by Joseph Landes
Businesses of all sizes are looking to move their IT infrastructure to the cloud and the most important choice to make when doing so is finding a great IT provider who will have your best interests in mind on this journey. Promises will be made about capabilities and expertise, but it is important to keep your eye on three important things to ensure your Managed Services Provider is committed to helping you transform your IT infrastructure to the cloud.
Recommending Best in Class Products
Nothing else matters if a vendor’s product is not best-in-class and it is why so many vendors lose business in the competitive cloud ecosystem. There are too many other competitive solutions combined with somewhat low switching costs to settle for something that is not phenomenal and brings massive value to your business. When moving to the cloud, does the technology provider have a strong track record of performance? Do they have the infrastructure to scale with you as your company grows? A good sign that it is time to look elsewhere is if the product your partner is offering can’t pass a basic Proof of Concept or is just feature-poor relative to other comparable solutions. This is why I strongly recommend Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Azure as the core building blocks for any company’s initial foray into the cloud. No other company has invested so much into empowering businesses of all sizes to do more than Microsoft.
Adding Value to Your Business
My former CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, often says that a company’s past success does not define or predict their future. That each day your partner needs to come in and continue to win your business anew. This lesson holds great relevance in the burgeoning cloud ecosystem with so many vendors, replacement options, and new technologies emerging daily. The day your partner started working with you is the day the clock started ticking on their need to constantly create value that accrues to your business. The technologies they choose must help position you as a thought leader in front of your customers. They need a clear Conditions of Satisfaction that defines their relationship with you and there needs to be regular check-ins to make sure your business is growing as result of the relationship.
Driving Down Your Cost
The cloud ecosystem is a competitive space. New technologies continue to emerge with even more powerful functionality than in months prior. Startups are being born by the hundred and thousands in the cloud and the need to maintain on-premises hardware in your office is a thing of the past. One would think that while the technology gets better, it would be more expensive to move the cloud. But it is quite the opposite! Business have increasingly been able to take advantage of economies of scale the large cloud providers like Microsoft has achieved in order to drive their costs down dramatically. In the past, a company would have to shell out many thousands of dollars to buy a server and amortize that cost over time. Now the model is consumption-based, and you only need to pay for what you use just like the electricity in your home. Moving to the cloud has a number of benefits for your business—and one significant one is driving down the cost of IT.
Moving one’s IT infrastructure to the cloud should be a near-term goal of every business. Putting off the decision to digitally transform your business could be costing you customers and making you less competitive. The time to move is now and we look forward to partnering with you on this exciting journey.
Joseph Landes is the Chief Revenue Officer of Nerdio — an exciting cloud startup in Chicago that helps Managed Service Providers build cloud practices in Microsoft Azure. Prior to joining Nerdio, he spent 23 years at Microsoft leading high-performing international sales and marketing teams and helping businesses of all sizes move to the cloud. He has travelled to 108 countries and is attempting to read every NY Times Notable Book ever published.
by Michael Pascuzzi
Digital transformation and innovation are becoming the keystone of modern business strategy. Automating facilities, collecting and analyzing more information, streamlining actions, and creating fresh ideas all require complex procedures. Complex doesn’t have to mean complicated. Moving processes to cloud architecture is viable and introduces high ROI possibilities. However, moving is not without cost.
Where Cloud Costs the Most
Business units often move to the cloud independent of the whole, obscuring the visibility of cloud resource consumption.
It’s become all too easy for anyone within the organization to buy or subscribe to cloud services and bypass centralized procurement or specified procurement policies. These bypasses lead to unforeseen, unplanned, unbudgeted spends.
When it comes to IaaS, IT spending can grow even faster. Without the right tools in place cloud resources are not optimized; servers can be running 24/7 unnecessarily, and expensive software can be left idling on forgotten servers. Compounding the issue vendors are not forthcoming when it comes to detailing which services have been run up and by whom — resulting in organizations being unable to attribute exact costs of IT spending to the right business unit.
Optimization of Cloud ROI
With visibility into what individual business units are using, the IT department can then begin the process of cost optimization. This type of optimization is a great way to understand end-user needs and preferences. It is also an opportunity to ask users about the value of the technology they have deployed and what problems it is solving. Knowing this can help other business units solve similar issues through better pan-enterprise deployment of such technologies.
