Philadelphia Cloud Computing: How Managed Services Can Ease Your Cloud Transition

It’s time to move to the cloud. But transitioning to the cloud can be a lengthy, involved process. How can you know whether cloud services are right for you? How can you know the right way to implement them? The answer is a managed service provider. A managed service provider can give you the support that you need to safely switch to a Philadelphia cloud computing environment.

Why Should Your Business Transition to Cloud Services in Philadelphia?

If your business wants to remain competitive, the answer is the cloud. Cloud solutions are scalable and accessible. With cloud solutions, businesses are able to support remote staff, while decentralizing and protecting their infrastructure. A cloud solution can deploy additional resources as needed, thereby allowing the business to pay for only the resources that it uses. There are many notable cloud benefits in terms of productivity, cost-effectiveness, and scalability.

Cloud solutions are easier and more affordable to maintain than on-premise solutions. When deployed correctly, they can also be more secure. With cloud solutions in place, a business can scale up or down to any size without having to invest a significant amount in infrastructure. And applications are moving to the cloud all the time: The future is in the cloud.

Windows Server 2008 is presently approaching end-of-life, which means that many companies are now looking into changing their server architecture regardless. If your company needs to invest in additional server technology, it might as well invest in an off-premise, cloud-based solution. On-premise servers are expensive to build and maintain. Cloud-based solutions produce far less overhead and offer greater levels of flexibility and agility.

How Can Managed IT Help Your Transition to Cloud Hosting?

There are many steps to a successful cloud migration. MSPs have helped countless clients transition over to the cloud, and will be able to transition this experience and expertise to your migration. Without an MSP, your company will need to investigate and prepare for a transition on your own, and that could take considerable time away from other business processes.

MSPs are able to research your company’s needs, find the appropriate cloud solutions for your business, and create a migration plan for your business to follow. Once the cloud solutions have been established, the work isn’t over; an MSP will help you monitor and maintain your cloud-based applications for better productivity and security.

Transitioning to a cloud-based solution can be a lot of work, and it also takes time. Rather than having to allocate your own employees to this transition (and potentially drawing them away from other important, day-to-day tasks), you can outsource the entire process of the transition to an MSP. This allows your employees to continue focusing on more important tasks.

The Most Substantial Cloud Migration Mistakes

Cloud solutions are versatile and scalable, but there are ways that they can be implemented incorrectly. Here are four of the biggest cloud migration mistakes:

• Not selecting the right vendor. Today, there are a number of advanced cloud-based solutions: Microsoft, Amazon, and Google are the most prominent. But while these are all cloud-based solutions, they aren’t made equal. Businesses frequently just select a cloud-based solution that they’re familiar with, but this may not be the best option for them. An MSP will understand the strengths of each vendor and be able to suggest the best vendor for the client, both in terms of functionality and in budget.
• Not thinking about third-party integration. Third-party solutions are often what makes cloud infrastructure shine, but they can be difficult to manage during an infrastructure change. Your existing third-party solutions may not work with a new cloud-based architecture, or some changes may need to be made to your current technology stack to transition it to a cloud-based solution. An MSP will investigate your current solutions to make sure that they can all be transitioned safely to the cloud. If they cannot be, then the MSP will find other solutions.
• Not preparing adequately for the transition. It’s important that a business consider its cloud-based architecture thoroughly before investing in it. Will the company use a private cloud, a public cloud, or a mix between the two? The company must prepare itself by figuring out its architecture in advance, in addition to preparing and training employees. MSPs are able to create an entire plan for the business, including determining the type of cloud infrastructure the company needs, and organizing training for employees.
• Not protecting their data. Cloud hosting Philadelphia solutions require different methods of protecting data. A major advantage to a cloud solution is that it is accessible, but this accessibility can also expose a company to risk if security isn’t handled correctly. MSPs have the experience necessary to ensure that a cloud solution is protected; in fact, a protected cloud solution can be even safer than many on-premise solutions. MSPs will further create disaster recovery plans and backups for the company’s critical data, to make sure that the company is able to bounce back from any data-related issues.

These cloud migration mistakes can be avoided by using an experienced MSP. A managed services provider will be able to work with you to make sure that you are prepared for your transition, and that the services that you select are the right services for you.

Through cloud computing, your business can improve upon its technology and streamline its business processes. An MSP can help. Do you have more questions about switching to cloud computing? contact Red River. to learn more.