For IT departments, cloud-managed services providers ensure in-house staff can focus on strategy and operations without being held back by routine management activities. A good cloud-managed service provider handles technology and infrastructure with expertise. That expertise can extend to ensuring compliance, managing applications, ensuring data integrity, and other services, all designed to let your business focus on getting ahead.
The key to success is to choose a cloud-managed service provider that is well suited for your priorities, goals, industry, and budget.
Here, we have some tips to help you narrow down your options to find the MSP that will partner with your business to accomplish great things.
Understand What Your Needs are Before Deciding
Managed services should not be a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all approach. To choose the right managed service provider, you first need to understand what you are looking for from an MSP. By first digging into what you want from the cloud, you can align those requirements with the MSP you select.
Your cloud-managed service provider should have experience and expertise with your particular infrastructure, industry, and workload. The MSP's job is to take your business needs and translate them into the right technology and resources to attain your goals. They should understand how to configure technology to suit your specific needs so you can find success every day.
You should also consider what availability you need from your MSP. Typically, the faster they can respond, the better. If you require or think you might need some on-site assistance, factor that into your decision as well.
Determine if the MSP Meets Your Future Needs
Along with looking at what your business needs from an MSP right now, you should also think about flexibility for the future. A cloud-managed service provider should be able to grow and shift as your business needs change. They should also be up to date on technology and committed to keeping up with new technology so they can guide your business as required.
Look at the Up-Time Guarantee and Other SLAs
Downtime is costly for companies, no matter how big or small your organization is or what industry you serve. Your MSP should understand this well, and offer an up-time guarantee in their service agreement that suits your needs.
At AOP, we believe that every business deserves the cloud's benefits, with 100 percent uptime. We aim for reliability and reliable access, which is why we built our own system to tie technology and business together. Working with us, you will find assurances that showcase how well we understand what businesses like yours need to succeed in partnership with an MSP.
Feel Confident in Choosing IT Security, Backup, and Data Recovery
Your cloud managed services provider should ensure that security is at the forefront of all they do. You are entrusting this provider with your most sensitive, valuable information, so security must be a priority. Any potential cloud MSP needs to have a solid plan for how they will secure and protect your company’s data, including monitoring, firewalls, filtering, and safe storage. When you are looking at managed services providers, choose one that can explain their security practices, including those of any external vendors associated with the platform.
Backup and data recovery is also important, if you are putting this in the hands of your cloud managed service provider. This is typically a wise strategy, ensuring that your data exists off-site, but it is only as good as the service offered by your MSP. You should be able to trust in those backups and access them immediately if you require recovery or access for compliance purposes.
We continuously monitor your systems and optimize for performance, saving snapshots regularly for recoverability. We want our customers to know that their data is secure, recoverable if needed, and fine-tuned for peak capacity.
Tip - Think About Cost Reduction
Ideally, your managed service provider is saving your business money. The investment in managed services in the cloud should pay off overall, offering cost reductions compared to your current operations. If an MSP cannot show you how their product will save your business money or make the budget more efficient, look for a provider who can.
Because our Advanced Cloud Services platform is purpose-built as a business solution, owned and designed by AOP, you can expect the best from us, at an affordable price.
When you partner with our team at AOP, you will find that our cloud-managed services are inherently cost-effective, offering multiple layers of savings opportunities. Working with us, you do not need to pay for server hardware, utility expenses to power your systems, redundancies and additional security, storage, or backups. Fees associated with upgrades, updates, multiple networks, and IT costs to service those networks are a thing of the past.
By reducing or removing all of these operational expenses, your business should save both time and money. And, with those additional resources at your disposal, you can focus on the operations that bring in profits.
Check Out Service Testimonials
A managed service provider is happy to showcase what they do, but it’s client experiences that can shed a lot of light for potential customers. Your potential MSP should be willing to point you to what their clients are saying about them, so you can see how others have fared in partnership. It’s also worth looking at reviews and case studies to learn how this MSP operates, especially with clients whose needs are similar to your own.
Get in Touch with AOP
We are ready to show you exactly what AOP and our Advanced Cloud Services platform can do for your business. Please request a free consultation online to speak with one of our specialists, or check out our guide on how the cloud can drive your business growth. You can also call us at 337-477-3700, or email us at info@aopinc.com.
