Datto : Three Things MSPs Should Consider When Building a Cloud Practice
MSP
Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are increasingly migrating their IT infrastructure from an on-premises model to public cloud platforms to capitalize on the cloud's greater scale and flexibility. For managed service providers (MSPs), this means building a cloud practice is crucial for being able to fully support their clients' needs.
Hybrid capabilities, compliance offerings, and optimizations for business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) are some of the most critical aspects MSPs should consider when building their cloud practice, as these will enable them to best provide support and services to their customers. Simultaneously, MSPs should plan for BCDR protection that will maximize the resiliency of their clients' cloud workloads, while also generating predictable revenue streams.
While many SMB organizations are considering cloud migration, it's common for them to also want to maintain certain workloads and IT environments on-premises. Hybrid cloud solutions offer options for consistency and flexibility that enable organizations to innovate across on-premises, multi-cloud, and edge computing environments. It's key for MSPs to take this into consideration when weighing their options for which public cloud(s) to build their practice around.
The optimal hybrid and multi-cloud platform delivers benefits like:
Additional attributes to consider in a cloud platform include the strength of its customer offerings for:
Regulatory compliance is a top priority for nearly all organizations and therefore is a major consideration when adopting a public cloud platform. Understanding how a cloud platform helps meet regulatory standards and/or offers solutions to help achieve compliance enables MSPs to instill trust with their customers about their services.
When it comes to regulatory compliance, MSPs should review a platform's ability to cover global, industry, and government-specific regulations including General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and more to ensure their cloud practice will meet data protection requirements.
When reviewing a cloud platform's compliance capabilities, be sure to also evaluate any compliance solutions it offers, such as:
Like their on-premises counterparts, public cloud platforms require comprehensive BCDR solutions be implemented to protect client workloads. While many public clouds offer native backup and disaster recovery solutions, MSPs have an opportunity to add value by delivering additional protection that goes beyond those capabilities.
Multi-cloud backups can be an essential asset in providing extra layers of protection. When building their cloud practice, MSPs should seek out solutions that enable their clients to:
While there are many things to consider when offering business and technical services around the cloud, taking into account hybrid options, regulatory compliance, and BCDR offerings will ensure MSPs are maximizing the benefits for both them and their customers through their cloud practice.
Due to its strengths in many of these attributes, Microsoft Azure is more frequently emerging as the public cloud platform of choice for SMBs, with 48% of SMBs adopting Microsoft Azure to date.
MSPs can provide comprehensive multi-cloud BCDR protection for their clients as they transition to the leading cloud provider for SMBs with Datto Continuity for Microsoft Azure: a best-in-class business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) solution built exclusively to meet the needs of MSPs.
Some key benefits of DCMA include:
To learn more, download The MSPs Guide to Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery.
Disclaimer
Datto Holding Corp. published this content on 21 October 2021 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 21 October 2021 15:03:08 UTC.