The age-old adage jack of all trades, master of none, is as true today as ever. Companies are often required to focus on so many diverse fields in the basic running of their businesses that they spend less time focusing on the reason for their business. With the legal and security implications surrounding IT and data management, it is essential that these services be top of the line and entirely current, but the cost implications for many smaller businesses can be excessive. As with many other divisions such as HR, payroll and maintenance, IT services can be outsourced, though this often comes at a high cost too. Another option is managed cloud services.
Managed cloud services give businesses the ability to tap into cloud services without being experts in the field. Benefits include excellent security, high availability and back-up, as well as cost efficiency. The flexibility this offers is indispensable, and ensures that the back-end is always cutting edge, thus giving you the best resources available to pursue your business’s potential.
While all of the large IT outsourcing companies offer managed cloud services, niche operations have come to the fore offering fast, focused and flexible services at reasonable prices. Rackspace is one of the larger managed cloud service providers, and promises infrastructure provision with system monitoring, DNS management and backup and disaster recovery, as well as management of applications and tools such as specialised Database Management and application deployment, scaling and lifecycle management. Keytech Managing IT offers similar services in the United Kingdom, Cloud Solutions Group operating out of Melbourne, Australia is another up-and-comer. The list of companies offering these solutions is as substantial as the variety of management options they offer.
As well as offering the basic cloud solutions that any business requires to run efficiently, managed cloud services also level the playing field for small businesses by offering access to complex tools that would otherwise be too costly to consider. The expertise available from these specialised companies far outweighs what any small or medium business could provide in-house, and is provided at a budgeted monthly cost.
Internap is another provider of managed cloud solutions, and offers its customers additional flexibility in its ‘solution builder’. Businesses are able to tailor-make their solution by building an environment that meets their specific needs while filtering out any unnecessary excesses. With the constant evolution of services, reliability and customisation provided, it seems likely that managed cloud Service Providers will be indispensable to any small business wishing to compete in today’s market.
Sponsored by Keytech Managing IT
By Jennifer Klostermann
