Offerings from Managed Services Providers may seem very similar at first glance. Learn how the best ones stand out by providing these benefits.

 

As cloud adoption increases across industries and sectors, more organizations are looking to external resources for effective management and support services. For those just starting out, managing workloads on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud can be complex and time-consuming. Customers working with a Managed Services Provider (MSP) gain access to a team of cloud experts dedicated to optimizing their experience on the cloud. This assistance goes beyond business support and into the realm of high-level strategy and collaboration.

An MSP is a third-party company that manages tickets and alerting. The best providers serve as an extension of your team to maintain security and produce strategic roadmaps and proactive guidance on cost optimization, architectural best practices and more. By working with an MSP, companies can offload many of the time-consuming technical tasks of managing workloads on AWS, allowing them to focus on their core business objectives. Here are just some of the benefits of working with an MSP.

 

1. Access to AWS experts 

AWS is a powerful and flexible cloud platform, but it can be difficult to navigate if you don’t have the necessary expertise. An MSP offers access to a team of AWS experts who can help you make the most of the platform. They can help you design and deploy your workloads, optimize performance, and troubleshoot issues when they arise. For teams new to the cloud that lack in-house specialists, hiring full-time staff can be expensive and often underutilized; with an MSP on your side, you can feel confident that your environment is being managed by professionals who understand AWS inside and out.

 

2. Scalability and flexibility 

Scalability and flexibility are two stand-out capabilities of AWS, and an MSP can help you take full advantage of these capabilities. By automating scaling, you can respond to changes in demand seamlessly and ensure that your workloads are always running optimally. MSPs can also help you design architectures that are scalable and can adapt to your organization’s changing needs, so you can stay ahead of the curve.

 

3. Improved security and compliance 

Security and compliance are critical aspects of managing workloads on AWS, and an MSP can help you implement best practices to ensure protection from potential threats. AWS offers a wide range of security features but managing them can be a challenge. Beyond best practices for security and compliance, an MSP will ensure that you are meeting regulatory requirements too. MSPs can also monitor your workloads for potential security issues and respond quickly to any incidents. With an MSP, you can be confident that you have a strong security posture.

 

4. Your investment in the cloud goes further 

Managing workloads on AWS can be expensive, especially if you don’t have true visibility into your cloud spend. After working with customers, many don’t realize they have issues with over-provisioned resources, whether a test server has been running long since a project has launched, or they’ve experienced a big shift in traffic. MSPs will right size your workloads by choosing the right instance types, storage options, and other resources to ensure that you’re getting the most out of your investment in AWS. In addition, the value of the combined set of expertise provided by your dedicated MSP team, as delivered via a fractional resourcing model, is unmatched relative to what you’d have to spend on internal resources with the same breadth of capabilities.

 

5. Optimized architecture 

Leading AWS-focused MSPs bring a thorough understanding of the optimal ways in which to architect workloads in AWS, as driven by an adherence to AWS’ comprehensive Well Architected Framework. This framework provides design principles and architectural best practices for designing and running workloads in the cloud, delivering operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, optimized cost, and sustainability.

 

6. Faster time to market 

With an MSP managing your workloads on AWS, you can get your applications and services to market faster. MSPs can help you automate many of the time-consuming tasks involved in managing workloads, such as provisioning resources and configuring security. This means you can focus on developing and improving your applications, rather than worrying about the underlying infrastructure.

Wrapping It All Up

Not all MSPs will deliver on each benefit equally; some providers offer only a base-level focus on ticketing and alerts. The key is to find the right provider capable of delivering truly strategic aspects of architecting, road mapping, security, and troubleshooting, and forging a strong working relationship between your teams. Doing so will allow customers to make great returns on their investment in the cloud.