The Benefits Of Choosing The Right AWS Managed Service Provider

The right managed cloud service provider enables technical leaders to spend more time on their core competency - building products valuable for customers. A properly developed cloud strategy will speed your time to market, increase reach, and market share - all designed to increase your revenue generation capabilities.  

As your competitors increasingly shift their mission critical work from data centers, cloud computing has moved from being bleeding edge to a requirement. Shifting to the cloud requires a specific set of skills and experience to design, deploy, and manage applications. As such, companies should seek a partner with cloud expertise specific to their needs, proven results in referenceable accounts, and future focus on new technologies and capabilities.

Choosing the best managed service provider to oversee your infrastructure will drive value to your organization through more credibility and trust with stronger security, better resiliency and availability, with improved access to your applications and services. This typically also saves companies millions in costs. 

When assessing an AWS managed service provider, look for: 

• Cloud expertise + Certifications
• Technical Background + Experience
• Cost Optimization + Budget

APN Consulting Partners Certifications

AWS is the highest Gartner magic quadrant provider the highest Gartner magic quadrant provider in the cloud computing space. In 2019, AWS continues to lead in cloud adoption, and currently offers eleven certifications that cover both foundational and specialty cloud computing topics. Amazon Partner Network (APN) Consulting Partners provide guidance to help companies design, architect, build, migrate, and manage their workloads and applications on AWS. When choosing a managed service provider, ask APN Consulting Partners about their certifications with AWS and their experience in similar environments.

Working with an APN Consulting Partner, companies have the comfort that their partner has verified expertise with AWS, along with elite access to a variety of tools, training, and support to stay up-to-date on best practices. APN Consulting Partners’ status is also verified by AWS with stringent testing and certification requirements periodically.

Technical Background + Experience

The cloud remains a future requirement for many, and choosing a managed service provider capable of handling challenges unique to a company’s cloud strategy or migration requirements is the critical difference for success.

When assessing a partner look for a breadth of experience and a partner that will back it up with referenceable accounts.  As AWS is constantly evolving, focusing on the number of years the company has been in business is often not the best indicator of success. A partner that is well-matched is indicated by current certifications and case studies, conversational level technical abilities, and strong organizational skills. Some telling questions include:

• What is the range of companies the managed service provider has worked with? Can they point to any migration strategies performed or managed? How did they map and plan this process?
• Has the partner ever helped a company with similar storage requirements or infrastructure as your company?
• What can they tell you about the partners’ past projects and success? What results are they able to share regarding these projects?

Don’t forget to consider the technical background of an AWS Consulting partner. Avoid a company that tackles the cloud like it was a buzz word.  A team that properly assesses cloud and application goals, usage and infrastructure while also applying AWS best practices are critical differentiators. Working with a certified APN Consulting Partner implies an additional level of AWS expertise, ensuring the team you choose is also equipped with a technical background. Look for cloud professionals with not only meaningful certifications, but depth of them as well across their organization as a whole.  This will ensure your partner is properly equipped to drive your project and unlock the revenue generating capabilities of the cloud.

A partner with a strong technical background can also help ease the daunting time and planning associated with a cloud migration for most companies. A team with both AWS and technical track records can help choose a solution that bridges current infrastructure to the new infrastructure with a hybrid architecture. This solution promotes gradually migrating applications to the cloud to make changes intuitive to a company’s current infrastructure and strategy. 

Cost Optimization + Budget 

Having a team with a technical background also aids in cloud savings. Not only should a managed service provider be a cost-effective choice, but a partner should also have a history of helping optimize AWS related costs for their customers. 

AWS has the most customizable pricing structures, allowing you to take advantage of with the right cloud strategy. Having a team capable of assessing the best practices for a company’s specific goals - from storage requirements, enhanced application performance, or a large-scale migration - can save companies millions in environments where a cloud strategy isn’t working in their best interest.

Final Takeaways 

A managed cloud service provider enables companies to generate more revenue by focusing on their core competency, and saves companies millions in cloud associated costs by utilizing the cloud in the most efficient way. Choosing the right cloud partner should aid teams in finding the best practices for their infrastructure and cloud goals, optimize associated costs, and ease the time and planning required for a large-scale or hybrid migration. Look for a partner with a thorough understanding of AWS verified by AWS certification, and look for cost optimization and budget benefits offered from prospective partners.

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