Soaring High Into 2013 With Cloud Services

By Colin Jack, lead systems engineer at Embotics Corporation

It is quite easy to predict that cloud computing will remain an elevated priority for IT departments and companies in 2013. For managed service providers (MSPs) who already provide online IT service offerings, the cloud presents a way to expand offerings and increase incoming revenue. In speaking with a number of service providers, we’ve seen that offering cloud solutions can be done without a large investment of time or infrastructure by using existing virtualized assets.

There are two underlying reasons why some MSPs are successful at this and others just plod along. The first is in which services are offered and how. We have all heard the phrase, “the proof is in the pudding.” MSPs that understand that the “proof is in the services” will be more successful than those who do not. MSPs whose businesses are flourishing never lose sight of how to offer fair, highly optimized services such as IT-as-a-Service (ITaaS) on-premises or through hosted capabilities, in addition to value-added professional services and technologies. The other main differentiator is the cloud management platform that you use to oversee services and customers. An automated cloud management solution reduces complexity on behalf of customers and administrators, resulting in optimized cloud services.

For service providers looking to expand their cloud services in 2013, we have gathered the following steps on how to create and manage cloud services for customers.