Providing cloud migration services has become an industry standard for IT consulting firms as cloud-based solutions have become the de facto manner of data storage over the recent period. Hence, many companies have looked to migrate from their on-premise storage solutions to a cloud-based platform. But, if done incorrectly, this can lead to data loss, security breaches and other unforeseen circumstances. Therefore, you need help, and a Managed Services Provider (MSP), can help make the migration seamless and get you back up and running in no time. 

Here’s how partnering with an MSP (such as K2 Partnering Solutions) can help your business achieve its crucial migrating goals to the cloud. 

What is an MSP?

A company that provides managed services is called a Managed Service Provider. IT managers have a huge responsibility for keeping costs down and meeting the performance, operational expectations, and security needs of the business. If you are setting future strategic goals or installing new services to your IT environment, but you don’t have the capacity to hire and onboard specific expert staff, consider meeting with an MSP. They will provide your internal IT team with expert industry help. 

Your internal staff may not be educated with new technology, new services, or applications. By hiring the right MSP team, they can provide you with the right value in optimizing your business’s continuous performance goals. MSP are very useful for businesses that: 

• Rely on their IT infrastructure to support their routine business processes
• Do not have trained support staff to deal with proper maintenance, updates, and repairs
• Want to pay a flat fee i.e. providing them with exceptional quality service

A business can invest in its own in-house team for building and maintaining IT services, however, this begins to get very costly. With the industry shift to cloud migration, an on-site IT team can be very limited to their abilities for proper operational expertise and cost efficiencies. Partnering with an MSP team will manage your services to ensure greater IT cost predictability; ultimately saving you money and headaches. 

Why Migrating to the Cloud is Important

Cost Efficiency

Industry leaders’ main reason to migrate from on-premise to the cloud is cost-efficiency. Expenses can seem never-ending for on-premise data centers. There is a direct cost of owning or licensing the data center, the third-party service, maintenance and management, training, and policy. 

Instead of pushing expenses on maintaining on-premise facilities (space, construction, electricity, hardware, operating systems, security, etc.), you can save on expenses by partnering with a cloud service provider. Trying to train engineering talent becomes too expensive and even more expensive than the actual computing resources.  Cloud service providers are expertly trained to run and manage cloud data centers in this forever growing industry, in turn saving you a lot of money. 

High Performance

By investing everything into owning your own on-premise facility, it will make it harder for your business to obtain the latest and greatest technology. Equipment and technology is continuously upgrading and transforming, and to have the best business model you must stay up to date with the industry changes. 

Cloud service is a more affordable route rather than on-prem. It provides you with flexibility and the best equipment in the industry. From the newest Intel processors to the most optimized RAM memory, to SSD storage and so much more. The cloud provides you with an edge in this competitive industry by supplying the necessary tools and resources to operate at high-performance levels. 

Safety and Security

With the migration to the cloud, many people have reservations about the security of their data. It’s actually harder to control and less secure to maintain an on-premise facility. The security of on-premise will only be as secure as the security policies put in place in the beginning. Cloud service providers are required to meet the highest security standards in the industry. The cloud uses authentication, authorization, logging, and auditing to perform at a safe and highly secure level.  

Benefits of Partnering with an MSP

Greater Cost Control

Not every business will have the same expenses, this all depends on the services that will be provided. The usual expenses of facilitating your own IT department include training, equipment, internal teams, but partnering with an MSP drives down expenses by a monthly fixed rate. This helps your company accurately predict the budget and plan expenses for the entire fiscal year, without all the headaches. This also means that there’s no extraneous spending during your migration, or any surprise costs. 

By partnering with an MSP they have the ability to scale your company at any time in the partnership based on your specific needs and goals. Your specific needs and goals may include factors such as your financial budget and the CIO’s strategic vision. IT service interruptions, failed or lossy migrations, and outages can also be prevented with the help of MSP, i.e minimizing the risk of future losses. 

Enhanced Risk Management

All business owners know that there will always be a risk to any business decision or when dealing with large volumes of sensitive data. MSP can help reduce the risk by providing their own expert methods and their extensive access to modern infrastructure and software. As well, with any managed service that they offer, it’s something they’ve done countless times before, so they’re confident and dependable when it comes to services of this nature. With their best practices implemented, they will help minimize the risk involved with the service delivery. 

MSP manages risk by:

• Their expert industry knowledge on security and compliance issues 
• Being a guide to lead your company towards the best path to avoid risks 

High Availability, Efficiency & Productivity

For most businesses, when partnering with an outsourced company, their biggest concern is that their managed team is readily available. MSPs understand it is amongst a top priority to be available at any moment the business needs them. This is critical for businesses to produce optimal performance. 

When using a managed service, clients gain optimal performance that decreases minimal downtime. Particular applications involve numerous technologies, that must be fully operational, that will accomplish IT services that are highly expected. All data applications have to be accessible for internal end-users for the IT service to operate consistently. MSP provides high uptime with minimal service interruptions. 

Future-proofing IT Services

Every IT department will encounter issues with funding, technical concerns, security threats, and operational functionality. Or, they’ll put their resources into the latest IT solutions, and then have to upgrade/evolve/adapt in the future, when the next evolution of cloud computing or data processing comes along. To minimize these issues, consider partnering with an MSP. MSPs continuously train and update their staff, ensuring they become experts on new technologies and aware of future technical releases within the industry.  MSPs hold the industry knowledge and ability to predict the costs of services for an entire year. More predictability will help your business reduce operational risk and cut down on service disruptions. 

MSP Best Practices

Managed Service Providers provide both:

• Realistic predictable services and competitive prices to rapidly deliver new IT services to your company
• Eases the mind for IT and business owners by supplementing stability to your company

Delivering cost-efficient new business services to companies can be a strenuous task. However partnering with an MSP team will help your IT department be highly adaptable, and cost predictable for the entire year. No more worrying about costs or failing to predict how much money will be spent throughout the fiscal year. MSP does all that for you.

MSP is not meant to replace your existing staff, they are simply a beneficial tool that will work closely with your existing team. They will provide expert leadership and valuable resources to deliver top performed IT strategies to achieve your business goals. By partnering with an MSP team, you can have peace of mind knowing they will help minimize risks associated with managing sensitive client data and classified competitive information.

Your MSP partner is utilized to help you take advantage of their expert help. Contact us today to learn more about our solutions to optimize your migration goals to the cloud.

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