The cloud imperative is very real for every kind of business—SAP users included. According to Gartner, cloud spending on public cloud managed services will increase by more than 20% by the end of 2023, and 75% of organizations will adopt cloud-first digital transformation models by 2026.
Given the extensive history of legacy SAP environments and the complexities that come with it, working with a trusted and qualified cloud managed services provider (MSP) is essential for many companies looking to migrate to and modernize on the cloud. In this article, we’ll take a deep dive into exactly what those services entail and how they make an impact.
Quick Takeaways
- Cloud managed services are provided by third-party professional organizations with the expertise, knowledge, and experience to manage a company’s cloud environments.
- Cloud MSPs provide important services like infrastructure, platform, and data management, cost optimization, security and compliance, scalability and flexibility, and expert guidance.
- For SAP users, working with a cloud managed services provider is even more essential for migrating, modernizing, and optimizing complex legacy SAP systems.
What Are Cloud Managed Services?
Cloud managed services refer to outsourced management and administration of a company's cloud infrastructure and services to a third-party provider. These services are designed to help businesses effectively leverage cloud computing technologies while offloading the burden of day-to-day operations and maintenance tasks.
Cloud managed service providers offer a range of services that typically include deep expertise, support in lowering TCO, scalability and flexibility, and knowledge of future industry- and system-specific trends and best practices.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the specific services and benefits you’ll access from working with a cloud managed services provider.
Infrastructure Management
MSPs manage, monitor, and optimize components of the cloud infrastructure such as servers, storage, networking, and virtualization. They ensure that your cloud infrastructure is properly configured, maintained and scaled to meet your business's current needs.
Platform Management
Your provider will manage the cloud platform(s) being utilized by your business, such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. They handle tasks like provisioning resources, configuring services, optimizing performance, and ensuring security and compliance.
Data Management
Data is a foundational component of successful cloud operations, and MSPs oversee important data-related tasks like backup and disaster recovery, data storage and retrieval, data migration, and data security. They implement appropriate data management strategies to protect critical information and ensure business continuity.
Monitoring and Support
Your MSP will monitor your cloud environment, track performance metrics, and proactively identify and address issues or anomalies. They can provide reliable technical support, incident response, and troubleshooting to ensure smooth operations and minimize downtime.
Security and Compliance
MSPs can help you implement proactive security measures to safeguard cloud infrastructure and data. They’ll assist with security assessments, vulnerability management, access control, encryption, and compliance with industry-specific regulations.
Cost Optimization
Your cloud managed services provider can also help you optimize cloud costs by analyzing your resource utilization, identifying unused or underutilized resources, implementing cost-saving measures across your infrastructure, and providing recommendations for optimizing spending.
Scalability and Flexibility
Working with a cloud MSP can allow you to more easily scale your cloud infrastructure based on changing demands. You can ensure your cloud environment is set up to accommodate increased workloads and get continual guidance on adapting to evolving business needs.
Expertise and Guidance
Cloud managed services providers have specialized knowledge and expertise in modern cloud technologies, best practices, and industry trends. They offer guidance and recommendations for adopting new cloud services or optimizing existing ones for improved performance.
The Ultimate Result: Optimized Cloud Strategy and Reduced Risk of Time/Cost Overage
By leveraging cloud managed services, organizations can focus on their core business objectives while leaving the technical complexities of cloud management to the experts. It enables them to achieve greater efficiency, scalability, security, and cost-effectiveness in their cloud operations.
Further, cloud managed services make it possible for organizations to achieve necessary digital transformations like cloud migration or modernization without encountering the pitfalls so many other organizations face during their journeys.
McKinsey recently reported that an alarming 75% of cloud migrations go over budget and 38% run behind schedule. These challenges lead to unplanned additional costs, lag time on new value-adding cloud features and benefits, disruption to business operations, and even issues like unexpected downtime and data loss.
Beyond the initial journey to the cloud, companies also often end up failing to reach their full ROI potential due to mediocre or even poor ongoing cloud management.
By partnering with a cloud managed services provider, companies can minimize risk, be confident in their transformation plans, and secure in the knowledge that they’re maximizing ROI once their cloud environments are up and running.
Why Work with a SAP Cloud Managed Services Provider?
For SAP users, partnering with an expert MSP can be even more impactful considering the size and complexity of enterprise-level SAP systems. Working with a trusted partner that has SAP-specific knowledge and expertise has powerful benefits that can ensure your SAP systems and investments are delivering maximum ROI for your business.
SAP cloud managed services providers have in-depth knowledge and experience managing SAP systems in the cloud. They understand the intricacies of SAP architecture, configurations, integrations, and best practices. They know how to manage complex SAP environments as they move through cloud migration and modernization journeys, maintaining the most important aspects of your legacy systems while enhancing them for the future.
They can help you build transformation roadmaps and plans aligned specifically to the needs of SAP users and systems, reducing risk and enabling you to optimize costs and drive higher value.
Finally, SAP cloud managed services providers are part of extensive SAP expert networks, and they can connect you to additional partners, experts, and support systems as needed to keep your SAP cloud environments running smoothly.
The Protera Difference
For 25 years, Protera has been helping clients get the most from their SAP systems and pioneering SAP cloud operations. Today, Protera is a preferred provider for major hyperscalers like AWS and Azure, and remains SAP-certified in every important service area.
Our team of SAP experts and support professionals are available 24/7 to ensure your SAP cloud environments are running successfully. Further, our client success stories span industries, company sizes, and many types of SAP cloud migration and modernization journeys and goals.
Schedule time to talk to our team and learn firsthand how Protera can help your business transform