Five Ways Cloud CPE Reduces Costs and Enables Innovative Enterprise Services
WhitePaper - MSP - Six Considerations When Selecting A Partner-Friendly Cloud Service Provider
1. Six Considerations When Selecting a Partner-Friendly Cloud Service Provider:
How to Compare Offerings Among Cloud Service Providers
2. Six Considerations to Look For in a Partner-Friendly Cloud Service Provider: How to Compare Offerings Among Cloud Providers Page 2 of 11
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 4!
CONSIDERATION1: ACCESS METHODS AND CONTROL 4!
CONSIDERATION2: PERFORMANCE LEVELS 6!
CONSIDERATION3: SUPPORT AND TRAINING 8!
CONSIDERATION4: FLEXIBLE SERVER AND NETWORK CONFIGURATIONS 9!
CONSIDERATION5: PARTNER PROGRAM BUSINESS MODELS 10!
CONSIDERATION6: A CLOUD WITH NO LEARNING CURVE 11!
CONCLUSION 12!
3. Six Considerations to Look For in a Partner-Friendly Cloud Service Provider: How to Compare Offerings Among Cloud Providers Page 3 of 12
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
The MSP/VAR business has been changing rapidly in the last few years - and in 2015,
these changes have accelerated. Cloud-based technologies, and the emerging new
vendors and business strategies designed to handle them, are threatening traditional
revenue streams and customer relationships throughout the MSP and VAR community.
MSPs and VARs are also struggling to build a framework around the best way to address
the cloud. Whether it’s meeting customer requests to reduce CAPEX, or to simply figure
out a profitable way to monetize the cloud and avoid unnecessary risks and unknowns, it’s
important to learn what to look for.
It is possible to profit from cloud infrastructure and turn this latest technology shift into a
major selling point. But you need a reliable partner provider that understands the channel.
In fact, many MSPs that were early movers are seeing margins that are higher on cloud
servers, and cloud storage than they had with the hardware they sold for on-site use.
While mark-up on hardware and billable hours for the install are no longer viable, a
continuous revenue stream of 20 to 40% monthly can really add to the bottom line. MSPs
are also seeing far lower costs in managing cloud-based infrastructure, where the
hardware replacements and general management of the hardware are the responsibility of
the Cloud provider.
Your company needs an authentic partner that can work with your team on a personalized
level, a team that provides genuine solutions and takes your success as seriously as you
do.
Therefore, selecting the right cloud partner is critical. How do you choose them and what
is involved? How do you measure your ROI?
4. Six Considerations to Look For in a Partner-Friendly Cloud Service Provider: How to Compare Offerings Among Cloud Providers Page 4 of 12
INTRODUCTION
Cloud migrations can go one of two ways: either painless and on time/budget, or … not.
Much has been published on this subject, but one of the key factors that will drive success
for cloud migrations for an MSP is their choice of Cloud provider.
The reputation of your company is reliant on a
positive customer experience and a smooth
cloud transition. This will go a long way in
establishing you as a customer-friendly,
knowledgeable provider for this new technology
deployment option. Not only does your
reputation depend on it, so too will a long term
business partnership.
This white paper will assist you in answering these questions, by providing six important
aspects of how to choose your cloud partner with individual questions you should ask
potential partners.
CONSIDERATION 1: ACCESS
METHODS AND CONTROL
One of the issues IT teams have with the cloud is the perceived lack of control over and access to
their physical servers. Small data centers don’t offer any of the modern multiply-redundant N+1 or
N+2 fire, power, connectivity, modern physical security and theft prevention features that cloud
providers take advantage of. Not to mention trying to order new servers to scale up infrastructure for
anxious owners and businesses in need of more CPU cores or replacement parts for failed hardware.
Today your client’s server, storage and networking
infrastructures are most likely in a server closet,
data center or co-location facility, and it is a walk or
drive over for your team to manage them.
When purchasing new or upgrading existing
infrastructure, you probably use a whiteboard to
determine what architecture and configurations your
client needs and how they will integrate with the
networks. You then order the hardware and racks,
stacks and network and only then install your image.
By 2018, it’s estimated
that the cloud will be
worth as much as $127
billion, counting “only”
core cloud services such
as SaaS, PaaS and IaaS.
According to the
“RightScale 2015 State of
the Cloud Report”, 57% of
SMBs surveyed have not
yet moved to the cloud -
but are working out how to
get there.
5. Six Considerations to Look For in a Partner-Friendly Cloud Service Provider: How to Compare Offerings Among Cloud Providers Page 5 of 12
Some cloud service providers include visual tools to help you design, configure and manage one or
multiple cloud data centers. With tools like this your technicians will benefit from a full overview and
complete access to every CPU and GB of RAM they have deployed and they can scale the server
capacity or provision a server via the tool, all while the server is live in production.
