Why MSPs Matter

VIEW FROM THE CLOUD

Why MSPs Matter

By Doug Barney, TMCnet Editor at Large  |  January 03, 2014

Everybody knows how much the cloud matters. But what matters more and more are Managed Service Providers (MSPs). After all MSPs just represent a higher level of cloud services, one that adds management to the mix, offloading even more work from IT.

That’s why some estimates have it that 75% of companies already use some form of managed service.

Management is the key to all this, and drives a tighter relationship between MSPs and their IT clients.

Nemertes Research recognizes this and says so in its ‘Shift to “Enterprise Technology” Relies Upon Vendor Partners for Managed, Cloud Services’ report inked by founder Robin Gareiss. MSPs fundamentally change how IT is done. They enables companies to move from IT to being Enterprise Technology (ET) focused.

“Not only does this shift change the way business leaders view IT, it also alters the organizational structure of IT itself. In the ET world, the technology team becomes more strategic, and as a result, it relies more heavily on trusted partners to handle tactical functions—and in some cases, assist in strategic direction of the company,” Gareiss argues. “Managed and cloud services are playing an increasingly important role in enterprise organizations, with the network itself serving as the foundation for effective and strategic ET policy.”

Stratalux is an MSP and it lives firsthand what Nemertes theorizes about. Instead of using the term ET, Stratalux prefers CloudOps, and believes this is the model enterprises should move towards. While the cloud relieves IT of many mundane duties, migration and management are still labor intensive. But done right, the cloud lets IT focus on CloudOps, and here IT is far more strategic.

“IT’s role will change from one which configures and manages infrastructure, to one that develops infrastructure, enabling services such as Infrastructure-as-Code, Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment, and self-healing infrastructures all of which fall under the broader “DevOps” movement,” Stratalux believes.

MSPs Growing Stronger Everyday

The value of MSPs is being revealed through some pretty impressive growth. MSP sales will grow from $142 billion this year $256 billion by 2018 – nearly double, according to research house MarketsandMarkets. This demand is all driven by the need for IT efficiency.

“Organizations implementing managed services have reported almost 50-60% increase in the operational efficiency of their outsourced processes,” the research house says.

Those numbers are backed by INSIGHT Research in its “Managed Services in an IP World: Global Opportunities for Wireless and Wired Networks, 2013-2017” report.

INSIGHT sees the market growing at a CAGR of 11.3% a year worldwide, moving from $137 billion in 2012 to $235 billion in 2017.

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Edited by Stefania Viscusi
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