Cloud services seem rather straightforward to many. Email? Gmail, Office365. Websites, apps? Amazon, Google, Azure. But the list goes on for online collaboration, manufacturer solutions, bookkeeping, and so on. Truth is, there’s already a bit too much of the cloud to work through, at least without a sizable IT crowd. And it’s still worse if you’re just about to migrate.
It’s this increasing complexity that creates demand for a middleman to sort through the available options, and you can find one in a cloud services Brokers (CSB). These brokers guide a business in either migrating to the cloud or helping to use it more efficiently, or perhaps they help by delivering bundled functionality to a business in need.
Gartner predicted, a year and a half ago, that 2015 will see 20% of cloud services being consumed via internal (in-house) or external (third party) brokerage services. Then again, they also asserted that 30% of enterprises will use these brokerages to better enable the cloud in 2014, a prediction that didn’t quite come true. We can see that cloud brokerages are slow to take off, but we won’t be speculating about the causes here. What’s important is that the demand is there and it’s growing. Is it justified?
A CSB acts like your average insurance broker. They find the right solutions for you and deliver them seamlessly. As Todd.D.Lyle stated in his Grounding the Cloud, a CSB is like iTunes in that it connects it with your favorite businesses (artists) and can help you find new ones (sidebar) or just bring cool services (Genius) to your use. And it all happens seamlessly and smoothly. A scarcity of added value is evident, though, if they are concerned only with service delivery, however smooth it be.
CSBs best seem to add value in that it’s an experienced helping hand that not only bundles existing services–which is of course good, but seldom enough–but also addresses the needs of the business. Without the ‘handholding factor’ in cloud migration, a CSB can also keep your software in check when it’s about to turn legacy on you; CSBs can also ensure your connectivity in the office; build bespoke plugins for cloud apps, and so on. It can also act as a liability shield, because a CSB acts as your representative to the cloud service companies. If the agreement allows it, you can dodge cancellation fees often seen on the cloud.
Those who know how to move to the cloud or make their existing one more efficient have quite likely done so already. Those who don’t, or don’t want to overly extend in the direction of IT, can benefit from a CSB, but there has to be much consideration about the things they’re getting in return.
By Lauris Veips
