What does it take to move your IT infrastructure to the cloud? For companies considering making a change, understanding the benefits of shifting to the cloud can help clarify why the decision makes sense.

Enterprises today face many challenges, needing to control costs, provide robust networks and services for employees, clients and customers, and leveraging the new technological innovations that are driving new business models.

Company executives may be frustrated with the traditional, in-house IT structure. Often companies are grappling with common IT issues that can be resolved with a managed IT solution, including:

• Performance issues related to poor network configuration, improper server maintenance or inadequate capacity
• Lack of expertise among in-house IT staff, who do not have the experience or knowledge to advise and provide insights on how to maximize efficiency and lower operational costs
• Too much time spent on “keeping the lights on,” focusing on day-to-day issues and not innovation or strategy driven by IT
• The timeliness of purchasing equipment, installing and maintaining systems, and ensuring systems are updated and safe

Here is an overview of IT managed services in the cloud and why it makes sense.

IT Managed Services Overview

With managed IT services, enterprises can shift the day-to-day burdens of managing networks, coordinating access, helping users, and keeping data secure from in-house responsibilities to a trusted IT partner.

Outsourcing your IT services allows for automation to drive of essential business operations. It also extends the reach and expertise of your internal IT staff, drawing on proven expertise and experience that can help with both strategy and operational excellence.

The range of available managed IT services depends on the provider. Typical offerings include cloud hosting, computing services, application hosting and management, vendor management, help desk support, data storage, security and business continuity planning.

Cost Benefits

One of the most significant advantages to a managed IT solution is the range of cost savings that arise. By shifting your operations to a third party, you can save on a range of cost areas. Among the key savings areas are:

• Data center costs. An on-site data center is an expensive proposition. You need to have the space available to store servers and related equipment. You also need to keep those servers powered and climate controlled. Those servers need to be monitored and maintained in a timely manner, meaning technicians need expertise on hardware, system configuration, and a range of software applications.
• Network costs. Your network has major network expenses, paying for bandwidth, hardware and software licensing, servers, and data storage capacity.
• Personnel costs. Managing your network requires a host of staff in IT and elsewhere to manage systems and devices, help users with questions, provide routine support, and provide IT strategy.

The opportunity to reduce these costs is considerable, providing your organization with greater fiscal flexibility. You’ll also be able to shift some costs from capital expenditures to manageable and predictable monthly operating expenses.

Scaling IT Capabilities

With a cloud computing solution, companies can scale operations and changes to networks and storage faster and more affordably.

With in-house solutions, companies may find they do not have enough server capacity or bandwidth to handle app and user demands. Purchasing new servers and technologies is a laborious proposition, requiring extensive lead times and budget processes that can delay implementation.

On the other hand, companies may see that they are burdened by purchasing excess capacity that they do not need, saddled by unnecessary maintenance and expenses that exceed demand.

Scalability with cloud computing means flexibility. With the cloud, your enterprise has two options for scaling to accommodate growth or to adjust to seasonal variations in capacity and load requirements.

Vertical scalability, also known as scaling up, means adding capacity or improving performance. Scaling up can be done by adding RAM to a server, for example, or using a bigger hard drive on a single machine.

These solutions, to a single node or machine, allow for more functionality, but that capability can quickly become taxed. It’s a short-term solution to a broader problem.

With horizontal scalability, your organization can scale out. Using public cloud services, companies can leverage large networks via pooled resources. Virtualization services and distributed architecture means your company can allow for a broader distribution of networks and system resources, allowing more users to have better and faster access, without burdensome physical builds.

Remote Access

Today’s workforce is evolving. Employees, contractors, and gig economy consultants or temporary staff need access to your systems and data. They may be working all over the world on a range of devices and operating systems.

Your company may also have branches, remote offices and multiple worksites where staff and customers need access to data and information from a shared resource.

A managed IT solution helps with remote access in several ways. With a managed IT service provider, you can gain peace of mind knowing that your data is centralized and accessible by the right users in the moment of need.

Security and Continuity

Keeping data secure is an integral part of any IT strategy. Today, data is at risk from daily threats via malware, viruses, denial-of-service attacks, worms, and physical compromise.

A managed IT solution helps businesses keep data secure, reducing the risks of loss of customers and reputation. Managed IT service providers use the latest tools to protect data both while in transit and at rest. Using encryption tools, multi-factor authentication, multi-level intrusion detection and other measures, service providers keep data safeguarded.

Managed IT services also works to keep up to speed with various new protections that are necessary, from patches to servers and operating systems, service packs, and updates to software applications. Your managed IT service provider will ensure that updates and upgrades are installed in a timely manner with minimal disruption to daily operations.

A managed IT provider will also monitor your system constantly, ensuring that users, devices, and access is appropriate and within norms. Any unusual activity can be identified quickly, isolated, and contained.

Business continuity is another critical component of the managed IT services bundle. Data is backed up automatically and stored at multiple, disparate locations, often in different regions. Those protocols help to keep data protected and in the case of intrusion, minimize data loss, allowing operations to continue unimpeded. In the case of a natural disaster, even if access to physical locations is compromised, data are available and usable using backups and cloud tools.

Other Factors

While cost reduction, scalability, remote access and security are among the core reasons businesses switch to IT managed services, there are other benefits that can make for a compelling business case, including:

• Technology resilience. New technologies are constantly changing the landscape of how businesses operate. Artificial intelligence, automation, the Internet of Things, 3D printing, data analytics and virtualization are among the transformative innovations that have changed the way businesses are modeled and business processes are completed. Your managed IT solutions provider can provide insights and advice on how and when to deploy new technologies. With staff on hand with expertise and knowledge from working with other customers, your IT partner can become a virtual chief information officer.
• Customized solutions. With a range of product offerings, a managed IT service provider can offer an array of possible technologies that can be used. Each company has different needs and capabilities, so your partner can work to understand your needs and develop a specific solution to address them.
• Service level capability. A service level agreement allows your company to have a reliable expectation and understanding of the service continuity provided, with clear guidelines.
• Architectural assistance. Your technology stack is complex, with multiple layers and components. A managed IT provider can help determine if your system architecture is optimized for best performance.
• Vendor management. It’s likely your company has products and services from many software and hardware companies. A managed IT solution reduces the complexity, time, and expense of managing relationships with the myriad vendors that are necessary for your company’s operations. When service issues arise, your provider can serve as the point of contact and liaison to gain resolution quickly. Your managed IT provider can also help with application licensing strategies that reduce your IT costs further.

A Managed IT Solution

At Denovo, we offer a full array of managed IT services. Our services allow you to focus on core business strategies and customers, while we handle the routine day-to-day tasks, monitoring, and security, along with flexible and scalable capacity to meet demands. Our managed services include:

• Application managed services, including software as a service (SaaS) and on-premises configuration, functional support and troubleshooting
• Technical managed services, with infrastructure as a service (IaaS) that continually analyzes your infrastructure to optimize performance
• Platform managed services, to administer and provide technical support your development platform
• Cloud managed services
• Managed data recovery, with planning and support to recover your technology stack

Denovo provides 24/7 support and Denovo OnDemand, a portal that offers your company insights on application performance, business insights and support. To learn more about how Denovo managed IT services can help drive innovation, better performance, and cost savings at your company, contact us today.

Are your IT needs being met? Learn how a managed IT services solution reduces cost, improves access and keeps data secure @DenovoCloud  #ManagedServicesProvider.