3 Reasons MSPs Can’t Afford to Overlook IaaS

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is the fastest growing cloud service. Gartner predicts IaaS will outpace public cloud growth predictions by 2x in 2017 alone. Where worldwide public cloud services are expected to increase by 18 percent, IaaS is expected to expand by nearly 37 percent to reach just over $34 billion by the end of 2017.

Conglomerates like Oracle are trying to capitalize on this growth opportunity by acquiring companies that give them access to a broader IaaS toolset. While certainly a winning business strategy, this type of smashed-together solution can leave much to be desired in the way of integration and value-added services.

As top vendors seek to cash in on the high stakes IaaS market, MSPs will have to make their evaluation processes more rigorous if they want to find the right IaaS solution for their business.

Here are 3 reasons to select an IaaS service provider who can customize their solution based on your business needs:

1. Singular Focus

High-volume vendors with several focus areas find it difficult to deliver best-in-class solutions. Even if they skip ahead by acquiring a successful IaaS platform, it still takes a tremendous amount of time, energy, and effort to integrate the newly acquired platform into their business and deliver the support necessary to deliver top-notch value to MSPs.

With an IaaS-only vendor, there’s a singular focus on making the IaaS platform as effective as possible for users.

2. Flexibility

Another challenge that arises from leveraging a big-box IaaS provider is the inflexibility of their service plans. Because these vendors deliver such a high volume of services, they’re not able to deliver scalable service plans that empower MSPs to buy only what they need.

Instead, MSPs are given a handful of static service plans to choose from, and they often end up paying for more than they need simply because there isn’t an option that fits their throughput needs.

3. High-Capacity Connectivity

As organizations need more bandwidth to run compute-intensive, analytical reports and 4K video, they need increasingly faster, higher-capacity IaaS. This is where you need to find the right IaaS vendor for your project. You need a vendor that can give you the platform required to painlessly scale clients’ capacity up or down while still delivering fast (80Gbs) and affordable service.

Top 5 IaaS Benefits

1. Supports innovation
2. Delivers high-capacity connectivity
3. Enables big data mining
4. Normalizes IT networks
5. Enables secure connections with other virtual networks and Internet Service Providers (ISPs)

Trends Driving IaaS Forward

In many ways, IaaS is a gateway into offering cloud services. Right now, it’s the hottest cloud technology, with Gartner predicting every enterprise company to have some form of IaaS in place by the end of 2017.

As big data continues to rise in popularity and companies seek to mine their own internal data warehouses for best practices, IaaS can keep IT networks normalized. At the same time, IaaS is also enabling secure, high-capacity connectivity to Internet Service Providers (ISP)s and other virtual networks, so organizations can efficiently run, compile, and share robust analytical reports that can be used to drive better organizational decision-making.

Even though it might be time consuming to research IaaS providers, it is essential that you do because every project is different, and you need a vendor that is willing to work with you and truly enable your business.  

About the Author

Aaron Garza oversees the Pax8 effort in developing deeper channel relationships with partners and vendors. He brings nearly a decade of Cloud and Managed Hosting Industry experience primarily focused in on the SMB market. His range of Leadership and engagement on the customer, commercial, and enterprise level garner the knowledge and experience that benefit Channel partners and the overall organization. Learn more about Aaron and Pax8 on its website.