Managed cloud services (MCS) enable full or customized management of cloud infrastructure and resources. Key responsibilities of an MCS provider include cloud migration, optimization, configuration, support, maintenance, and security. Designed to maximize the leverage of cloud services, MCS aid organizations in reducing the overall costs and time. These, managed cloud services enable by ridding the need for in-depth knowledge of the cloud.
According to Gartner, the global spending on public cloud services has grown at 23.1% in 2021, which has augured well for MCS providers recently. For organizations, it basically begins by understanding the options available for implementing managed cloud services, which are bifurcated into
- Hiring Niche Talent – Organizations can look to recruit experts for taking ownership of managing their cloud infrastructure, resources, and application suites. An alternative to this is managing and shifting between different vendors, for example, having one provider for maintaining their single-tenant server while another for their multi-tenant infrastructure.
- Partnering with a Next-Generation Managed Service Provider – The second option is to partner with a next-generation managed service provider. This allows the organizations to focus on their core business objectives, such as building robust applications, new features & product releases, and winning new customers. A key benefit for the organization here is that they can stay lean while reducing time and increasing the productivity of engineers and system administrators.
Choosing the Right Managed Cloud Service Provider
It is challenging to choose the right managed cloud service provider (MCSP) as services offered by most of them tend to overlap. This makes understanding key aspects of the cloud and what solutions fit best for your infrastructure difficult. However, keeping in mind key considerations, which are described below, makes it easy for organizations in choosing among different MCSP options.
Control and Visibility
Ideally, MCSPs collaborate with the in-house teams of an organization for getting familiar with how they manage their cloud services. Gaining visibility of their cloud environment reduces the dependency of organizations on their MCSP and verifies that they are offered with essential services. Trust plays a major role when organizations look to partner with a provider, as they are given total access to the organization’s data and their cloud services’ functionality. These factors make visibility a crucial string to tie between the organization and MCSP.
Expertise
A provider that an organization selects must have adept knowledge about both, business operations of the organizations and cloud services they are looking to consume. This implies understanding best practices, integrating critical tools or applications wherever necessary, and the ability to optimize cloud operations.
Security & Compliance
Security of the cloud and maintaining a rigid compliance posture of the cloud must be top priorities of an MCSP’s offerings. It is mainly because security and compliance are increasingly challenging for organizations to manage by themselves and the right managed cloud services provider ensures remarkable improvements across these areas. It would be a plus for organizations to know whether their MCSP provides any built-in solution for security & compliance and about measures they take for securing the data.
Hassle-Free Technology Provisioning
There is a clear distinction between the features of services and their administration efforts when it comes to MCS. Giving organizations the ‘best of both worlds’ experience, MCSPs must be capable of alleviating the pressure on development teams by provisioning technology they need without the hassles of software updates, uptime management, and hardware acquisition.
Managed Cloud Services – Key Benefits and Challenges
Some of the key advantages of managed cloud services include
- Minimal downtime
- Improved cybersecurity and compliance posture of the cloud infrastructure
- Cost-effective service scalability
- Agile business operations
For every new technology or service innovation, there are new challenges that come to the fore. Nevertheless, organizations must choose flexibility alongside speed, when it comes to accessing everything at once and maximizing the benefits of their cloud infrastructure. Making it easy for developers is important but organizations must not ignore all the other in-house teams that benefit from MCS, such as IT operations team that is dedicated to achieving outcomes faster while reducing costs.
The End of The Line
Managed cloud services are the best fit for organizations that look to outsource their daily need for technical support and management of cloud services. This will not only enhance but also automate their business operations drastically. The IT teams of organizations don’t potentially possess the required expertise and skills. However, choosing the right MCSP, for example, Blazeclan, which is recognized as a major player in the MCS landscape in APEJ by IDC, is a feasible solution for organizations.
