In Managed Services, advice is appreciated

By 2018, the cloud market is with its service offering to grow to a turnover of 19.8 billion euros in many countries. A business so that worthwhile for manufacturers, distributors and resellers. But not only has the complexity of the matter held pitfalls.

Today, companies are faced with the challenge of improving the quality of service to their customers and to make processes more efficient. Show Recent IDC research (IT Service Management in 2014) that while cost savings are on the agenda of IT executives high up. As a rule, account for 80 % of the resources on the operative business of IT. This leaves little room for forward-looking innovations. Accordingly, the pressure on IT departments to standardize workflows and automate grows. A to correct the situation or Managed Cloud Services here. Because can react more flexibly to changing business requirements and the bound capital be reduced by outsourcing IT infrastructure and software.

Here, the range of services is varied. They range from remote management, backup or monitoring for the complete outsourcing of the infrastructure (IaaS), Software (SaaS) or whole platforms (PaaS). Also great is the variety of companies and public institutions and hence their requirements which take such services to complete. If the IT environment, in addition to the on premise IT increasingly also includes cloud services and outsourced IT components, it is hybrid and hence complex. This in turn provides IT service revenue potential when service providers (MSP) act as consultants and integrators between business customers and the so-called managed.

The IaaS provider scent morning air

Digital transformation of business and production processes is the goal of the economy. The drivers of this are competition from the large number of start-ups, as well as industry pressure and admonishing media reports. But earlier, all should be clear that the way to digitize only the clean use of cloud computing is.

Suppose you were a medium-sized manufacturing companies and now want to systematically digitize even if were ready enough investment resources, the solution would probably not optimal. The reason for this is that the desired systems with the required performance characteristics are simply not yet available as a true cloud solution.

Software companies and system providers have long not yet made their programs cloud-enabled. There are several reasons. First, the software needs to be fully adjusted with the aim of multi-tenant architecture. Secondly, was and is the systems business is a very good business because this business model also brings with it forced loyal customers. And thirdly, there is a great fear of a sales dip. Therefore, it is only possible in the present situation, systematically digitize. As a result, give logical, strategic process models, such as those described by Crisp Research will be presented.

Datacenter: Great break, promising future?

The Hybrid Cloud is a reality in many companies. But why more and more CIOs opt for a hybrid environment? An article by Erich Vogel, Cloud Leader, Computacenter.

This survey has drawn in recent months large sections of our industry: "The Hybrid Cloud 2014" by IDC. The result is an illuminating and for the other at the same time for the unexpected: a further 27 % plan used or implemented in the past two years public cloud services More than half of the 2014 surveyed by IDC organizations their introduction. IDC also observed that the "early adopters" with a pure private cloud approach much more pull now Hosted private clouds or public cloud services into consideration.

Analysts summarize: The Hybrid Cloud is already a reality in many companies. The Reasons? In times of "d’ conomy!" - As this year's CeBIT, the upheavals of society addressed by IT - must be adapted to individual than ever a company's processes. The CIOs kept their data and applications to date preferably in its own data center, especially large enterprises build their infrastructure consistently. They consolidate, virtualize, rely on automated operation and invest in convergent structures.

Cloud providers: Desperately Seeking IT!

Imagine, you have developed a software solution and are now looking for a cloud partner. What an odyssey!

It is based on an independent market segment to provide the platform for software companies. There are thousands of developers companies that have developed clever and successful software solutions. But very few have their programs on cloud architecture - so a multi-tenant solution - changed. Many but already have a browser-based user interface. In sum, these vendors provide considerable potential for infrastructure providers.

Speculating on the future

Software solution providers are not willing to high investments, especially as the IaaS provider in the seemingly destructive competition undercut. The knowledge can be found in the fact that keeps the effort for a well-organized IaaS provider in limits. His offer is divided into standard models with different server platforms and virtualized properly. The client software company can scale its performance in the self-service process itself and pays in addition to a basic fee its transactional revenues. In sum, these are after a random survey at CeBIT 2015, smaller suppliers about five thousand euros per year.

Here is an old, American investors wisdom comes into play: "Invest in seven start-ups. Six will fail. But this one will be so successful that it not only compensated the losses of the other six, but will generate large revenues. "Behave similarly IaaS provider. Many assume any ISV (Independent Software Vendor) as customers in the hope that exactly his solution will be successful. Here, the sales and onboarding effort are always the same. Because one does not know precisely in advance if the customer solution will be successful or not.

All cheap, everything good?

That there is more than one reasonable price, many software manufacturers have also figured and flirt with the provider selection with the possible disruptive success of their program. As a result, this brings the IaaS provider forcibly in the situation, to calculate offers not only cheap, but also with additional benefits, as outlined in the following examples to market, - technically interchangeable.

Example 1: Special Technical Services: This technical reliability by supporting documents, such as the ISO 27001 certification is documented by ISO 9001 (at best, based on BSI-Baseline Protection) or service capability. Thus, the customer ISV can be sure that its programs are pretty reliable on the net available.

Example 2: The Bi-directional value-system: In this case, the ISV customer in IaaS, because it is hosting its programs in the computer center of IaaS. At the same time he is also the supplier because of IaaS promises him his solution - that is, the solution to its customers - with at its own end-users to sell. One example is the "ISV Reselling and Enterprise Market Place" of T-Systems. The problem here is that such promises are to be redeemed almost entirely through a digital marketplace currently. But actually need the seller of IaaS in offering the ISV are trained to have it in the personal catalog solution with you. Add to this the problem that there are several suppliers on any topic. At the end of smaller suppliers is only the presence on a web marketplace.

Example 3: Increase value of the SaaS offering and successful marketing support: Even if I as the author of this article am not at ease, I have to say, this works quite well: The hosting provider has partnered with an association or an institution that have an effective marketing and also guarantee high quality. In the industry, we know for example, to the "Blue Angel". In IT, this is the German cloud certificate for example. The IaaS provider certifies its datacenters on the German cloud audit. By prolonging the part, then applies logically also for its customers ISV. This then needs only a part (data security, legal and service) at the cloud to have it checked and is in the sequence itself to German-cloud-certified providers.

Contracts, agreements, contracts ...

A small software company is hardly the idea of his service with very large system houses, which are also IaaS asking for hosting. First, because it is believed to experience a mini customer e.g. an IBM and T-Systems does not care, and secondly, because the fear of rigid and extensive contracts could represent the entrepreneurial freedom in question. But what the customer wants software house? He wants a technically reliable solution and a contact person who to his ambition successfully supported. It must not be a partner, which sends the client's data to the NSA ISV and hawked his keys to the US Department of Homeland Security. Yes, most like the customer wants to know exactly where their data are and will be processed. And he has the right to do so.
To truly compare the offers of hosting providers, addressing the seller contracts is inevitable. You have to understand that an IaaS provider cannot enter into an individual agreement with each customer. But service promise (SLA) should be verifiable and changes in power - be possible only with the consent of the ISV - for example when moving the data. A "Blue Angel" for the cloud builds trust with the customer and speed up the marketing.

Attention is needed

Against the backdrop of the effort to compare IaaS providers it is not surprising that software companies have selected a "good about" IaaS provider. But it is worthwhile to think again. One can not only his electricity supplier, but also the hosting providers change.