Cloud Economics and Collaboration
It’s important to note that many business units require access to the same information. Individual copies throughout a business are redundant and potentially spreads misinformation; this is where cloud economics meets collaboration. Nowadays, it seems inconceivable, and almost lousy form, that co-workers would send hundreds of versions of the same word document across an organization via email. Instead, using a chat platform can help colleagues stay connected wherever they are, but everyone has to be on the same page. For many businesses, Office 365 provides software solutions to achieve these goals, allowing many users to edit a single document concurrently, in real-time via Word.
Still, many enterprises use on-premises Microsoft Office, and while that is a great tool, Office 365 takes collaboration to the next level. The Cloud Easy service from Crayon helps organizations migrate to Office 365 to achieve that next level.
Enhancing the collaboration efforts of your business can be impeded if you lack the appropriately skilled resources. The easy button to overcome such issues is to lean on an expert partner like Crayon to smooth your organization’s digital transformation journey to the cloud.
Interested in learning more about combating increases in IT spending? Don’t miss Crayon at The 20’s upcoming VISION Conference!
And to learn more about The 20 and how we can help your business, be sure to check us out here.
by Joseph Landes
Managed service providers (MSPs) in The 20 play a very important role in the adoption of cloud IT environments and the evolution of technology for the small and medium-size businesses they serve. This is particularly true with a powerful, yet complex, cloud environment like Microsoft Azure. SMBs look to MSPs in The 20 to expertly optimize itto fit their needs. But MSPs should also be on the lookout for how Azure can improve their own business needs—namely decreased costs and higher gross profit margins.
Here are five tips from Nerdio for The 20 members to optimize Azure costs and infrastructure to increase margins and make more money offering and reselling Azure.
1. Become a Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) Reseller
Becoming a CSP reseller makes it easier for MSPs to transact Azure. In addition, CSP resellers receive a discount off Azure list prices via a CSP distributor—typically large providers—and thereby increase margins. CSP resellers are also eligible for various incentives that Microsoft makes available to its CSPs based on growth objectives. These incentives are incremental to the discount received on Azure consumption and can be in the 10% range or more when added up. Reach out to an IT distributor and ask how to become a CSP reseller or visit Microsoft’s website for more detailed information.
2. Leverage Azure Reserved Instances
The cost of virtual machines (VMs) in Azure is the single most expensive component of a typical MSP’s IT environment. Reserved instances (RIs) are reservations of a specific type of compute capacity (i.e., VM family/series) in a specific geographic location (i.e., Azure region) for a predefined period of time (12 or 36 months). Depending on the above specifics, using RIs and reserving compute capacity ahead of time can save you from 20% to 57% relative to the list pay-as-you-go price. They do require some advance planning, budgeting, and structuring of your Azure account the right way, but can significantly increase the profitability of your Azure practice.
3. Capitalize on Azure Hybrid Usage
Microsoft has created a special entitlement called Azure Hybrid Usage (AHU) that allows MSPs to pay for Windows Server via another licensing program and not through Azure. Essentially, you can bring the Windows Server licenses you already paid for to the cloud for free. As a result, the Windows Server OS meter stops spinning. AHU is a benefit unique to Azure; you can’t bring your own Windows server license to other major cloud providers. Combining RIs with AHU and CSP software subscriptions can reduce the cost of VMs by up to 80%. It goes without saying that the margin impact to an MSP from such significant cost reductions cannot be overlooked.
4. Auto-scaling for Cost Optimization
The value proposition of Azure as a public cloud is its utility-like consumption billing model: Pay only for what you use. To do this, MSPs need a mechanism to know what compute is needed and when, and a system that automatically resizes workloads to fit the demand at any given time. This means that if a VM doesn’t need to be on, a system
needs to be in place to know it and act on it by shutting down the VM at the appropriate time and then turning it back on when it’s needed again.
Azure automation platforms do exactly this, as MSPs can set business hours for each VM and tell the system what to do with the VM outside of those hours: leave it alone, shut it down, or change it to something smaller. The system will then automatically execute these instructions, resizing the VM after the end of business hours and then prior to the start of the next business day.
5. Burstable VM Instances
B-series Azure VMs are known as “burstable” VMs. They are used for non-CPU-intensive workloads (for example, domain controllers and file servers) and cost about 50% of an equivalently sized D-series VM. Burstable VMs are cheaper because Azure imposes a quota on how much of the total CPU cores can be used. Every second that the VM is using less than its quota it is “banking credits” that can be used to burst up to the total available CPUs when needed. While bursting, the VM is consuming its banked credits. Once the credits run out, the VM’s CPU utilization is throttled down to a lower utilization quota.
