, not a tool purchase, and the cost base sits beyond what a typical MSP security practice supports. The realistic answer is a partner model where the around-the-clock layer is shared.
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What 24/7 coverage requires
Around-the-clock coverage is a rota problem before it is a skills problem. One seat watched at all hours means multiple analysts across shifts, plus cover for leave and attrition, plus a lead who owns quality. Then comes the harder part: those analysts need to be good, and senior security analysts are among the hardest hires in the industry. Building it once is expensive. Keeping it staffed is the part firms underestimate.
Why alerts-to-your-phone is not coverage
Forwarding alerts to an on-call engineer feels like coverage until the night it matters. An alert at 2am needs triage, context, and an action, not a groggy acknowledgment. If the response to a Critical case depends on one person waking up, reading a queue, and deciding under pressure, the coverage exists on paper only.
The realistic alternatives
Two models work. Build a shared internal SOC across the whole client base, which suits MSPs at significant scale with security as a core practice. Or partner with a SOC-as-a-Service provider, keep the client relationship and the tool decisions, and consume the 24/7 operations layer as a service. The second model is why co-managed SOC has become the default path for MSPs whose clients now expect around-the-clock response.
What to keep in-house
The client relationship, the escalation decisions, the security roadmap conversations. A good partner runs the watch floor and hands you a contained incident with context. Your team stays the face and the decision-maker. That split is the whole point of the model.
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