Figure 1: The Data Center Designer, a Graphical User Interface for Managing Cloud Data
Centers
Some cloud service providers make it easy to assign access levels to specific clients and machines
by employee, customer data center or even device level. Remember, with IaaS your customers only
pay for infrastructure that is running. Some second-generation cloud providers can meter by the
minute, so an even greater potential for higher margins is available. Also, some cloud providers can
“feel” like a real tier of hardware, sitting in your closet; but with IaaS you’ll benefit from the control and
flexibility you’d expect from an in-house setup.
Transitioning existing applications to the cloud is effortless. Whether simply transferring applications
to a new server or migrating everything over to servers you’ve prepared and provisioned yourself by
creating a public customer cloud for your business, it’s completely painless. With customer dedicated
CPU cores and RAM, your clients are guaranteed the server they pay for is the server they get -
customized, powerful, and always available. ProfitBricks even includes access to the pre-boot BIOS
for additional configuration options.
Questions to ask your potential cloud partner:
• How do the provider’s Service Level Agreements and Terms & Conditions apply to your
requirements?
• Can instances be started and stopped at will?
• Does the provider support multi-user device level access controls?
• Does the provider allow the customer to fully manage their cloud services and related
infrastructure?
6. Six Considerations to Look For in a Partner-Friendly Cloud Service Provider: How to Compare Offerings Among Cloud Providers Page 6 of 12
CONSIDERATION 2: PERFORMANCE
LEVELS
Regardless of their business segment, your clients require and need high-performance
infrastructure.
Recent reports have indicated that clients want speed, stability and high availability above
everything else. Their productivity is at stake. As any user will attest, a real or perceived
slowness and server unresponsiveness will decrease chances of success.
It’s important to accurately assess a provider’s ability to meet your specifications and
performance requirements. This is particularly important when you are advising clients in
moving their infrastructure to the cloud. If the perception of performance is bad, you’ll start
their cloud migration off poorly.
Public Cloud computing providers offer technologies that your clients simply could not
afford alone, such as networks based on InfiniBand network interconnects - offering
connections of 80 Gbps vs. the standard Ethernet connections of 1Gbps or 10Gbps. Or
enterprise grade RAID 10 storage configurations with automatic redundancy across
multiple data centers. The ability to scale up and down by using additional CPU cores and
RAM remains imperative.
You’ll want to jump in and ask questions about a provider’s architecture as well as run and
read performance reports. Don’t take everything for granted; many providers oversub-
scribe their hardware and “share CPU cores and RAM” among other customers.
Questions to ask your potential cloud partner:
• How does the provider bridge between multiple service environments within the
same data center?
• Does the provider support fixed size virtual machine sizes or do they let you
customize them?
• Does the provider support private network segments and subnets?
• What connection speeds do they offer between servers and between servers and
storage?
When choosing your cloud service provider to manage your IaaS cloud servers, storage,
and networks, look for one who will support and exceed your high performance
requirements every step of the way.
7. Six Considerations to Look For in a Partner-Friendly Cloud Service Provider: How to Compare Offerings Among Cloud Providers Page 7 of 12
Figure 2: Comparing Ethernet vs. InfiniBand Benefits
ProfitBricks continuously tests and benchmarks its infrastructure against other providers,
and publicly publishes the results. You can also run the same tests, as the reports contain
the details of each test. Download our latest Synthetic and Workload reports now.
8. Six Considerations to Look For in a Partner-Friendly Cloud Service Provider: How to Compare Offerings Among Cloud Providers Page 8 of 12
CONSIDERATION 3: SUPPORT AND
TRAINING
Many cloud vendors are more than happy to sign your company up as a partner and start
taking orders without providing support or training.
This can lead to disastrous aftersales issues for clients, engineers and techs. Some cloud
providers have recently moved to only offering fully supported and managed cloud
packages, meaning the full control and overview of your cloud servers is now completely
out of your hands. The resulting loss of service revenue for their partners is now a big
issue.
When selecting a public cloud provider, look for one with multiple tier support that includes
experienced, in-house SysAdmins.
One that will provide you with pre-sales support, training materials, sales decks and
further marketing information to help your engineering and tech teams deliver exactly what
your clients need and that will assist you in selling cloud services in an efficient manner.
Questions to ask your potential cloud partner:
• Is it necessary to speak with a salesperson prior to establishing services?
• Does the provider have a migration scheme or provide assistance with migrations?
