Amazon Cloud Outage: The Silver Lining for MSPs

cloud outage

Sure, some rivals may celebrate the cloud setbacks at Amazon and Sony. But MSPs would be far wiser to study their own cloud strategies and what-if scenarios for end-customers.

Generally speaking, I think reputable cloud computing companies have strong track records keeping their services online. Still, the Amazon and Sony outages prove that even the richest companies with the deepest pockets can go dark. For MSPs, it’s a prime opportunity to discuss how certain clouds are designed, and perhaps explore hybrid cloud approaches that allow on-premise computing to continue when a back-end cloud service goes dark.

Still A True Believer

Despite the Amazon cloud setback in recent days, I don’t expect SMB customers to sour on cloud computing. This train has already left the station. Instead of dumping Amazon’s stock during the outage, investors are holding tight because they know Amazon Web Services is a long-term play that has momentum. Also, thousands of SMBs continue to flock to Salesforce.com, NetSuite, Rackspace, Terremark and other cloud-related platforms. And at the enterprise level big shifts also are occurring. The U.S. federal government, for instance, is striving to shift 25 percent of its annual IT budget to cloud computing.

The recent Amazon and Sony outages won’t reverse that trend. Nor will it slow that trend. Instead, end-customers will merely ask more questions as they evaluate cloud solutions. Will you have the answers they seek?

Sign up for MSPmentor’s Weekly Enewsletter, Webcasts and Resource Center. Follow us via RSS, Facebook and Twitter. Check out more MSP voices at www.MSPtweet.com. Read our editorial disclosure here.