As you can see, these tips provide multiple ways for MSPs in The 20 to optimize their Azure consumption and increase their profitability. Understanding these tips will help you reconfigure their Azure architecture, determine how much margin they can achieve, and recognize how to build a successful and profitable cloud practice in Azure. Nerdio’s automation platform allows the members of The 20 to achieve all of this and much more. Check us out at the upcoming VISION event or on our website at www.getnerdio.com.
Interested in learning more? Don’t miss Nerdio at The 20’s upcoming VISION Conference!
Joseph Landes is the Chief Revenue Officer at Nerdio—a cloud company whose mission is to enable MSPs to build successful cloud practices in Microsoft Azure. He previous worked at Microsoft for 23 years leading high performing international sales and marketing teams. When not visiting MSPs you can find him trying to visit every country in the world or reading great literary fiction.
by Tom Darnall
Managing one print environment can be hard enough. Managing several at the same time can seem downright daunting. And for MSPs whose cost structures are highly sensitive to extra investment of time and resources, every second spent struggling with a print management issue can weigh heavily on the bottom line.
MSPs have another fundamental concern: customer satisfaction. Unlike an organization where print infrastructure is managed in-house, an MSP’s end users can decide to contract with another provider. That puts particular importance on retaining existing customers, which means that quality of service has to remain uncompromisingly high. Ongoing printing problems, even minor ones that might be tolerated elsewhere, can put an MSP out of business.
The catch is that, in addition to those challenges, MSPs also have a unique set of print-management requirements. Ideally, they want a single, uniform solution that allows them to deliver a core suite of services to customers while also providing a consistent management experience. Yet MSPs’ customers can have very different environments and a wide variety of printing needs, so any solution also has to be versatile enough to accommodate these disparities.
With that in mind, a print-management solution optimized for MSPs should meet the following criteria:
Powerful: Admins have access to a comprehensive suite of printer- and driver-management tools, including advanced features.
Intuitive: Profile settings as well as automated deployments and installations are easy to configure with granular precision.
Versatile: The solution integrates seamlessly with any environment without sacrificing reliability, functionality or ease of use.
Robust: Single points of failure and WAN dependencies are either reduced or eliminated completely, ensuring maximum uptime and uninterrupted printing.
Centralized: The MSP is able to fully manage the print environment for every customer, no matter how distributed, from a single pane of glass.
Consistent: The administrative experience is the same across the entire customer pool, regardless of differences in printer fleets or printing habits.
Streamlined: Administrative tasks are as efficient as possible and don’t require multiple interactions when one will do.
Scalable: The print-management solution effortlessly adapts as the customer’s print environment shrinks, expands or evolves over time.
Another consideration is that any print-management solution truly geared toward MSPs should also offer opportunities to add value. For example, one customer might want secure printing capabilities, whereas another wants to implement cross-platform mobile and BYOD printing. An MSP who’s able to provide this kind of added value with minimal physical infrastructure and low administrative overhead is going to be much more attractive to those customers.
PrinterLogic meets these demanding MSP criteria
Although traditional print-management solutions like print servers can’t fulfill all those demanding criteria, PrinterLogic’s enterprise print-management solutions are able to meet them without reservation.
PrinterLogic’s next-generation software uniquely combines the simplicity and reliability of direct-IP printing with the power of centralized management, enabling MSPs to manage the print environments of their entire customer pool from a single web-based console. This also gives PrinterLogic core capabilities like eliminating print servers, advanced printer deployments without the need for GPOs or scripts, self-service printer installations, and seamless integration alongside virtual solutions.
That’s not just theoretical. MSPs like Helion Automotive Technologies and Strata Information Technology have implemented PrinterLogic’s low-footprint, on-premises software solution for their customers in very different sectors. Helion, focuses on the automotive industry, supplying 650 car dealerships and their 28,000 employees with core IT services. Strata IT draws some of its largest customers from the healthcare industry.
Both MSPs saw a massive reduction in the time spent on print management after implementing PrinterLogic. Strata IT immediately experienced an estimated 50% drop in print-related support tickets, whereas Helion has leveraged PrinterLogic to cut 20 hours off each of its regular print-server migrations. The two MSPs also cited increased customer satisfaction as a result of their increased responsiveness, the reduced number of routine printing problems and the improved visibility into new areas of the print environment, such as consumable costs.
The next-gen features you expect from a next-gen solution
PrinterLogic also offers a SaaS counterpart. This zero-footprint, cloud-based solution offers feature parity with PrinterLogic’s proven on-premises software, giving MSPs and their customers the option of a flexible, enterprise-grade print-management solution that is infinitely scalable and incredibly cost-effective. Pioneer Technology is just one MSP that is using PrinterLogic’s SaaS solution to further its “cloud-first” philosophy and retain a competitive edge among peers in the banking, healthcare and retail industries.
