Managed Cloud

The Cloud is a series of servers which houses your complete computing needs from application hosting to data storage. A managed cloud service is one in which your service provider takes care of everything from server housing and maintenance, to data protection and constant monitoring.

As computing and data storage needs have evolved, so have the server platforms and dedicated hosting providers who offer them. Not that long ago, business IT services were housed and administrated on the same site as the business who needed them. This kind of service needed powerful on site servers and an IT services professional, or a department of them, who knew how to monitor, maintain and administer them to ensure smooth running of the business and updated, reliable software access for everybody. The infrastructure was usually large, bulky machines which required whole rooms or whole office floors to house. They were expensive to purchase, expensive to maintain and expensive to house in climate-controlled and secure environments.

Then came colocation services. Colocation offered businesses the option of using servers for application hosting and data storage housed in off site locations especially designed for them, called data centres. Your business still accessed the storage space and computing power it needed, but the infrastructure supporting your IT needs was held off site and managed by a colocation services provider. The data centre your servers were housed in were secure environments made for purpose rather than office floors hastily adapted. The server software and maintenance, however, was usually still the responsibility of the business meaning that IT professionals were still needed on the payroll to manage server access, storage and monitoring.

Data storage and application hosting is a bit like owning a fleet of business vehicles. They can be accessed and used every day by your employees, but ongoing monitoring, safety checks, repairs and maintenance still needs to be undertaken by licenced and qualified personnel who know what they’re doing. Your business server needs are the same. While you could rent a fleet of servers for your application hosting and storage needs, you were responsible for maintaining that fleet.

Now there is a managed cloud service. Like colocation services, the application hosting and data storage you need for your business is housed inside state-of-the-art data centres comprising the latest servers and the expert IT professionals required for maintaining them. However, a managed cloud service provider also takes care of your individual server maintenance as well. They are the fleet managers and mechanics. You pay a single service provider a flat fee for hosting and maintenance, concentrating on your business growth instead of its IT needs and ongoing maintenance.

What is managed cloud hosting?

Managed cloud services first arrived in the form of hosting infrastructure management platforms like Amazon AWSand Microsoft Azure. It offered a business the ability to utilise cloud deployment and move key applications and storage into shared data centres, reducing IT services costs for purchasing and maintaining on site servers, but it still required IT professionals to manage the Cloud. Managed cloud hosting is offered by service providers who act as your on site IT technicians, managing not only your IT infrastructure but the applications and data you store on your Cloud servers too. We take care of everything. All you need to worry about is paying for what you need right now, not investing in what you might need in the future.

Colocation vs managed hosting vs cloud all depends on what stage of growth your business is at and what kind of IT service you need to concentrate on growing your business. Colocation services offer you reduced costs in IT service infrastructure, but you still need the IT technician services to manage your software and maintain your data services on the business end. This might be your preference. If you’re an IT professional or looking for Amazon web services to house your website data and applications, you might be happy continuing to look after your servers directly as well.

But if you don’t have the IT resources to manage Azure managed cloud services or your cloud data management, then managed hosting and managed cloud solutions mean that you rent the space and expertise you need instead. It means that you can choose cloud computing options without the ongoing infrastructure management overheads and use only what you need right now. As your business and business needs grow, your managed services like AWS plans are capable of growing with you, offering you more data storage, more powerful cloud infrastructure and still none of the financial or IT services burden needed to administer it.

Cloud solutions offer businesses of all sizes the ability to operate anywhere in the world, from anywhere in the world. Managed cloud services offer businesses of all sizes the ability to never have to manage their own cloud hosting requirements, and to access on-demand storage and managed application hosting that works reliably, securely and at a fraction of the cost of maintaining a dedicated IT department and services personnel.

To find out how your business can access a managed cloud service and begin making the transition to fast, reliable and secure cloud services that are completely managed by Anchor, contact one of our consultants today. We can step you through each of our managed cloud plans and show you how your business will benefit from slashing IT overhead costs and improving accessibility, speed and storage.