You're Missing These Cloud Computing Opportunities
Channel Futures asked several MSPs to share which under-the-radar opportunities their peers might be overlooking.
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Ben Lingwood, CIO at Lemongrass, a managed service provider specializing in AWS and SAP:
One under-the-radar opportunity for cloud-focused MSPs is helping clients make the transition from a design/migration mindset to an operating mindset. For example, is there a more effective way for my clients to architect their solutions this month? Are their operational business requirements still valid? And how about my clients’ ‘finance architecture?’ Are they healthy and optimized, do we have operational monitoring, alarms and automation to keep a close eye on potential cost spikes? With each of these questions there is an opportunity for MSPs to build stronger client relationships, while helping them achieve continuous business improvements.
Narine Galstian, CMO at SADA, a Google Cloud-only managed service provider:
Too many channel companies fail to meet customers where they are in their cloud journey. We shouldn’t assume what a customer needs without due diligence and thoughtful discovery, which allows us to uncover key challenges and cost savings opportunities.
Another missed opportunity for some channel companies is when they’re “one and done.” Don’t just complete the project at hand and move on. Approach every cloud opportunity with the long game in mind. Getting a customer to the cloud is the first step, but the magic really happens with the next workload and a broader transformation that can address all their business challenges.
Vyacheslav Gorlov, head of data science, ClearScale, an AWS premier consulting partner:
An increasingly popular role played by channel companies is automating the migration of old technology to the cloud. Cloud services … can simplify dockerization of legacy systems, saving many hours for both DevOps and development teams.
Another big growth opportunity for channel partners is guiding clients in the use of machine learning tools. With the help of the right channel partner, ML can help clients find overlooked vulnerabilities and optimize their infrastructure.
Eric Crump, senior vice president, AWS North American Practice, AllCloud, a managed service provider that teams with AWS and Salesforce:
When I think about “under the radar” cloud opportunities, three things come to mind. The first is “moved-to-managed.” It is hard to believe but some cloud-native companies that went early to the cloud are already starting to discuss retiring technology debt. … [T]his specifically refers to early adopters or companies with fast growth. Their design patterns were heavily focused on EC2 and standard RDS on EC2 standard compute instances. This also included large backlogs of automation work that still needs to be done. Helping clients move to a more cloud-services architecture and focus on true end-to-end automation is a real need for the market.
The second item is cloud account sprawl. As the enterprise cloud footprint grows for an organization, so does the complexity of the structure of their account numbers, region, organizations, security and complex cost analysis, and more. To manage this, organizations can consider moving to a master control panel that provides organizational governance.
… Lastly, organizations need to consider how they will save on overall technology spend. One area that much of the market is unaware of is that there are other ways to lower your cloud spend beyond cost optimization. You can also lower your overall corporate software spend. By leveraging the cloud provider’s technology procurement portals, you can lower your vendor software spend and your cloud provider spend.
Andy Stocchetti, associate director of software development at ServerCentral Turing Group, a global cloud consultancy and AWS advanced consulting partner:
Cloud-native software development is the biggest opportunity we see — and we see it daily. There are two aspects of this opportunity that are worth noting.
The first is the ability to refactor applications when and where needed to truly take advantage of the cloud. This is critical. Often, the desired benefits of the cloud can’t be realized without this type of investment/effort. This leads to missed opportunities, increased costs and unsuccessful outcomes.
The second is the ability to migrate parts of a platform or parts of an application to the cloud at different times – or to develop fully hybrid solutions to take advantage of specific cloud capabilities. Often, it isn’t feasible to move an entire application or platform to the cloud. It is too complex, too time-consuming or simply too costly. By migrating the application or platform in phases, [channel partners] can mitigate risk, deliver positive outcomes and stay directly aligned with the operational and financial objectives of the business.
Chris Rechtsteiner, vice president at ServerCentral Turing Group:
Hybrid storage. Not all data is equally important. Certain data sets need to be highly performant and accessible on a continuous basis. Others are rarely needed. Placing the right data in the right locations will have a material impact on business performance, the perceived performance of the cloud, and most importantly, cloud costs.
While hybrid storage is well-known and well-understood, it is rarely used because it takes time and effort to plan. The connection to the business is critical, and this is something that too often takes time and effort organizations don’t want to invest. The outcomes, however, are tangible:
· Reduced costs (via appropriate storage utilization and optimized egress fees).
· Increased performance (via storage platforms specifically architected to meet always-on or archival-level data use cases).
· Improved usability (as the right data will be in the right place and be easily accessible when needed).
A customer’s cloud environment doesn’t just consist of a public, private, hybrid or multicloud platform. Rather, as the sources in this slideshow have noted, each cloud – each type, each arrangement, each brand – comes with its own unique characteristics. And organizations require different capabilities from each cloud.
Along the way, they use a mix of software as a service applications (think Dropbox, Salesforce, Office 365, and so on). Each of those comes with individual user licenses that require management. Then there’s data protection. We don’t just mean compliance with regulations such as GDPR or PIPEDA. We really mean the technology-based security that safeguards each cloud. Along with that, there should be best practices including stringent and role-based accesses, and even the inclusion of a separate backup and recovery platform. And don’t forget any platform- or infrastructure as a service. It all adds up and creates complexity.
To that point, organizations cannot risk overlooking the management of the costs associated with each cloud. Channel partners are integral to the success of their clients’ cloud environments. Addressing some of the less well-known components of the cloud not only will make partners even more indispensable, it will generate more money.
A customer’s cloud environment doesn’t just consist of a public, private, hybrid or multicloud platform. Rather, as the sources in this slideshow have noted, each cloud – each type, each arrangement, each brand – comes with its own unique characteristics. And organizations require different capabilities from each cloud.
Along the way, they use a mix of software as a service applications (think Dropbox, Salesforce, Office 365, and so on). Each of those comes with individual user licenses that require management. Then there’s data protection. We don’t just mean compliance with regulations such as GDPR or PIPEDA. We really mean the technology-based security that safeguards each cloud. Along with that, there should be best practices including stringent and role-based accesses, and even the inclusion of a separate backup and recovery platform. And don’t forget any platform- or infrastructure as a service. It all adds up and creates complexity.
To that point, organizations cannot risk overlooking the management of the costs associated with each cloud. Channel partners are integral to the success of their clients’ cloud environments. Addressing some of the less well-known components of the cloud not only will make partners even more indispensable, it will generate more money.
Cloud computing consists of numerous facets. There are so many, in fact, that managed service providers, system integrators, VARs and other channel partners may not be capitalizing on the many cloud computing opportunities available to them.
With that in mind, Channel Futures wanted to explore some under-the-radar aspects of cloud computing and associated best practices partners should consider exploring. Adding some or all of the areas noted could lead to more revenue.
The slideshow above marks the first in a series Channel Futures is running on lesser-known cloud computing opportunities. This installment features a peer-to-peer perspective: Five managed service providers and consultancies offer their advice to fellow partners (the next installment will highlight feedback from vendors). Look for insight from ServerCentral Turing Group, SADA, Lemongrass, AllCloud and ClearScale.
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