What Is The Value Of Working With An IT Partner for Cloud Management?
By Numrah Irfan, VP, Client Success
September 22, 2021
If your infrastructure is entirely in-house in your own data center then it’s unlikely you have ever needed to consider the complexities of cloud management.
But, if you have taken the decision to move your data and applications into the cloud then congratulations! Managing your technology infrastructure is about to get easier – at least that is how it sounds in all the online articles that compare the difficulties of managing infrastructure in-house compared to the cloud.
The reality is there are many advantages to managing your applications and data in the cloud, but it’s not simple. A complex arrangement of storage, applications, and possibly thousands of individual users still have to be administered and optimized.
How can a technology partner help? What can an IT service provider do that makes cloud management simpler?
There are some obvious benefits. By working with a specialist, you don’t need to recruit and constantly train your resource in-house. This is an important consideration, because you can’t just assume that your existing in-house data center team will immediately have the skills to manage services in the cloud.
Other benefits of working with a partner on cloud management include:
- Security: an IT service provider can use best-in-class cloud security devices and tools such as AlertLogic. Industry analyst IDC just named this one of the leading tools for managing detection and response security in cloud environments.
- Optimization: you can’t just design your services and then forget them. Over time new applications, storage, and services will be added, so you need to be constantly optimizing your cloud to ensure it runs efficiently.
- Cost Reduction: your partner can work at a much greater scale helping you to reduce the operating cost of your cloud.
- Support: an IT service provider will be able to offer 24/7 monitoring and support for all of your systems. Problems can be identified and rectified even before your services face any problems.
If you engage an IT service provider early in the decision-making process then your partner can help to compare the various cloud providers even before planning how the cloud management procedures work. This can be extremely valuable as all the various cloud service providers are slightly different and each company has very specific needs, so it’s difficult to make a decision just by reading generic online documents comparing AWS with Azure.
Cloud management can be simpler than managing an in-house contact center, but it really depends on the number of servers, applications, and other services you will require and how the cloud is designed – will you retain some in-house services or move entirely to the cloud? Each solution is different and each cloud service provider is also different so the skills and experience of an IT service provider can be extremely valuable.
Even if you have chosen your preferred cloud service provider, getting the experts in to help manage your support and optimization can dramatically help your existing IT team. Over time, they can focus on the skills required to manage processes in the cloud, but when you are about to transition it makes sense to find a partner that has already managed systems for many other clients.
Are you struggling to achieve cloud adoption? Does your organization need help getting to the cloud? If so, WatServ can help. Schedule a time to speak with our cloud experts today and get to the cloud with clarity.
Also, please check out my post featuring 5 tips on how to get more value from your cloud solutions provider.
About
WatServ is an IT solutions provider that helps organizations digitally transform through cloud technologies and managed services.
Serving clients as a trusted advisor since 2006, WatServ provides experience-tested, strategic solutions across all stages of the digital transformation journey. Clients choose WatServ to migrate infrastructure and applications to the cloud, secure critical data, implement disaster recovery, deploy virtual desktop, enable data-readiness for productivity solutions and manage IT environments.
Our clients span a broad range of industries, and we’re a global supplier of IT services for many Brookfield Portfolio Companies. To help our mid-size clients, we provide scalable offerings that simplify cloud adoption and drive business optimization. For enterprise clients, we co-create cloud solutions that enable stability and efficiency for complex IT tools and processes.
With more than 15 years of experience, WatServ has a track record of delivering quantifiable business results and a superior client experience. Ranked as one of Canada’s Top 100 Solution Providers for the last three years in a row, WatServ is always on.