As voice and video continue to flood IP networks, demand for storage will continue to escalate. Instead of buying on-site storage, backup and recovery systems, many businesses are opting to outsource these offerings to manage storage service providers. Get Started: Register to enter our Resource Center, where you can download guides to emerging managed storage services. And check back often. We post new guides in the MSPmentor Resource Center every week.
The vast majority of successful MSPs say they now offer managed storage services. In most cases, I suspect, those services involve basic backup and restore capabilities. Still, a growing number of industry partnerships could help you leap from “backup” services to “contingency planning” services, which are far more strategic.
A case in point: N-able Technologies and Iron Mountain have inked a partnership that could empower managed service providers with Iron Mountain’s LiveVault server backup service. The relationship comes only a few weeks after EMC and Symantec each said they were launching managed storage services for VARs and customers.
More than 70 percent of leading MSPs already offer some form of managed storage, according to our recent MSPmentor 100 report. In order to stand out from the crowd, a growing number of MSPs are coupling automated storage management with on-site contingency planning and other services. Read More >
Economic concerns continue in the US, but some clear IT spending trends are beginning to surface. If you look at recent financial results from networking companies, PC companies, software specialists and service providers, you can get a better feel for how to shape your managed services practice for the rest of 2008. Read More >
If you’re still skeptical about managed services and software as a service (SaaS), spend a day at Long Island’s Hofstra University. Roughly 13,000 Hofstra students have access to Google Apps Education Edition to collaborate online, according to Robert W. Juckiewicz, Hofstra’s VP of IT.
The university’s ongoing experience with SaaS — and Hofstra’s future goals — provide some clear hints about how the corporate software market may evolve.
Nobody is predicting the death of Microsoft Office, but it’s clear from case studies like Hofstra that Google Apps and Microsoft’s desktop productivity suite are on a long-term collision course.
After a year of anticipation, Symantec finally launched its managed service/software-as-a-service platform today. The Symantec Protection Network (SPN) initially supports storage services, with security services expected to arrive later this year or sometime in 2009.
Right out of the gate, SPN offers close integration with Symantec Backup Exec. That’s an important point: Hooks between SPN and Backup Exec could provide VARs and MSPs with a powerful one-two punch in the managed services market. Here’s why. Read More >
For the second time in a week, I’m hearing buzz about managed service providers working more closely with Amazon.com’s Simple Storage Service (also known as Amazon S3). For MSPs, the trick is embracing a reliable back-end storage service without mitigating your own brand in the market. Read More >
If I was managed service provider, I’d target a market niche real fast and dig real deep. Or I’d go broad really fast by offering a lengthly list of managed services. The reason: Big technology companies are realizing that can no longer afford to ignore the MSP and software-as-a-service (SaaS) markets.
EMC and SAP, for instance, are discussing a potential relationship that could allow EMC to host SAP applications for small businesses. The discussions have surfaced only a few weeks after EMC unveiled a SaaS-based storage service.
Some pundits say managed services will become a commodity. I disagree. Managed services are not a single technology. Rather, managed service provider (MSP) platforms are a way to continually deliver new solutions to customers.
Think of it this way: As one managed service matures (for instance, managed storage) a new managed service will emerge (for instance, video surveillance). In order to show this visually, let’s take a look at Gartner’s famed Hype Cycle chart.
Now stick with me, and I’l quickly explain how I see the MSP market evolving.
Big companies — EMC, and soon Symantec — are making big moves into the managed services market. But Vembu Technologies of Chennai (Madras), India, has quietly built a global managed storage business of its own.
More than 550 partners now use StorGrid, Vembu’s backup and storage solution. And Vembu is seeking to push its global partner network to more than 1,000 companies, according to Lakshmanan Narayan, president of Vembu. Read More >
