What's the Best Way to Manage Your AWS Workloads?
Here's a hint– not with an "Accidental AWS Administrator."
In Amazon Web Services’ seventeen years, the cloud provider has continuously focused on making its offerings more accessible, intuitive, and manageable. It has helped to facilitate the ability for a much wider audience (often with less technical expertise) to be able to lean into, initiate services, and manage many aspects of AWS offerings. For all the benefits that more rapid time-to-value and expanded usage of AWS organizations can achieve, it comes with a degree of downsides and risk – namely, most workloads involve critical assets, confidential data, uptime requirements, and performance expectations such that compromising any part of this could be detrimental.
We often run into organizations that have found themselves with an “Accidental AWS Administrator” at the helm of their systems, which leads to a myriad of challenges that can compromise security, efficiency, and overall business success. In this blog, we’ll walk you through the risks of relying on an Accidental Administrator and why working with a Managed Services Provider is a great solution.
The Risks of an Accidental AWS Administrator
1. Security Vulnerabilities: Without a comprehensive understanding of AWS security best practices, accidental administrators might inadvertently leave security gaps in the infrastructure, exposing sensitive data to potential breaches.
2. Cost Overruns: Misconfigured resources, unused instances, and improper scaling can lead to unexpected costs spiraling out of control, impacting the organization’s budget and financial stability. If you don’t have the right expertise, you may end up making mistakes that could lead to downtime.
3. Downtime and Performance Issues: Inadequate resource provisioning, improper load balancing, or lack of monitoring can result in application downtime and suboptimal performance, affecting user experience and business operations. A less experienced AWS administrator may not be familiar with the nuances of the platform and may make configuration changes that impact performance. This can lead to slow response times, outages, and other problems.
4. Compliance Concerns: If your business is subject to industry regulations for data handling and storage, you need to ensure that your AWS environment is compliant. An accidental administrator might inadvertently overlook these compliance standards or may make mistakes, leading to legal and financial repercussions.
5. Inefficient Resource Utilization: Without a clear understanding of AWS’s vast array of services, you may fail to optimize resource utilization, leading to underutilization or inefficient deployment of services.
6. Limited Innovation: AWS’s rapid pace of innovation demands continuous learning and exploration of new features. Accidental administrators, already stretched thin with their primary roles (or their “day jobs”), may struggle to keep up with these advancements.
How Managed Services Providers Help
A Managed Services Provider (MSP) offers customers a team of AWS experts equipped with the skillset, time, and knowledge to properly maintain workloads. Proactive support from an MSP with proven experience with AWS can be transformative for every type of organization. Here’s how:
1. Expertise and Experience: MSPs are equipped with AWS-certified experts who possess in-depth knowledge of AWS services, best practices, and security protocols. This expertise ensures that your infrastructure is built, managed, and optimized according to industry standards. MSPs that specialize in the AWS cloud adhere to the AWS Well-Architected Framework.
2. Enhanced Security: MSPs implement robust security measures, including encryption, access controls, and regular security audits, to safeguard your data and applications against evolving cyber threats. Some MSPs also offer Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) and fully manage a customers’ DR solution to add an additional layer of protection against downtime or data loss.
3. Cost Optimization: MSPs analyze your infrastructure, right-size resources, and implement cost-saving strategies to ensure efficient resource utilization, preventing unnecessary spending.
4. Proactive Monitoring: MSPs employ advanced monitoring tools to track the health and performance of your infrastructure in real time. This proactive approach allows them to identify and address potential issues before they escalate.
5. Scalability and Flexibility: As your business grows, an MSP can seamlessly scale your infrastructure, ensuring that it remains aligned with your evolving needs and demands.
6. Focus on Core Competencies: By offloading the complex and time-consuming task of AWS management to an MSP, your internal teams can focus on their core responsibilities and strategic initiatives, driving business innovation.
7. Continuous Learning and Innovation: MSPs are dedicated to staying up to date with the latest AWS developments and trends. This means that your infrastructure will benefit from the most cutting-edge solutions available.
8. Streamlined Migrations: If you’re considering migrating to AWS, an MSP can guide you through the entire process, minimizing downtime, ensuring data integrity, and optimizing your new cloud environment for success.
Conclusion
Falling into becoming an Accidental AWS Administrator happens, but it doesn’t have to be permanent. Working with a qualified Managed Services Provider specializing in AWS management allows employees to get back to the core focus of their job and puts your environment in the hands of trusted experts.
Our team offers three key areas for managed services: managed cloud, data analytics, and disaster recovery. Contact our team if you’re interested in learning more.