The Top Benefits of Having a Managed Service Provider
The IT space has completely changed over the past decade, even the past few years. If someone were to travel to the present from five years ago, they’d be amazed at the advancements. People from the past wouldn’t be any more lost than many enterprises are today though. Technological advancements in the enterprise computing space come so fast that keeping up becomes a challenge. Luckily, managed service providers (MSP) keep you from falling behind.
Enterprises lack confidence in their ability to manage cloud risks and costs. A study by Embotics and Ponemon Insitute found 60% to 70% of survey respondents had trouble managing these issues. Additionally, the study found 70% to 80% recognize the value of DevOps or containers, but only 33% were able to deliver DevOps enablement. Managed service providers eliminate these issues with a personalized approach.
Why you need one
Managed service providers eliminate the complex headaches that come with cloud infrastructures. For example, managing an IaaS cloud internally introduces a variety of new challenges like cost management, workload management, and more.
Many organizations have turned to MSPs for all their cloud needs. These providers offer 24/7 support and monitoring, compliance, security, automated patching, disaster recovery, and so much more. Many MSPs offer help in implementing DevOps.
They build their services around certified engineers for your preferred cloud infrastructure. Enterprises can work with MSPs to build the perfect cloud platform for their needs. Each provides a personalized approach. Organizations certainly find more value in a personalized system than a download and go SaaS tool.
Development shortcomings
The abundance of tools overwhelms organizations looking to build the perfect cloud. With the help of an MSP this headache can be eliminated. Many specialize in DevOps, meaning Kubernetes or container implementation become expertly crafted.
If setting up a development infrastructure isn’t enough, some MSPs even build applications for you. Furthermore, they even help manage and monitor them over time. Their 24/7 services ensure application safety and consistency.
Help with automation
Proper automation drives down the cost of a hyperscale cloud infrastructure provider because your workloads will be optimized. MSPs provide personalized automation based on your needs and your cloud platform. However, this varies tremendously based on cloud infrastructure provider.
Gartner notes that AWS and GCP both tend to prefer an automation DevOps approach, while customers using Azure tend to prefer a more manual approach. This is due to customer preference. MSPs need to match these customer needs and being a cloud partner emphasizes their flexibility.
Partnerships with vendors
Many MSPs work directly with solution partners to provide tools from experts in a specific area. For example, Cloudreach works with Alert Logic to provide quality threat management and detection. Alert Logic recently released a network intrusion detection tool for detecting threats within container environments. Due to a close partnership like this, MSPs allow their clients to have access to the latest technologies.
You can’t predict the next security threat, evidenced by Alert Logic’s new network intrusion detection tool. Most enterprises won’t have access or knowledge of new tools without the help of an MSP insider.
Hybrid cloud
Many organizations want a private cloud or traditional data center alongside their public cloud. This keeps sensitive workloads and data in a safer environment. Enterprise hybrid cloud management is especially difficult to manage. Be sure to check out our interview with Ensono’s Oliver Presland to learn more.