To listen to some of the cloud computing vendors tell it, all data has to be delivered remotely from a data center and on-premise installations are evaporating. So when I find out that Azaleos, which provides managed Microsoft Exchange services (among others), isn’t betting the company on a cloud strategy, it gives me pause. Here’s the scoop.
Seattle-based Azaleos (pronounced Ahz-AY-lee-ohs, almost like an Azalia flower) was formed about five years ago by several Microsoft veterans. Their goal: Provide nothing but Exchange appliances installed on-premises.
Ironically, remotely managing the Exchange installations was almost an afterthought, concedes, Scott Gode, VP of product management and marketing at Azaleos. But as any MSP reading this can guess, customers welcomed the remote management.
Over time, Azaleos expanded to remotely managed Active Directory, Office Communications Server (OCS) and BlackBerry Enterprise Server, and Microsoft Sharepoint back in April 2009. More recently, Azaleos has introduced managed services for Exchange 2010.
Ironically, Gode says he’s seen very little demand for off-premises managed services. While the cloud is on his radar, Gode says it’s not part of Azaleos’ urgent focus.
Still, Azaleos isn’t ignoring the cloud. The company in mid-2009 started pitching “hybrid services,” which refers to their system for getting on-premise and hosted applications to talk to each other. The example Gode used was that of a company with an on-premises Exchange server in an American branch and a hosted solution for the same in a London office. While Gode says there hasn’t been much call for it yet, he thinks that the growth of the cloud will inevitably lead to an explosion in demand as businesses experience on-premise/off-premise challenges.
Another way that Azaleos has broken step with many other service providers: They don’t have a traditional partner program — because the effort turned out to be more trouble than it was worth. Instead, Azaleos has a very selective partner network, which includes companies like IBM and Verizon Business. Both provide managed Exchange delivered by Azaleos.
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Posted In: Managed Service Provider | On Premise | Software as a Service and Hardware as a Service
Tags: active directory | Azaleos | Azaleos VP product mangement and marketing Scott Gode | blackberry enterprise server | IBM | managed exchange | ocs | partner | SharePoint | Verizon Business
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Hybrid Cloud Computing models are becoming more acceptable to IT departments. Moving less important applications to cloud services frees up computing resources for peak loads and poses less of a security risk than moving the entire infrastructure outside a company’s walls. A public private cloud mix of sorts is becoming the model of choice at least for some IT organizations. In retail and service sectors that have seasonally variable work loads it makes sense to move some applications to the cloud.
http://www.cloud.in/hybrid-clouds-help-move-in-the-cloud/
Rich: Thanks for your links and thoughts. Mind if I ask whom you represent?
-jp
Rich,
That is some interesting insight.
Would you be able to lend any expertise in regards to what challenges you are seeing when engaging end clients on Cloud computing?
Thank,
Erik
I agree with Rich, as I believe in many companies there is information they just wont relinquish to the cloud. Even as more information becomes digitized and greater restrictions and regulations come to industries like finance and health care, some will be archived and offsite and/or in the cloud and some will be left on premise. As a commercial finance firm, I wouldn’t feel comfortable about all my client info and other proprietary info out there in the cloud, at least not yet.
Stu
Stu,
When viewing options for storage and archiving in the cloud, can you lend your opinion on how much SAS 70 Type II and other compliance certifications weigh in to your decision making on whether or not to partner with such a company?
I also agree with Rich that it’s good to start a cloud experience with less important applications since it manages risk to an organization. Eventually any application or service will be game in moving to the cloud. Regarding security and data control, there are a number of private cloud options that address this concern, some external and others internal, for example Amazon offers a virtual private cloud (http://aws.amazon.com/vpc/) that has isolated compute resources and connects via VPN to the end-user’s enterprise datacenter. Co-lo facilities also serve well to securely house private cloud infrastructures. It’s also becoming very popular to implement internal on-premise private cloud solutions.
Whatever cloud infrastructure a business opts to employ, public or private, internal or external, or any combination, it will require end-to-end availability and performance monitoring, Nimsoft can outfit MSPs to offer this high value managed service.
Ken Vanderweel
Marketing Director – Service Providers
Nimsoft, Inc.
Ken: You said it all in your first line: MSPs need to at least “start” a cloud experience. I hear from a lot of readers who are busy “researching” what to do. I recommend putting multiple toes in the water….
1. Have a portion of your staff live in Google Docs, Zoho or Microsoft Office Web (when it arrives in 2010).
2. Sign up for a SaaS storage or SaaS security reseller program and use the service within your own company for six months. How did it work?
3. Test a range of dashboards to see who really gives you a single view of on-premise and cloud-based services.
4. Set up briefings with emerging cloud-centric companies (The Planet, RightScale, Eucalyptus, etc.).
5. Make a move. Don’t just read. Do.
-jp
Great thoughts contributed here! From where, seems that while Azalia’s niche doesn’t appear to have a near-term threat, there are undercurrents of complacency or denial creeping into their strategic decisions. They’d be better served to take Joe’s advice to do, not think, more.
I’d also offer that the perceptions above of the Cloud being home to systems described here as ‘less important’ may be off-base. We’re seeing solutions/services ready for primetime in the cloud qualify as unarguably mission critical but HEAVILY commoditized (email, for example). System that are essential to operations, but in and of themselves, contribute no strategic or competitive advantage to most organizations (unless you are a hosting provider.
).
Messaging and Collaboration systems are simply the ‘lowest hanging fruit’ in the Cloud space, and Integrators and Hosting companies will find ever increasingly more difficult sale prospects on the idea that they can do “it” better than players like Microsoft, Google, IBM and Novell. While smaller niche hosting companies may offer their own unique value propositions, the market needs confidence that they’ve chosen the right partner to house their mission critical systems, and big payers instill just that, right out of the starting gate.
Niv Dolgin
Director, ITS
http://www.sadasystems.com
I don’t think Azaleos is complacent at all they’re clearly building on a growing service that customers want.
I still have yet to see cloud proponents offer real client success stories of how SMBs are benefitting from a cloud based solution vs. Traditonal on premise – until then we’re betting on on-premise ourselves with only cloud based backup and perimeter security solutions being the exceptions.
Joe thanks for continuing to evolve the discussion around this topic – I’m sure we’ll still be discussing it well into 2010
Best.