Why Use an MSP for AWS Cloud Migration?
You’re thinking of moving your organization to the cloud. It makes sense: it’s cost-effective and scalable. But it’s also complex. An AWS cloud migration could be the best choice for your organization — it very likely is. But a botched AWS cloud migration could also lead to widespread disruption.
A managed services partner (MSP) can help.
An MSP will help you build your migration journey, support you through your migration process and help you maintain, optimize and troubleshoot your deployment in the future. Let’s look at some major reasons why you should consider using an MSP to help your organization’s AWS cloud migration — or even determine whether the benefits AWS offers are right for your business.
MSPs Can Help You Design a Migration Plan
AWS partners are experts in AWS migration strategies and AWS migration tools. MSPs can help you design a comprehensive and customized migration plan that meets your specific needs and goals. They will consider your current infrastructure, applications and workloads to create a plan to minimize downtime and disruption during the migration process.
Without an MSP, you would need to create this plan yourself. Doing so can be complicated and time-consuming — and missing even a single integration could be disastrous. If you don’t have experience with migration planning, you may not be aware of all the potential risks and issues that can arise. As always in tech, you don’t know what you don’t know.
MSPs Have Experience Migrating to AWS
Is this your organization’s first migration? How many AWS migrations have your internal tech team handled?
MSPs have experience migrating customers to AWS. They may have migrated dozens, hundreds or even thousands of clients successfully. They are familiar with the AWS platform and know how to correctly migrate customer workloads to AWS while providing the organization with the most value. This experience can help ensure a smooth and successful migration.
And sometimes things go wrong regardless. An MSP will know what to do when something goes wrong, whereas an internal team may have no choice but to roll back and start from square one. When it comes to systems as complex (and powerful) as AWS, experience matters.
MSPs Can Help You Optimize Your Existing Workloads
MSPs can assist with migrating your workloads to AWS. They can help you plan and execute the migration and provide guidance on which AWS services best suit your workloads. Consider that you may use two applications, both available for AWS and well-integrated. But your MSP may be aware of a single application that can take on the entirety of your workload at half the price.
MSPs spend a great deal of time updating themselves on new technologies and what is available in the Amazon ecosystem. This is time spent that would be otherwise unreasonable for an MSP to manage on their own.
MSPs Can Help You Optimize Your AWS Deployment
Once your workloads have been moved to AWS, MSPs can help you optimize your AWS environment for performance and cost. They will work with you to identify and implement your workloads’ best AWS services and configurations. This is more essential than you may think.
It’s easy to lose track of your costs when you transition to a cloud infrastructure. Your costs are no longer static, and because of that, they can be challenging to control. Frequently, they are even difficult to estimate.
An MSP has the experience necessary to reduce your cloud resource usage and maintain a scalable, cost-effective deployment. MSPs will manage and monitor your expenditures so you can avoid spending too much and make suggestions for future adjustments.
MSPs Can Help You Manage Your AWS Environment
Once deployed, MSPs can help you manage your AWS environment, including monitoring and troubleshooting issues. They can also provide guidance on best practices for managing an AWS environment.
Even better, they can provide 24/7 support. It would be prohibitively expensive to have a 24/7 internal team, but your MSP can provide one. Your MSP will know if your AWS deployment is attacked at 2 AM. Would your internal team?
MSPs Can Improve Your Security and Compliance
MSPs can help you secure and protect your data in the cloud. They can also ensure that your deployments comply with industry regulations.
Data breaches are becoming more common, and the potential damages are increasing. A single data breach can cost an organization millions of dollars—and that’s if you’re lucky. Many companies never recover from a data breach.
An MSP can provide the security expertise and tools necessary to protect your data in the cloud. They will also be familiar with the compliance requirements for your industry and can help you ensure that your AWS deployment meets all relevant regulations.
MSPs Can Help You Automate and Scale
MSPs can help you scale your AWS environment to meet changing demands. They can assist with adding or removing resources and scaling applications and services.
MSPs can also help you automate your AWS deployments. Automation can save you time and money and help ensure that your deployments are consistent. An MSP can help you implement the automation tools and processes necessary to manage your AWS environment effectively.
In short, an MSP can provide significant value to an organization migrating to or using AWS. They can help you optimize your deployment, manage your environment, improve your security and compliance posture and automate and scale your AWS environment.
How to Find the Right MSP for Your AWS Cloud Migration
The right MSP for cloud migration is an MSP that specializes in AWS migrations. They will have experience migrating workloads to AWS and be familiar with the platform. They should also be able to provide you with a plan and guidance on how to optimize your deployment.
When searching for an MSP, consider their:
- Experience migrating to AWS and with AWS migration tools
- Ability to help you optimize your existing workloads
- Familiarity with your organization and industry
- Security and compliance expertise
- 24/7 support availability
Take the time to interview multiple MSPs. Ask for testimonials, look up reviews and familiarize yourself with their working methods. You are getting a partner for your business, not a group of technicians.
Conclusion
There are many benefits to using an MSP for an AWS cloud migration—these are just a few of the most important. MSPs will ultimately reduce your workload and the risk of disruption while ensuring that your AWS migration is cost-effective and scalable. When you engage with an MSP, you gain both an AWS expert and a dedicated partner. A partner already understands all the AWS migration tools and strategies. Your MSP will be there to support your organization through any challenges that arise—and will be there to help you future-proof your system.
Today, there are few advantages to maintaining an internal, specialized team of experts. But an MSP will operate like an internal team of experts at a fraction of the cost. If you’re interested in the benefits of AWS cloud migration or need help with an active migration, the time to contact Red River is now.