• Is the salesperson responsive to requirements and do they offer specific
suggestions to meet your needs?
• Do they offer marketing materials for partners?
9. Six Considerations to Look For in a Partner-Friendly Cloud Service Provider: How to Compare Offerings Among Cloud Providers Page 9 of 12
CONSIDERATION 4: FLEXIBLE SERVER
AND NETWORK CONFIGURATIONS
Almost all cloud service providers offer server sizes or configurations that have pre-set
amounts of CPU, storage and RAM, forcing you to estimate how much a particular client
or business will need, and make the purchase accordingly. Sometimes this works in their
favor, but usually your clients end up paying for more than they use. This makes it very
difficult to settle on a pricing continuum for your company.
Some cloud service providers completely unbundle the resources that make up a server
(CPU Cores, RAM, Storage) and enable MSPs to configure each cloud server to be
optimized for the specific workload. These cloud service providers often have simpler
pricing models and are more transparent in how they offer their services.
You will also want to inquire about how their system is architected. Do they share the
CPU cores and RAM across customer or dedicate these resources to each server that a
particular customer has purchased?
Questions to ask your potential cloud partner:
• Can you bring your own images?
• Does the provider use enterprise-grade high-speed disks/SSDs or are they using
customer-grade gear?
• Can each server be configured differently?
• Can complex network architectures be replicated including public and private
networks?
10. Six Considerations to Look For in a Partner-Friendly Cloud Service Provider: How to Compare Offerings Among Cloud Providers Page 10 of 12
CONSIDERATION 5: PARTNER
PROGRAM BUSINESS MODELS
You’re both investing significant time and resources as well as risking your reputation
when you choose a cloud service provider – of which there are now many. Presumably,
your goal is to be able to handle your client’s transition to the cloud and get that recurring
cloud-based revenue stream up and running for your business as well. The fastest way to
do this is to go with a reliable and partner focused reseller program.
Table 1: ProfitBricks Advantages when compared to Amazon/Rackspace/Azure
Do They Offer: AWS Rackspace Azure ProfitBricks
25% MSP/VAR Commission - - - X
Customer control of their Cloud X - X X
25% Discounts for your MSP/VAR - - - X
Data Center Designer (Graphical User Interface
for ease of use)
- - - X
Competes with you for your Client’s business X X X -
As you can see in the chart – each company is different in how they approach the
channel. When you research the providers you’ll find commissions and discounts that vary
greatly or fall off quickly. Or the provider will have minimum sales commitments. Some
cloud service providers are now competing with their MSP customers by offering server
management, backup features and other services that compete directly with the value
added services that many MSPs offer.
Questions to ask your potential cloud partner:
• Do you receive co-marketing support?
• Do you receive advanced pre-sales support?
• Do you receive a graphical user interface as part of the cloud implementation
solution, which may make it less costly for your team to support your customers?
• What sort of commission or discount percentage do you receive, and does it fit
your business model?
11. Six Considerations to Look For in a Partner-Friendly Cloud Service Provider: How to Compare Offerings Among Cloud Providers Page 11 of 12
CONSIDERATION 6: A CLOUD WITH NO
LEARNING CURVE
Your team of SysAdmins, Database Engineers, Network Administrators and operations
professionals have dozens of years of experience in total, and for many when they looked
at the offerings of the early public cloud providers they saw a very different environment.
Some cloud providers are built to serve developers and their requirements are centered
around APIs and tools that enable cloud-native applications to run and scale. Other cloud
providers offer a more balanced architecture that enables both new and existing
applications to run and scale. Running existing applications can be challenging at
providers that don’t offer virtual servers that behave like physical servers and networks
that can’t be configured in the same way they were in an on-premise local data center.
When you migrate applications to the cloud, you’ll want to leverage your existing team,
their skills and their knowledge of the applications. Some cloud providers have
architectures that require networking
changes or storage location changes that
existing applications don’t permit with
adaptation. That can make your cloud
migration take longer, cost or more even fail
if not fully investigated.
Questions to ask your potential cloud
partner:
• Does the provider offer a GUI cloud
data center management tool that is
drag and drop or is it control
panel/table based?
• Does the provider offer a full API
with all required calls to configure, provision, scale and deactivate infrastructure?
• Does the provider operate a self-service model or do they require formal requests
and tickets to complete tasks?
• Does the cloud provider make it possible to scale workloads both vertically and
horizontally?
• Does the provider allow you to use your own images and ISOs?
“On the business-side it was
simple. ProfitBricks “sticks
to its knitting,” opting not to
offer managed services as
part of their product
portfolio,” says Ed
O’Connor, Vice President
and CTO of Blue Lan
Group.