And when it comes to adding value, PrinterLogic is able to provide native pull printing and mobile printing capabilities along with comprehensive print auditing tools. This kind of advanced functionality is increasingly sought after by organizations that are looking to harden their print security, provide tightly controlled but full-featured printing to their BYOD users, or gain insight into printing habits for the sake of cost-cutting and efficiency.
Tom Darnall recently joined the product team at PrinterLogic. He moved to Utah four years ago from Portland, where he held executive, product management and marketing positions at HP, Symantec, and other software firms. Tom received a B.A. in Communications from Brigham Young University and completed a summer executive MBA program at Stanford. Off the clock, Tom loves to explore the desert southwest, do landscape photography, and see live jazz in Las Vegas.
To learn more about The 20 and how we can help your business, be sure to check us out here.
by Patrick Sullivan, Contributor
By understanding what Workspace as a Service (WaaS) has to offer your End Customer, you can ensure that you’re reaching the customers who will benefit the most from the cloud. WaaS has so much to offer to so many. But, who is the ideal prospect?
So often we are asked, “What’s the best vertical for your solutions?” and, “What industries do you typically target?” or, “What type of companies can WaaS help?”
WaaS has practical applications across every vertical and just about every size business. This widespread versatility gives our partners the flexibility to develop their solution and messaging for the verticals they are already targeting, or to focus their marketing and sales as broadly as they want.
Using the Core-4 to Find the Ideal WaaS Customer.
When evaluating a prospective WaaS customer, look for the Core-4, which will help you zero in on the ideal cloud workspace customer. If the prospect answers “yes” to any of these four questions, then you have a winner:
1. Will you require a server refresh or other large IT project within the next 12 months?
Especially this year as Microsoft will sunset Windows 7 and Windows Server 2001/2008 R2 next January, so many companies are going to have to decide: expensive fork-lift upgrade, or easy and inexpensive transition into the cloud. End Customers hate IT projects, and with the cloud, you can eliminate the majority of them, saving them money and resources, and building your cloud business in the process.
2. Do you have employees who work remotely? Or does your business have multiple locations?
In today’s global business environment, companies are turning more and more to hiring remote staff, often outside their geographic footprint. Consider a company who hires Susan whose sole responsibility is to meet with customers; any time she spends in the office is just wasted time. Or, what about a business who needs Grant’s specific expertise, but he lives in Seattle, hundreds of miles away. In both cases, the staffers need the same accessibility as anyone working from the office. In both cases, the company’s IT needs to have control over their technology. Cloud Workspace simplifies both of these, making them an easy reality.
3. Do you have extensive security needs?
Think about a small bank, finance company or insurance agent. These are small companies, but they store and share sensitive client information. Security is paramount for them. At CloudJumper, we work incredibly hard to ensure our solutions are inherently secure. Additionally, we have a number of optional security add-ons that help your End Customers who need even more.
4. Is your company’s IT function larger than your IT team can support?
This can come out in a number of ways. Of course, if they have big security needs, but maybe, they also have numerous software apps to manage and maintain. They might have tight IT requirements for maintaining certifications or franchise agreements. Maybe they have a mix of OS and devices that all need to connect. The list here is endless, and no doubt your prospects will share items they simply would love to off-load to the cloud.
Always Has Been, and Still It Remains, it’s the Core-4
These are the four prospect characteristics that so easily translate into a sale, and they always have in the 20 years we have been providing a WaaS solution. You will find them in businesses across every industry, every vertical, every part of the world. Understand them, recognize them, and the sale is yours! It’s just a natural fit.
By understanding the ideal WaaS customer, you will more easily grow your business in the cloud, and boost your sales, profits and the stickiness of your customer base. Especially as you are just starting to build your cloud business, start with the Core-4. Soon, you’ll find yourself supporting your customers in ways no on-prem server farm can handle.
Patrick Sullivan is the Channel Sales Manager for CloudJumper who uses his cloud expertise and business acumen to guide MSPs as they create and grow their companies in the cloud. His support helps them build an IT cloud solution that saves their end customers money, time and hassle. Patrick has been with CloudJumper since June 2015 and has been very successful working helping his partners build their businesses in the cloud. Prior to joining CloudJumper, he honed his business development skills working in the equipment finance industry for more than 8 years. In 2005, Patrick graduated from New Hampshire University with Bachelor of Science in Business Administration.
