The Right Tools Make the Difference in Cloud Partnerships

Delivering cloud services to your customers means having the right tools and capabilities. From technical support to infrastructure, there are many components necessary to meet the expectations of those that count on you to host their applications, sites, and services. It’s easy to think of these tools and capabilities in a linear fashion that includes your technical infrastructure (like servers and switches), your support infrastructure (your NOC, SOC, and helpdesk) and the partners that help you with both. But have you ever stopped to think about the tools that those same partners rely on to support you? In this post, we’ll take a look at how a strong partnership can be dependent on the tools and processes your partners use internally, and how those things impact your business and your customers.

Why managing the cloud is difficult

Let’s step back. It is important to understand why managing the cloud and delivering cloud services is difficult in the first place. A proper cloud environment inherently includes a level of complexity that isn’t necessarily present in traditional hosting environments. A single virtual private server has only so many potential points of failure or disruption. As a result, supporting a single VPS and keeping it maintained is usually a straightforward process. If the server goes offline, slows down, or suffers a breach, then there are only so many things that could have gone wrong.

A cloud environment is a different animal entirely. From scalable resources to clusters, to network switches, and the servers themselves, cloud deployments are inherently more complex. As a result, the care and attention required to keep cloud environments operating at peak performance are greater than maintaining a more traditional VPS or dedicated server operational.

Cloud Partnerships as an opportunity for growth

In recent years more and more managed services providers have looked to the cloud not just to add revenue but also to keep up with client demands. As businesses move more and more to cloud deployments and away from traditional infrastructure, more and more MSPs have found a way to bring this offering into their portfolio. But while many MSPs now provide cloud services to clients, the majority are doing so through partnership rather than building their own clouds.

Why? Building a cloud on your own is both expensive and labor-intensive. Purchasing and provisioning dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of servers is an expense few companies can or should make. More prudent is partnering with a cloud provider that already has the infrastructure in place.

This kind of partnership gives the cloud provider a new sales funnel in the MSP, and provides the MSP with the ability to offer a service that customers are adopting at an accelerated rate. On the surface, the partnership between MSP and Cloud providers is a great match.

Digging deeper into cloud partnerships

A good cloud partnership can offer your clients many benefits that you may not be able to provide yourself. In addition to offering cloud services in the first place, the right cloud partner will offer an SLA that meets or exceeds your customer expectations, giving you the ability to deliver a high level of service backed by a warranty from your partner. The partnership can offer improved uptime, enhanced security features, and reliability that help your managed services business shine. Finally, the right cloud partner can provide specific or niche services that open new segments of the market to your sales efforts. From application-specific hosting to compliance capabilities around HIPAA or PCI, the right cloud partnership can help your business grow.

How the right tools factor into your success

That said, not all cloud providers are created equal. Just as your own company, made up of people, processes, and technology, so too are cloud providers and the partners with whom you work. One great way to evaluate the potential success of a cloud partnership is to look at a deeper level at the tools your partner has at their disposal.

For example, a cost-competitive cloud provider might be less expensive because the hardware they use is older and less reliable. What effect will that have on the SLA? All the cost savings in the world won’t assuage an angry customer when an old server finally breaks for good.

Additionally, the tools utilized to manage cloud deployments are integral to keeping the cloud environment running optimally. Is your cloud partner managing everything by hand and with disparate systems, or is there a cohesive and well-considered workflow to ensure that updates, monitoring, and security are appropriately handled?

Even things like support should have the right systems, tools, and processes in place to support your needs and, by extension, the needs of your customers. If your cloud partner of choice doesn’t offer weekend support, but many of your clients are open on the weekends, this may be a problem. How will their needs be serviced in the event of a crisis like an outage or a hack? Are you going to tell your customer to wait until Monday morning just because your cloud partner is closed for the weekend? Support tooling should include a simple way to submit requests and tickets as well as a simple way to track progress until an issue is resolved.

How to evaluate cloud partners and their tools

When deciding whether or not to partner with a cloud provider, it is essential to view the relationship at many levels. Sure, adding a cloud offering to your services catalog is exciting, but only if you do so in a way that serves your clients and your own company well. The best way to make sure that your cloud partner is in a position to support your specific needs and the needs of your customers is to make sure you ask questions that go a little deeper.

●       Physical tools - from the data center security to the age of the servers, you want your cloud partner to be reliable on multiple levels. A couple of racks of servers in a climate control warehouse is a far cry different from a Tier I data center with enhanced physical security and redundant power supplies and connectivity. Getting the details on hardware age and maintenance schedule are equally essential for you to understand.

●       Personnel as a tool - A cloud partner doesn’t need to have a large employee base to be of high quality, but it helps to know who you’ll be dealing with. If nighttime support is outsourced to a third party, then that would be helpful to know. If there is an engineer with a decade of experience available 24 hours a day, then that is also helpful to know. From support to engineering to systems administrators, you should view the “people tools” that are helping power your partner as integral to your overall success.

●       Software tools - As detailed earlier, managing a cloud is a tricky business. From monitoring individual components to the care and feeding of the entire deployment, ensuring the actual cloud offered by your partner is running smoothly requires a variety of software tools. While there is a wide range of options available, your cloud partner must have a reliable system in place to keep the cloud in good health. Ask not only what software is being utilized for monitoring and management, but also how the tools work together. All too often, the complexity of internal systems creates friction when there is a crisis. Understanding HOW your partner works on their cloud is every bit as important as the specifications of the cloud itself.

How SUSE offers reliable cloud partnerships (sorry for the plug - 😊)

SUSE has alliances with public cloud providers like AWS, Microsoft, and Google, a long term strategic co-innovation alliance with SAP, and major partnerships with Dell, HPE, and IBM. These relationships provide a solid fountain for any MSP/CSP wanting to expand their offerings to the cloud or on-premises. We have SUSE Assist Service to help you optimize your environment.  Additionally, our system management tool, SUSE Manager, can maintain your heterogenous Linux environments, whether on-premises or in the cloud of your choice. Our approach is to free you to focus on your customer, allowing you to differentiate your offering and grow your business in the environment that fits your needs.

Some cloud providers try and put all partners in the same box, offering the same solution. Our team understands that your managed services business is one-of-a-kind, and each customer need is unique. To learn more about how our team can help your partner strategy be an engine of growth, contact us here. We would enjoy the opportunity to know your business better and find a way to put our tools to work for you.