Managed Service Providers and THE CLOUD

8/2/2019 Managed Service Providers and THE CLOUD

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MSP ROU N DTABLE Mcrrtrgctl scrt,icc.s

Moseruice prout)dersund thA cbudManaged service providers need to weigh uptheir cloud options before their customers do. Spon.vrrcd ln., g?Kaseyabv Paul Furber

ill the managed service provider(MSP) market go the way of thedinosaur in the age of cloud? Oris the cloud an opportunity forMSPs to become more agile andefficient? Is it a good excuse forreinvention? When cr-rstomers canand choose services online - and advanced services too -where does that leave the local MSP? For Rob Sussman, iointof the Integr8 Group, the cloud has prodded both his com-and his client base in the right direction."Cloud has recluired us to change our bnsiness, has forcedto look at global trends and to look at its adoption in themarket. I think it's been very good in that it's educatedclients on the benefits of a consolidated, centralised andservice."

Glen Andrew, clirector of Enyuka.com agrees."We found it to be an opportunity both for us to educate thebase and for Lls to move into the space. However, in orderthe model to work, we neeci decent connectivity."Steverr Preston, director of Xpand Il says there's both poten-MSP's existing skills and for education."Whatever is being stored in the cloud is still being storedThere will still be a number of servers that willsupport and there will still be devices that connect toservers. While the devices may be different, the execu-

Sussman, IntegrBKarolina Komendera

tives we see in businesses we support don't have much knowl-edge of cloud. I don't think it's going to affect business per se."Jakobus Koorts, director at Numata, says most IT companieshad a break-fix model a few years ago and that's evolved into themanaged service provider model."Right now, we really don't have a choice: we need to adapt

our service offerings and in 2072, that means cloud offerings.,,JC Prrtter, director at NLr mata, agrees.'As an MSP, you are the trusted advisor for business. yonrcllstomers do come to yon first when they want to know moreabout cloud. So the MSP is the ideal gateway to take the custom-er into the cloud. There's two ways to do that: doing cloud con-sulting and providing hybrid cloud sohrtions where you movecertain services into a cloud environment. From there you canintroduce virtual services through the cloud."Integr8's Sussman says the competitive landscape is chang-ing and the competitors themselves are changing."The telcos are moving into the MSP space. Globally you alsosee a lot of telcos providing MSP services. So we've had to sit downand decide what we're going to do: are we going to be a datacen-tre business? Or a hosting provider in someone else's datacentre?Where does the telco end and the MSP begin? We've establishedvery close partnerships with a telco. In the past, Integr8's biggestpartner was Microsoft. Now it's MTN. The world is changing."Anton Coetser, services director of Triple4, says the MSp'snatural evolution is to move up the value stack."We're now packaging prodr-rcts into our managed services.So instead of just selling managed services, we're selling prod-ucts and the vah-re-add is the managed service. So we have prod-ucts in the cloud and we support those prodr-rcts."Mark Geschke, MD of Space Age Technologies, sees the rnoveto clor-rd as part of something larger.

March 2012 brainstorm


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MSF ROUh,IDTAELE Mrtrtrtsc,l scrt'iccs

(Righ0 JC Putter and JakobusKoorLs, Numara; (be ow fron Lop) G er^

Andrew, Enyuka.com; Mark Geschke,Space Age fecl'nologies; ardBrett Scott, Xpand lT

plrotogfrl)hl Karolina Komendera

h,;w"Cloud is certainly a threat to ottr bttsiness

wherr I take tl-re long-term view. Cloud is jttstone part of many tlencls that are comit-tg to-gether. We see bring-your-own-dcvice, we scernassivc. dataceutres beirrg built. It's not abotttpure' virtualisatior-r btrt someoue else matrag-ing it for yor-r. What is going to happe.n over thcnext couple' of years is that most compauies willhave infrastructure sotnewhere 'ottt thcrc' atrclsmallel provide'rs won't have tl-re scale. In thatscenario, we will have to transfornt. We do a lotof work with Office 365 and there is no servermanagement anymore it's gone. It's changingvery fast. How we maltaie environt-uents anclwhat we managc will change'."

Ntrmata's Koorts says the recluiremettt formanagemc'nt expertisc wou't change."Wc sprecialisc in the SME ir-rriustry arty-thing betwecn ten aud 250 ttsers - arrd the Per-cepiion of cloucl compttting is causitrg a lot ofproble'ms. It's our job to eclucatc the customcr audto be the single point of contact. We nced to havea close rclatiot-rship witl-r tl-re telcos br-rt at the sarnetime you will always have part ctf the iufrastrttc-tr,rre tl-rat must be plivate. We'need to explair-r thatcloucl cornputiug wou't take away all physical in-frastructure completely. The biggest call centre inthc world is virtual but therc are'still servers rlltl-r-rir-rg it somewhere."Ancl cnstomers do want a soltttion that in-crcases their rcliability at lc'ss cost. CctmmetrtsBrett Scott, dit'ector of Xpancl IT: "Yott can lookat an example wherc we took a clic'nt onto a pri-vatc cloucl last year. I'cl say their break-fix has

droprpecl by 50 percent ptrlcly be'cause the.y wedeprenrlerrt on a heacl office., which is t-to louggoing tlown c-ltte to prower iailr-rre.s, Sencratonot kicking in ancl councctivitv goirrg tlowSuppr911 has halvecl cvcrr thottgh tlcvice t-uaualgment has increasecl because of tablet usagc."User adoptionPrestor-r aurees."To reitcrate what Brctt sair'I, rloving that cttorncr ir-rto the cloud has been great. I hear whMalk says about the clourl bttt cttskrmers see thethings affcctir-rg their bottortr lirres. The cloutl r'rhappre'n, it is a proccss, but it's cortrit-tg."

Sussr-nan rt'ould love to move all of his clie.nto the clotrd."Our view is that ii we cottkl trrigratt' evcsingle one oi ttttr cttstomers attc-l ptlt thenl ill tclouci and nlanage thenr cer-rtrallv rtc n'ctttlcl clotomorrow. But tl-rc re.alitv in Soutl-r Africa is tltwe need to track user arloptic'rt-t of cloucl. Tl-reare technical issues with latency ancl bancllvitlThe first tl-rit-rg we sce' going itrkr cloucl is maWe'vc giverr clierrts options: private, pulrlichybricl. We'r,c also offerecl thet-n a cloucl t-uocwitl-r thcir own inirastrttctttre, lt'hich \^/e Irlaagc. Tl-re r-narkct is cl-ranging and those conrpanithat arerr't here haven't chatrgetl r,r'ith the. tirt-reWe sec a corlvergcncc, r-tot arotrncl trttifietl cttmurrications, but arotttrcl telcos. If I warrt privacloud, I wor-rlcl go RackSpacc. If I want ptrblic, tl-rit woukl bc Amazotr. Urrfortur-rately, Amazon isbuilcling c'latacerrtres here, atrcl r-reither are Micrsoft or Coogle.."

9$.__.Jbrainstorm March 2012


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Managed Service Providers and THE CLOUD