Cloud adoption is mainstream and no longer an option for enterprises of all sizes. According to Fortune Business Insights, the global cloud computing market, valued at USD 676.29 billion in 2024, is projected to grow from USD 781.27 billion in 2025 to USD 2291.59 billion in 2032. The increase in adoption of AI, Big Data, Machine Learning, and emerging technologies will drive this exponential growth. However, self-managed cloud hosting is becoming cumbersome for internal IT teams. The constantly evolving cloud tech and best practices are overwhelming in-house teams, and enterprises are realizing that, self-managed cloud approach, although provides full control over their infrastructure and saves costs, is not always the right choice.
Limitations of Self-managed Cloud Hosting
With businesses expanding rapidly, the data volumes, workloads, and security requirements are also increasing. Organizations have to invest heavily in buying, maintaining, and upgrading hardware and software licenses. In the absence of the right resources, managing the infrastructure, security, and compliance is getting complex and consuming a significant amount of the team’s time. This approach can have limited disaster recovery options, too. Additionally, enterprises struggle to effectively scale their infrastructure, impacting their overall performance and growth.
Managed Cloud Empowers Enterprise Growth and Innovation
With the rapidly evolving landscape and the associated complexities and challenges, enterprises are beginning to embrace managed cloud services as a strategic solution to boost operational efficiency, scalability, and cybersecurity, while staying competitive. They offer several benefits to enterprises and are a smart choice.
• 24/7 Monitoring and Support
With self-managed cloud hosting, several enterprises are witnessing cloud latency and downtime issues, disrupting business operations. The cost of downtime across all industries is significant, with finance, healthcare, retail, government, and manufacturing sectors facing higher risks, including the danger of customer churn and revenue losses. Managed cloud providers offer round-the-clock monitoring and support, such as real-time performance monitoring and instant incident response by a dedicated team of experts who are geographically dispersed. They address issues promptly, sometimes even before the customer is aware, thus minimizing downtime and establishing business continuity.
• Cost optimization
Managed cloud service providers take away the burden of the organization in investing in IT infrastructure, its maintenance, and the cost of hiring experts. They offer the services on a pay-as-you-use/grow model, allowing organizations to manage their budgets efficiently. Furthermore, managed cloud service providers also leverage advanced tools to effectively evaluate cloud usage data and identify ways and means of maximizing cost savings, like utilizing AWS savings plans or EC2 spot instances. CapEx and OpEx are minimized and operational expenses get reduced and streamlined, and cloud resources get optimized with managed cloud services, and a fixed monthly service plan is made available to enterprises based on their budget and unique requirements.
• Seamless Scalability and Flexibility
By partnering with a managed cloud service provider, enterprises can instantly scale up and down based on demand without long-term capital investments. The organization’s requirements, be it enhancing storage and computing power, launching a new app, entering a new market, or accommodating seasonal spikes, managed cloud service providers make real-time adjustments while ensuring no disruption in operations. With remote and hybrid work models becoming the norm, the service providers enable teams to work from anywhere, offering the required flexibility. This team will architect the cloud infrastructure to manage growing workloads, implement autoscaling mechanisms, and optimize resources at various stages of business growth.
• Expertise and Efficiency
Many a time, organizations lack the in-house expertise to design, deploy, and manage cloud environments, as it will mean rising hiring costs besides CapEx and OpEx. Additionally, keeping up with the latest technology trends can be a challenge for organizations, which could take away their focus from effectively running a business and improving overall efficiency. On the other hand, managed cloud service providers offer industry knowledge and help organizations to stay updated with the latest tools and technologies and ongoing innovations. By partnering with the service providers, organizations can gain access to advanced technology and industry knowledge while leveraging them to become more efficient to stay ahead of the curve.
• Enhanced Security and Compliance
Sophisticated cybersecurity threats and compliance mandates can overwhelm organizations and increase security risks. By partnering with a well-established managed cloud service provider, organizations can be assured that their systems are up-to-date with the latest security measures, and the cloud infrastructure is continuously monitored for risks. They also conduct vulnerability assessments and penetration testing to identify weaknesses in the cloud infrastructure and proactively address them. They also do so with the implementation of security controls such as encryption and Multi-factor Authentication, among others. The service providers help in designing a robust cybersecurity strategy and implement it along with industry best practices. Managed cloud service providers always stay updated with the compliance requirements and apply the appropriate ones in addition to helping conduct regular audits.
In today’s highly competitive market, organizations should partner with the right managed cloud service provider that has deep domain expertise, can seamlessly manage multi- and hybrid cloud environments, ensures compliance, and delivers cost-effective and efficient solutions.
Kamleshwar Bhatt, Chief Executive Officer, i2k2 Networks