Brennan IT will provide APT with IT infrastructure monitoring and support as well as a national IP WAN including a network-based firewall, spam filtering and anti-virus protection.

The IP WAN will link APT offices in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth as well as three offsite servers hosted by Brennan IT.

Matthew Lovegrove, Brennan IT sales and marketing general manager, said there's a switch by SMBs to the use of managed services as a way to reduce the cost and complexity of IT investments.

A spokesperson for IBM GSA directed all enquiries to Burns Philp.