How to Choose a Cloud Managed Services Broker

By Special Guest
Steve Malone, Demand Generation Manager, Netfast Technology Solutions

More and more IT leaders agree that the cloud is a powerful platform to improve business agility. However, it is critical that cloud services are managed properly. Failure to effectively execute cloud migration or management can lead to serious issues for a business.

For this reason, many IT directors – especially in smaller to midsized companies with limited resources – are turning to Cloud Managed Services providers or brokers in order to migrate, optimize and manage their cloud applications. There is currently a flood of these providers on the market (probably calling and emailing you every day) but what variables are important in choosing the right cloud management provider?

Here are the three most important concerns for any business seeking a new CMS provider:  

Cloud Security

Security is top of mind for most IT leaders (and their CEOs) today. It should be at the top of the list for anyone looking to migrate to the cloud or choose a cloud services broker. If you put your applications and trust in a company that is not secure enough, it can lead to disaster for SMBs. The best cloud managed services providers integrate with the leaders in public cloud such as Amazon Web Services (News - Alert). They also partner their management platform with a Security Operations Center and Amazon Inspector in order to log all activity and data to associate it back to threats.

Application Integration

If your applications won’t work with your CMS, then why even bother migrating to the cloud? Check to see if a smooth integration works with your web applications or other popular cloud based software such as Office 365 and SalesForce.

Ability to Understand your Business and Cloud Computing Needs

The cloud provides you almost unlimited computing capacity, but not at a limited cost. The reality is most SMBs do not need the full service suite that Amazon Web Services can provide. The problem is that many SMBs also don’t understand exactly cloud services they need to run their business. Here is another area where a trusted Cloud Managed Services provider can help: they should provide tools in order to plan your cloud workloads, optimize costs, and ensure that you are maximizing the ROI from the cloud investment.

About the Author and Netfast

Steve Malone is the Demand Generation Manager at Netfast Technology Solutions (News - Alert)

Netfast is a Cloud Managed Services Provider enabling its Mid-Tier Enterprise customers to accelerate their Digital Business transformation with managed Cloud and Mobile solutions.

Our Cloud Migration and Manager platform integrates directly with leading public cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft (News - Alert) Azure along with leading applications such as Office 365, Sharepoint and SalesForce in order to help client maximize the ROI from their cloud investment.

As a leading cloud services broker in the New York City Metro area Netfast is well-positioned to help you as the IT leader become the hero of the business by downsizing your massive data center spend and achieve a more agile, digital, just-in-time delivery of IT services for your business.

Edited by Kyle Piscioniere