What are cloud managed services?
Cloud managed services, also known as managed cloud, is an application, service or ecosystem in the cloud that a third-party organization manages. Cloud managed services include IT tasks, such as engineering on demand, operations management, 24/7 help desk support and hosting and implementation. Cloud managed services are the partial or complete management and control of an organization’s cloud platform, including cloud deployment, cloud management, migration, maintenance and optimization.
What are the business benefits of cloud managed services?
With cloud managed services, an organization achieves numerous benefits, including:
- Cost savings. Reduce costs through not having to purchase and replace physical servers. Optimize operational expenses by eliminating the management and maintenance of servers and cloud infrastructure. Simplify operations and spend less time setting up, managing and maintaining the network infrastructure and more time running the business through a fully managed and integrated cloud infrastructure.
- Automatic upgrades. Move and innovate faster through a modernized and integrated cloud services infrastructure that is automatically updated and upgraded.
- Network security. Deploy and leverage cloud managed services to provide 24/7 monitoring, disaster recovery support and increased data protection. Use the advanced security of cloud services to increase operational efficiency and stay ahead of the competition.
- Resiliency and innovation. Multicloud-based business and technology platforms and services are resilient, have built-in intelligence, and drive automation and innovative business performance.
- Disaster recovery support. Back up and sync data to quickly retrieve and restore data and redeploy without system-wide disruptions. Ensure disaster recovery support to decrease downtime in the event of a disaster and resume normal business processes with resilience, speed and agility.
- Rapid response times. Leverage 24/7 support to quickly resolve detected issues that increase operational efficiency and ensure a durable, reliable cloud managed services network infrastructure.
Why do organizations need cloud managed services?
There are many advantages to having cloud managed services, including:
- Resiliency and robust governance. Organizations are increasingly adopting multi-cloud strategy, including cloud management and cloud deployment for better resiliency, to reduce costs, bring new products and services to market more quickly and better serve their customers. Ensure controlled cloud usage and better visibility by implementing cloud managed services.
- Robust security and compliance. Since cloud managed services monitor, manage, and maintain the cloud, organizations can deliver new applications and services to market quickly and with the security and compliance with industry and government regulations.
- Digital sustainability. When businesses have cloud managed services, they can ensure its cloud resources run efficiently through driving innovation, expanding and accelerating new business models and embracing and scaling digital sustainability.
- Business continuity. Outsourcing cloud management allows businesses to avoid new hiring and training costs, reduce the impact of talent disruptions, decrease costs in maintaining and operating systems and free up internal IT teams to focus on efforts that drive new business outcomes.
- Automation-enabled agility. Cloud managed services provide regular maintenance, security updates, and 24/7 monitoring. Use the inherent automation enabled by the cloud to reduce human effort and error.
- Transformed customer experience (CX). Cloud services transform the customer experience, providing the transparency customers want and the buyer-focused services they need. Through this partnership-based cloud-centric approach, organizations can deliver exceptional hyper-personalized, omnichannel and real-time experiences.
- Scalability, agility and intelligent. Innovate and grow your business with the agility that only cloud can deliver. Solve immediate business issues with on-demand sustainable, scalable cloud solutions in an intelligent, client-centered cloud-based environment.
- Faster and simplified deployments. Automate builds that deploy code, databases and application releases.
- Empowered users. Increase productivity by empowering users to take advantage of self-service options on the cloud, such as portals, DevOps pipelines and dashboards.
- Enhanced mobility. Cloud managed services provide employees with 24/7 access to data and applications any time, from anywhere and on any device.
- Accelerated productivity and rollouts. Moving desktops and workspace solutions to the cloud using cloud managed services improves user productivity, reduces the number and seriousness of helpdesk calls, enhances business continuity, speeds new-feature rollouts and reduces costs.
What activities are typically included in developing an intelligent cloud infrastructure using cloud managed services?
- Cloud strategy development. Defining your strategic vision, developing a comprehensive roadmap to realize the optimal cloud deployment and adopting an outcome driven cloud first strategy for your opportunities and challenges.
- Cloud migration. Making a smooth, seamless transition to cloud-based solutions, accelerating business transformation through a preferred cloud model. Leveraging proven methodologies, migration frameworks and partners to facilitate a rapid, low-risk, on demand, sustainable and minimally disruptive cloud migration.
- Cloud management and operation. Utilizing one or more as-a-service options in a comprehensive cloud management system that spans from networking to data center consolidation to hybrid cloud implementations to cloud-smart strategy and planning to platforms. Ensuring the cloud experience remains optimal and aligned with your business objectives. Ensuring that applications and platform services remain in an optimal state and that you continue to have all the cloud resources you need without paying for any you don’t.
