When Amazon.com announces earnings results on April 26, the online retailer will surely need to explain its recent cloud computing outage to investors and pundits. In the meantime, recent cloud setbacks at Amazon and Sony provide ample opportunity — yes, upside — for managed services providers (MSPs). Here’s why.
Sure, some rivals may celebrate the cloud setbacks at Amazon and Sony. But MSPs would be far wiser to study their own cloud strategies and what-if scenarios for end-customers.
- What if your primary provider of hosted Exchange, online backup, remote monitoring or PSA software went dark?
- How long could you afford to be dark, and what workarounds could you leverage?
- How can you help end-customers to maintain business operations during a cloud service outage?
Generally speaking, I think reputable cloud computing companies have strong track records keeping their services online. Still, the Amazon and Sony outages prove that even the richest companies with the deepest pockets can go dark. For MSPs, it’s a prime opportunity to discuss how certain clouds are designed, and perhaps explore hybrid cloud approaches that allow on-premise computing to continue when a back-end cloud service goes dark.
Still A True Believer
Despite the Amazon cloud setback in recent days, I don’t expect SMB customers to sour on cloud computing. This train has already left the station. Instead of dumping Amazon’s stock during the outage, investors are holding tight because they know Amazon Web Services is a long-term play that has momentum. Also, thousands of SMBs continue to flock to Salesforce.com, NetSuite, Rackspace, Terremark and other cloud-related platforms. And at the enterprise level big shifts also are occurring. The U.S. federal government, for instance, is striving to shift 25 percent of its annual IT budget to cloud computing.
The recent Amazon and Sony outages won’t reverse that trend. Nor will it slow that trend. Instead, end-customers will merely ask more questions as they evaluate cloud solutions. Will you have the answers they seek?
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Posted In: Cloud Computing | Service Level Agreements
Tags: Amazon Cloud Outage | Amazon Web Services | Cloud Outage | SMB cloud | Sony PlayStation Network Outage | Sony PSN Outage
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Joe:
I believe the best answer to a customer’s concerns about the reliability of a cloud service is first to point out that cloud services from reputable vendors will provide far better uptime than anything they can manage onsite. Then quickly follow up with a detailed plan of what happens in the event of a problem. You should consider how these contingency plans affect the overall budget and be sure these costs are accounted in the ROI calculations for the proposed cloud service.
Mitchell Cipriano
http://www.demandbydesign.com
Mitchell,
Thanks for offering some insights on this item and our recent distributor coverage as well. I appreciate your commitment to educating readers.
But cloud reliability and credibility is a tricky topic. Sony, for instance, has one of the world’s strongest brands. They’re a reputable company. Yet Sony concedes the Sony PlayStation Network cloud has been hacked… millions of customer identities may have been stolen and the game network is still offline.
I remain a firm believer in the cloud. It’s not the future. It’s now. But I think VARs and MSPs may need to have a backup plan in mind for each cloud service they offer…
-jp
Whether it’s a Cloud or on-site solution, neither is perfect and both need fall-back options and redundancy considerations. I’ve observed more than one IT company successfully engage a client in conversation about Disaster Recovery planning due to the interest in the Cloud and high-profile outages such as Amazon, whereas previously clients weren’t at all interested.
Cloud being an alternative to on-site seems to prompt clients to think realistically about the make-up of their IT Infrastructures.
Richard: Yup, crisis = opportunity for MSPs.
-jp
Thanks for the post Joe. I agree that people are going to start asking lots of questions about the cloud. Being proactive and preparing answers to those questions before they are asked is going to be key to building traction in the channel as an MSP. A couple questions that your end-users might ask about a cloud-based disaster recovery service.
1. With this solution, do you know that our confidential data will be safe and protected?
2. How does this solution ensure that our day-to-day work will go uninterrupted?
The question is not going to be “Should I use the cloud?” but rather “How can I adopt the cloud to make my business more efficient and profitable?
Mollie: I look forward to hearing more at the HTG Dallas conference.
-jp