63% of CIOs say that the complexity of the cloud environment has far surpassed human ability to manage end-to-end services. ~ Global CIO Report
Today’s cloud-native, digital-first landscape requires a more flexible and agile approach to manage the increasingly complex IT infrastructure. Traditional managed services models involving the ‘operate and fix’ approach no longer serve the purpose.;
In addition, increasing sophistication and complexities in business operations demand a hybrid managed services model that covers multiple cloud and technology landscapes, a broad spectrum of management and modernization skills, and proactive awareness to amplify end-business outcomes rather than ‘just keeping things running’.
Moreover, the IT ecosystem has shifted from a one-stop on-premises data center to a vastly distributed landscape of clouds, hosted services, hybrid solutions, etc. While it is possible to manage some of the IT services internally or completely outsource the job to cookie-cutter-like service providers, in the long run, it puts surmounting pressure on internal IT teams, stunting operations and affecting customer experience.
These pains of managing complex IT environments led to the rise of a new service model. A model that would free organizations, partially or entirely, from the task of managing their cloud infrastructure or resources. By opting for hybrid managed services, an organization can outsource multiple responsibilities, including configuration, migration, optimization, maintenance, and security, to hybrid managed services providers. As a result, the organization can maximize its benefits from the cloud while minimizing the time and costs of managing it internally.
The Fundamentals of Hybrid Managed Services: Use-case at a Glance
What do you gain from hybrid managed services?
The hybrid managed services model is created by blending technology, tools, and skills with advisory, management, and implementation services to enable hassle-free management of cloud operations. Through this model, a Managed Services Provider (MSP) provides an organization with a range of services, as mentioned in the above table, based on the requirements. At the core of every hybrid managed services lie 6 key points:
1. Access to a wider knowledge base: The managed services providers are responsible for hiring and retaining a mix of cross-functional professionals with the right skill set to meet the hybrid needs. Irrespective of the size and nature of a business, the organisation gains instant access to a broader knowledge base who are well-equipped to proactively address the cost, complexity, risk, or other issues.
2. Outcome-driven service levels: Taking into account the obvious drawbacks of performance-driven SLAs, managed hybrid cloud services come up with a new contract structure that is outcome-driven. Under this contract, service providers are bound by the responsibility of achieving outcomes and not just a framework or a bunch of solutions. Businesses get more than just maintenance, repair, and overhaul.
3. Access to a single, accountable team: This service model also gives organizations access to a single team with a broad spectrum of skills required for managing a cloud-native environment.
4. Flexible pricing models: Cloud hybrid managed services offer an engagement model that outlines service and collaboration agreements focusing on the key business requirements of the client. The different managed services, aimed at keeping the business up and running, offer greater flexibility and scalability along with multiple pricing structures to bring the overall OpEx down.
5. Automated environment: Today, automation is in the DNA of all the leading MSPs. Hence, by signing up for managed hybrid cloud services, organizations can leverage the provider’s automated managed services capabilities, eliminating the challenges of traditional, manual, repetitive methods.
6. Access to technology innovation: Managed services providers are often the first adopters of new technologies compared to a business organization. This enables organizations to explore the latest innovations, such as analytics, IoT, etc., to create new business value. In addition, the clients do not need to assume the risks of exploring new innovations.
5 reasons why hybrid managed services should be your top priority
The first and key benefit of hybrid managed services is that it frees up your IT resources to focus on mission-critical business requirements and enables you to fill in the gaps as and when needed. Moreover, the additional support allows you to leverage a wider talent pool, which will be better equipped to deal with complex problems. Here are 5 more reasons you should consider hybrid managed services for your business immediately:
- Faster and better implementation: Planning to implement a next-gen innovation but worried about the time and cost required to research about the innovation, hire and train resources, and get them to implement the innovation successfully driving business outcomes? With managed hybrid services, it’s no longer your headache.
- Local and global support: Why wait for additional hands or outside helps to save you during an emergency an entire team of experts is proactively working 24x7 towards keeping your business up and running and offering instant support, both globally and locally?
- Better visibility into IT architecture: Is your IT environment spread across multiple clouds, geographies, data centers, and network zones? Does it feel impossible to create a single source of truth for all your IT accounts, workloads, and resources? Your hybrid MSP can be your key to unlocking visibility into your entire IT infrastructure by bringing all necessary data into one centralized dashboard.
- Minimized disruption: Every migration or modernization project brings it with the unnerving fear of unexpected downtimes, a risk organizations cannot afford today. With hybrid cloud managed services, the risk of downtime gets significantly reduced as a team of experts constantly monitors your environment end-to-end. Moreover, you are protected by the SLA, which ensures faster response times and higher uptimes.
- Maximized savings: When you outsource your cloud management requirements to a trusted MSP, you open the door to multiple cost-saving opportunities starting from learning and staffing costs, OpEx and CapEx, to costs required to keep internal resources lean, etc.
What more? By switching to hybrid managed services, organizations also achieve enhanced security and risk management, increased productivity of internal teams, efficient, smart operations, and most importantly, better innovations.
Final thoughts
Hybrid managed services can be the solution you are looking for to address some of the biggest conundrums your organization is facing today. An ace cloud managed services provider not only offers years of experience in managing and streamlining IT services of large-scale enterprises, but also enables you to access their arsenal of latest technologies and the industry’s best skillset.
At Cloud4C, we help organizations with pooled resources from 25+ Centers of Excellence to deliver a custom, result-oriented performance irrespective of the initial problem statement. Firms gain access to a mix of skillset and world-class knowledge from multiple departments to help charter a business-focused end goal for the transformation exercise. Find the right hybrid managed services partner for your enterprise and get ready to maximize the value of your IT investments today and tomorrow. Connect with us to learn more about the comprehensive range of enterprise hybrid cloud solutions and managed services offered.
