It’s no secret the cloud is here to stay. Gartner estimates that by 2015, end-user spending on cloud services could exceed $180 billion. Companies, or employees within those firms, have started to explore this new utility model and are either thinking about moving to the cloud, are in process, or are already there.
However, 2014 is going to be a unique year. Cisco’s Global Cloud Index found that this will be the first year that the majority of workloads will be in the cloud (51%) versus 49% in the traditional IT space.
This tipping point is significant as cloud computing moves beyond early adopters and into the mainstream. The challenge is, most IT professionals don’t have the expertise to make the transition a smooth one.
The Challenges
The biggest issue for organizations moving to the cloud is fear of the unknown. CIOs understand the potential benefits, yet there are real-world hurdles to overcome – not the least of which involve fear of losing control. Some of the most common questions include:
- How should instances be sized when migrating applications to the cloud?
- What steps are required to actually deploy to the cloud?
- How will performance and availability be measured and monitored?
- Will the shift save money or ultimately cost more?
- How can we make sure the deployment is right-sized over time?
- What are techniques to drive costs out of the system?
For many IT professionals, the cloud is uncharted territory, leaving them looking for serious help.
Role of MSPs
Despite these questions, many businesses still think it may be more efficient and cost-effective to find and use their own-cloud based applications, making it more difficult for MSPs to retain and grow their client base. To remain competitive, MSPs must find ways to differentiate their services and win more customers.
Helping clients accelerate their cloud migrations is one of the first steps. In the process, demonstrating that the cloud utility model isn’t a black box -- and in fact provides significant performance and cost improvements – can increase client confidence. As customer, application and server counts grow, MSPs need end-to-end monitoring tools that help customers understand how their applications are performing and constantly being tuned to maximize their cloud investment.
