Why Managed Services: Data Management

Managed services offer businesses an improved means of obtaining and managing the technology they rely on. With data being so important to the modern business, much of this technology is devoted to storing, securing, and leveraging this data. Working with a managed service provider can help a business get the most value out of their data management practices. Let’s go over how.

What Can a Managed Service Provider Do to Assist Your Data Management?

As we have done throughout this series, let’s compare the experience that a managed service provider delivers to the alternative.

Cloud Services

Tom’s business has a lot of data that needs to be stored, and quite a few applications that need to be run, as most businesses do. Tom elects to host his assorted solutions in-house. Jerry’s business also needs these solutions, but Jerry decides to utilize cloud services instead - storing his data and hosting his business-critical applications in the cloud for a monthly fee.

As a result, Tom is responsible for maintaining the hardware and software, which takes up a lot of his staff’s time and resources (or it doesn’t get done at all, which is dangerous). Furthermore, the infrastructure needed to host his solutions isn’t cheap, so a sizable investment needs to be made to procure it. Tom and his team are then responsible for everything - updating the solutions and securing them. As a result, Tom’s investment quickly becomes more expensive than first anticipated.

Jerry, on the other hand, reaches out to his managed service provider and is quickly connected to a trustworthy cloud service, leveraging his managed service provider’s professional relationships. Jerry is then able to store his data and host his applications in the space provided by the cloud service, without needing to do anything to maintain it. In exchange, he pays a predictable monthly fee based on his usage, protected by the cloud service’s uptime guarantee. 

Backup and Disaster Recovery

Let’s assume that the city in which Tom and Jerry both operate is hit by some natural disaster. The difference in their use (or lack of use) of cloud services via a managed service provider could spell all the difference in how well each company makes it through.

Take Tom’s company. Since his solutions are all in-house, the disaster could easily wipe them out, leaving him without his data… unless he’s been maintaining an offsite backup. Unfortunately, he has not - he has a copy of his files saved to a network-attached storage device, but nothing else. As a result, the disaster leaves him without any of his data… and his business is in some truly dire straits.

Jerry, on the other hand, has been using the cloud to host his data and applications. This means that, when the disaster strikes his business, his data isn’t there. Furthermore, his cloud service goes the extra mile and stores his data in multiple places, insulating it from being affected by the same disaster that makes a backup necessary in the first place. This means that Jerry’s data - indeed, the backbone of his business - is safe and sound, able to be recovered as needed.

Data Warehousing

Data warehousing is the process of combining seemingly unrelated data into a singular platform to help businesses fuel their business analytics and business intelligence platforms. These platforms are becoming more important by the day, and provide value by providing decision makers a thorough knowledge base.

This processing, as one would imagine, requires quite a bit of computing power - far more than Tom’s in-house system will be able to muster. Jerry, on the other hand, has his managed service provider to assist him. This gives him a definite advantage. In order to accomplish Jerry’s goals, the managed service provider can adjust his infrastructure to see to this analysis, opening him up to increased business opportunities.

Don’t Miss the Next Installment in this Series!

Up next, we’ll be discussing how a managed service provider can assist with IT procurement, so if you still haven’t subscribed, make sure to do so! Of course, Directive is available to discuss all of this with you as well, so if you can’t wait, give us a call at 607.433.2200!