MARKET REPORT MSP
“We see businesses shifting their attention over the next 12 months to their in-house capabilities and the
use of technologies to create greater efficiencies, boost productivity and ultimately, to find margin.”
Nick Sacke, Head
IoT and Products,
Comms365
before deploying across the
board.”
Ben Savage, Sales and
Marketing Director, Timico,
commented “ e adoption
to public cloud also brings a
great opportunity for MSPs.
is adoption is happening
at an increasing rate, but
there are many applications
that businesses can’t migrate
to the cloud. It is here that
MSPs, looking to add value
to their clients, could focus
their e orts to boost business
growth. ese applications are
often customised to certain
businesses, and are designed
to carry out a speci c task,
so it is vital that MSPs have
advanced knowledge of what
each application is, and why it
is important to that customer.
is knowledge will help MSPs
manage the application more
e ectively, as well as unlock
new growth potential in the
future.”
On the future and the multicloud
opportunity, Drinkall
commented, “In the early days,
multi-cloud came from the
uncertainties of cloud reliability
and businesses wanted to
prevent data loss or downtime,
and rightly so. However, this
has since evolved, and multi-
Kevin Drinkall, EMEA Wireless and Cloud Market Development Manager at Zyxel
WHY SD-WAN? DELIVERY IS EVERYTHING
Nick Sacke, Head IoT and Products, Comms365
“In a cloud dominated user environment, the quality and reliability of
the WAN to deliver application performance has become an essential
component of IT infrastructure design. The current consensus is that
traditional MPLS networks struggle with the volume of Internet-based
cloud traffi c, the diversity of routing locations (applications are delivered
from multiple clouds, not a single datacentre), and ensuring application
performance across both MPLS and Internet-bearing services. The
impact of this is an increase in the number of customers evaluating and
requesting SD-WAN solutions from their service providers. Indeed, it
would be hard to fi nd an organisation today taking the decision to go for
traditional MPLS without considering the SD-WAN alternative. Given the
increasing commitment to improving user experience and enhancing the
management of application performance, it is the ease with which the
benefi ts of the SD-WAN technology can be utilised – from agility and rapid
change to multi-linked failover and application prioritisation – that should
be an essential consideration.
And as such, the way in which organisations decide to deploy SD-WAN
will be key. Right now in the UK it is the Managed SD-WAN service model
that dominates the market, as experienced MSPs can rapidly deploy
the solution with demonstrable high performance and multiple built-in
capabilities from day one, meaning that organisations can reap the benefi ts
almost immediately. Replicating the familiar outsourced services used by
many organisations to achieve WAN connectivity, MSPs are rapidly adding
SD-WAN technologies to existing managed services portfolios. The services
include every aspect of the SD-WAN solution, from hardware to software,
networking and connectivity, all delivered within the standard Service Level
Agreement (SLA) model.”
cloud environments have
become driven by business need
for the di ering features o ered
by di erent providers, as well
as the geographic location of
o ces and the cloud providers.
From an MSP’s perspective, the
key challenge in managing these
environments is minimalising
cloud for cloud-sake, often
using multiple providers means
there is an overlap when it
comes to o erings, duplicating
tasks and the time needed to
manage multiple providers. On
the other hand, as the cloud
evolves, MSPs will need to keep
one step ahead (where possible)
by learning new skills and
ensuring existing work ows
and processes still apply to
their customers’ new working
environments.”
MSP Challenges
If you have taken an established
business into the cloud you
will be aware that it isn’t
always plain sailing. Company
behaviour, culture, as well as a
myriad of technical challenges
can all bring a level of
complexity to any transition.
Jim Lippie, Kaseya senior
vice president, partner
development, said “Key
For example, the perceived level
of authority and in uence of
the IT team can be considered
as being eroded and unless the
team members have a cloud
mindset, you can be met with
the closed doors of people who
are resistant to change.
Questions may also be
raised about the organisation’s
resilience – will it be negatively
a ected when the service is
moved to the cloud? Are the
people running the cloud
solutions as dedicated as our own
IT team? With a service that
can be managed from any part
of the world, data protection,
connectivity and security are key
concerns that providers must be
prepared to address.
Compliance can be another
major challenge, especially
in heavily regulated markets.
Procurement teams often ask for
proof of various accreditations
>
industry trends including
heightened attention to
security; the requirement for
data protection and back-up in
a data-driven world; and the
need to manage hybrid and
multi-cloud environments,
present a combination of crucial
challenges for MSPs. Cloud
adoption is certainly a key area
of concern for many MSPs,
arguably second only in order of
importance to cyber-security.”
Andrew Cheel commented,
“ ere are three main
challenges that we see as
a cloud provider. e rst
and perhaps one of the most
prevalent concerns can come
from the on-site IT teams, who
are used to controlling and
running all the hardware for
the company. By moving to the
cloud, services will move to an
external provider and this can
sometimes bring up problems.
46 | Comms Business Magazine | May 2019 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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