How to Achieve Your Business Objectives with Cloud Management Services

The cloud technology has brought radical changes in the workplace. It enables business persons to leverage the benefit of real-time data sharing and processing across different devices. Businesses of any size can harness the power of this evolving concept with the help of cloud management services. 

In this article, we are going to shed some light on how the cloud can help you grow your business and the benefits of selecting the right cloud management services provider. 

Let’s start from scratch and understand the importance of cloud management. 

What Is Cloud Management and Why Should You Care?

  

As per the official report, there will be over 100 zettabytes of data are expected to store in the cloud by 2025. Cloud computing is rapidly gaining popularity across all industry sectors globally, and cloud management services play a major role in increasing its prevalence. Cloud management involves all the activities to control three types of cloud infrastructure services- Public, Private, and Hybrid. Cloud management services are designed to manage all the resources and services related to the cloud infrastructure. You can contact cloud consulting services to make an effective strategy to control dynamic computing systems. 

Cloud management is helpful in achieving three core objectives of any organization-

• Workflow Automation

Cloud management facilitates the operations team to manage different processes without human intervention. This automation can save the valuable time of employees and reduce the chances of human errors effectively. 

• Real-time Tracking

Managed cloud services include cloud analysis for real-time tracking of workloads and user experiences. It enables business persons to improve customer services and increase the productivity of employees. 

• Self-service

It is about leveraging the flexibility and scalability of cloud-powered resources. Cloud management also enables companies to improve their operations by keeping automation and transformation in mind. 

However, it is fair to mention that without a proper cloud management strategy in place, it is difficult to gain the advantage of this advanced technology. Cloud service management can play a vital role in getting the benefits of cloud computing by using proper tools and following the best practices.  

Cloud management services aim to assist companies to improve overall performance and reliability while reducing costs. Managed cloud service providers ensure that all the applications run more efficiently with robust architectures. Every business or enterprise has unique requirements. Cloud consulting service providers can help business persons make effective decisions as per their requirements, priorities, and objectives. 

Cloud sprawl is one of the biggest challenges of implementing cloud solutions. It can increase various costs and create hurdles in ensuring security and implementing cloud management. Many problems related to data security and management activities occur due to the cloud sprawl, so, businesses find it essential to get effective governance policies through cloud management. 

How Cloud Management Services Can Help You Reach Your Business Goals 

Cloud management services can be a game-changer in this competitive and challenging time. It can help you reach medium to long-term business goals in multiple ways. Here we mention the major ways cloud-based solutions ensure the growth and success of your business.

Simplifying Complexities

A cloud managed services provider (MSP) acts as an intermediary between you and cloud vendors. In other words, you interact with a single partner that simplifies the communication and other cloud solution-related complexities. Also, the team of MSP consists of experienced and certified professionals who can help you train your in-house IT team. You can get cloud consulting services and real-time technical assistance at every stage ranging from strategy to execution of cloud solutions.

Reduced Costs

This is one of the biggest advantages of cloud-powered solutions. You can get flexible and scalable solutions based on realistic and requirement-specific strategies with the help of a reputed cloud management services provider. You can plan your budgeting with reduced fixed costs on payroll and IT infrastructure with the help of cloud computing solutions.

    

Higher Scalability

Tailored cloud solutions are highly scalable and capable of meeting the ever-changing business requirements of your enterprise. You can get high agility and better responsiveness with pay-as-you-go cloud models. Managed services can also provide corporate users with seamless solutions that have high scalability and integration capability.

Innovative Approach

Cloud solutions can bring automation and transform core business processes innovatively. As a result, your team can focus on training, upskilling, and other productive activities to accelerate business growth. What's more, cloud solutions enable you to utilize all the resources effectively to increase productivity and agility while addressing challenges.

 

Enhanced Security

The managed cloud service provider ensures the high security of your data with constant monitoring and integrating security configurations. Service providers comply with all the prevalent regulations and protocols for data safety and backup policies to support business continuity. The Service Level Agreements (SLAs) have clauses for service continuity and you can get 24x7 support for patches.

  

What are the Different Types of Cloud Computing?  

 

Cloud computing models broadly fall under three different categories based on their scope and usage. Cloud-managed services offer the following types of models.

Public Cloud

As the name suggests, the public cloud model is offered publicly by a third-party vendor. In this model, the third-party vendor or a cloud service provider owns and manages all the resources including hardware, software, applications, servers, etc. Here, users are known as tenants and all the resources are shared between these tenants.

The public cloud can be either free to use or available as a paid subscription in which the tenants need to pay only for the resources they utilize and the duration of employing these resources. For example, if an entrepreneur needs a cloud-based ERP solution for one year, the yearly subscription will remain only for the ERP solution. This type of model is ideal for SMBs who have budgetary constraints.

The only major drawback of a public cloud is several users share it, and therefore, it is neither secure nor customizable for a particular user. If you have security concerns, you should opt for a second model known as a private cloud.

