Industrial IoT (Internet of Things) is revolutionizing the world of manufacturing. By connecting machines, plants, assets, an...
Relinquishing control of your IT environment may not sound too appealing at first, but I bet you’ll change your mind by the end of this post. Allowing a cloud service provider (or CSP) to configure, monitor, and take responsibility for your environment may seem like a big jump, but you need to look at it from a different perspective. Don’t think of it as losing control of your environment, think of releasing accountability. Let someone else take ownership of your cloud environment so you can focus on the rest of your company’s IT needs.
As a CIO, CTO, IT Manager, or Systems Administrator, you already have a lot on your plate. In these demanding roles, more than likely, you wear many hats and have an endless list of tasks including designing new applications, implementing new systems, helping employees troubleshoot desktop issues, and more.
So, is this really the best way for an IT department to run? The answer is: absolutely not. How can an IT department run efficiently and effectively when the entire team is stretched out so thin? The answer is: it can’t. And this is where oversights and human error come into play and wind up costing your company a pretty penny.
Avoidable mistakes such as human error are just one of the many arguments that can be made for employing a cloud service provider. Having a CSP take over the day-to-day responsibilities of managing your cloud environment will help alleviate a huge portion of your workload, allowing you and your team to dedicate your full attention and focus to your pressing IT tasks.
You might ask yourself, “What can a cloud service provider do for me that I can’t do myself?” But what you should be really asking yourself is, “What responsibilities can I outsource to a service provider to help me achieve my organization’s goals?” Since managed cloud providers specialize in providing optimized, compliant, and reliable cloud solutions, they assume full control of your cloud, backup, and disaster recovery environment. This includes, but is not limited to, building, monitoring, upgrading, and patching systems 24x7x365. With SLA-backed service, you can be certain that your systems will remain monitored, your backups will be readily available, and your disaster recovery environment will work when you need it most.
According to an Information Technology Intelligence Consulting (ITIC) survey, the average cost of hourly downtime for enterprises can run somewhere between $300,000 and $400,000. That’s a pretty substantial loss if you ask me. Using a cloud service provider reduces the cost, stress, and aggravation associated with downtime. With a CSP, downtime can be mitigated and avoided altogether. CSPs generally provide an agreement of 99.999% uptime, ensuring that your environment is always available.
Not only can CSPs help you develop a properly curated uptime strategy, but they can also help define your RACI Matrixes, Runbooks, Change Control, and even Standard Operating Procedures for your team’s interaction with the cloud service provider.
To wrap this all up, CSPs allow you to shift accountability, have an extension of your internal IT team, and most importantly, give you confidence that your environment is in good hands.
Now that we’ve laid the facts out for you, relying on a cloud provider doesn’t seem like it’s such a bad idea after all now does it?