Private Cloud

In this model, only a single enterprise or business uses all the resources. Here, the cloud infrastructure is either located on-premise or managed by a third-party vendor externally. It operates in a way exactly opposite to that of the private cloud.

The private cloud model is also known as an internal cloud or a corporate cloud. It offers several benefits to modern enterprises including high customization thanks to complete control over the cloud infrastructure, more privacy, and enhanced security. However, this model is more expensive than the public cloud because it requires physical space and specific hardware. Here, the user has to manage the entire infrastructure.  

You can build, maintain, and upgrade the private cloud solution with the help of a cloud-managed services provider. If you want some of the benefits of a private cloud like higher security and privacy protection in a cost-effective way then a hybrid cloud can be a viable option.

Hybrid Cloud

This model incorporates the properties of public and private cloud models. It facilitates companies to integrate their in-house infrastructure with a public cloud. In a way, enterprises can get a more scalable and flexible cloud solution without spending a small fortune.

Another key advantage of the hybrid cloud is it enables companies to customize the solution as per their requirements. For example, they can use the private cloud to store confidential corporate data whereas use the public cloud for normal data-sharing activity. Also, it is possible to use the public cloud to meet specific requirements that are not fulfilled by the private cloud.

The hybrid cloud model assists organizations to avoid additional time, effort, and money as they can get the cloud services they require.  

Apart from these three major models, other cloud computing models are community cloud, multi-cloud, poly cloud, HPC cloud, and distributed cloud. It is always beneficial to take the help of cloud consulting services to choose the right model for your business.

How to Choose the Right Cloud Management Service Provider for Your Business  

When evaluating a managed cloud services vendor, we can consider the following requirements.

1. Basic Requirements

These requirements include

• Number of customers

• Financial capability

• Product characteristics

• Partnerships

• Market share

   

It is fair to mention that you need a service provider that shares similar values with your company. This is a beginning of a long-term relationship, and therefore, you need to be very careful in selecting the cloud solution partner.

2. Functional Requirements

As you want a cloud solution that can fulfill all the core business needs, you should ensure that the vendor fulfills functional requirements. Some of the top functional needs are resource utilization, automation, financial management capabilities, security, and governance.

3. Security Requirements

Here, the security is related to the architecture of the cloud-based product and the business continuity of the service provider. You need to ask for backup plans and disaster recovery plans along with third-party compliance and encryption of your data. All these requirements should be addressed properly.

4. Technical Assistance

24x7 technical assistance and necessary training can be a part of the support facilities. You need to identify the level of support you need from the service provider and your selection criteria should include it.

5. Pricing Structure

It is one of the crucial factors when selecting the cloud managed services provider. Pricing always varies from one platform to another and one provider to another. You can choose the billing option from available types including pay per module, a flat rate, or based on a percentage of the cloud spend. Also, all your core functions should be included in the pricing agreement.

Top Benefits and Challenges of Cloud Management Service

Cloud management service offers many benefits to modern businesses. Some of the key benefits include

- Cost Reduction

Customized cloud solutions can bring automation and transform core processes to reduce operational costs and increase the efficiency of your employees.

- Flexible Infrastructure

Cloud-based infrastructure is highly scalable and flexible to meet the ever-increasing business requirements of any enterprise across all industry sectors.

- Cybersecurity

Cloud service providers integrate encryption and other security features to ensure the safety of confidential corporate data from cyberattacks and breaches.  

- Enhanced Change Management

Cloud-powered solutions streamline daily processes and support change in the work culture. You can expect enhanced change management with cloud solutions.

- Compliance Support

You can get real-time reports and audits with the help of cloud solutions. It can help you follow all the regulations and compliance requirements effectively.

Let’s go through some of the major challenges of cloud management services. 

1. Security

It is the biggest concern when opting for cloud services. Failed authentication, account hacking, data breaches, and stolen credentials are some of the most common and frequent incidents that keep entrepreneurs and cloud service providers on their toes. However, cloud service providers can overcome this challenge by ensuring database security and following privacy protocols.

2. Lack of resources

As per the RightScale file, roughly 75% of respondents indicated that lack of resources is quite a task while migrating to the cloud. Apart from this, many companies also face the challenge of a lack of resources.  

3. Customization challenges

It is quite challenging to customize the company's requirements on a cloud-based platform. Transferring corporate data to a public cloud also takes more time, effort, and money. However, service providers can handle this challenge efficiently.  

4. Lack of coordination

The in-house IT team and cloud service provider should have excellent coordination to get the desired outcome. Be it a third-party cloud computing or implementing a cloud solution in the system. lack of coordination between internal and external IT teams appears as a big challenge.

5. Compliance issues

Companies need to follow a set of guidelines all the time for preserving compliance. This is a big challenge and a significant risk associated with the cloud computing process. Here, the service provider has to follow the protocols while moving the data and storing or accessing the same.

Concluding Lines

Cloud management services can take the business to new heights irrespective of its size and industry sector. These services are aimed at streamlining business operations and building resilient infrastructure with reduced costs. All you need to maintain the synergy of the right cloud services provider and solutions to leverage the benefits of futuristic cloud technology.