Cloud technology is an ever-growing market with solutions for enterprises of all sizes. As noted in research by Gartner, the growth of cloud computing solutions is expected to continue through 2022, with businesses adding new platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) solutions to their cloud computing tool kits.

However, a business cloud migration, while beneficial, isn’t the end-all, be-all solution for every enterprise. In fact, a poorly-managed cloud platform migration can cause more disruption to a company than it’s worth. Yet, many cloud services don’t provide enough in the way of implementation and ongoing cloud management support—leaving enterprises to try to tackle their cloud challenges on their own.

Rather than taking on the first cloud computing service they find, enterprises can be better served by finding fully managed cloud solutions that take the guesswork and struggle out of their business cloud migration and ongoing cloud management.

Why should your enterprise opt for a fully managed cloud solution instead of just going with any old software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution? What’s the difference between a managed cloud platform and a standard cloud service?

What’s the Difference Between Managed Cloud Computing and “Standard” Cloud Products?

The biggest difference between managed services cloud computing and other cloud solutions is that the cloud solution provider (CSP) in a managed cloud also acts as a managed service provider (MSP). This managed service provider not only provides software and infrastructure via their cloud service, but they offer other services as well, such as managing software licenses and updates, providing implementation services, offering employee training to use the cloud-based software, and configuring the software to meet your enterprise’s needs.

Compare this to a standard cloud computing solution, which simply hands off a software access license and leaves everything else to you.

So, what are the benefits of moving to the cloud with a fully-managed solution instead of one where you’re expected to manually do everything yourself? Here’s a list:

1: Fully Managed Cloud Solutions Have Predictable Costs

Labor is an enormous variable for most cloud technology implementations. Depending on the complexity of your enterprise’s current software, and the solution being enabled, you may spend months trying to get your new cloud computing solution integrated with your processes. This can waste countless hours of labor for your internal IT team.

Because your IT team is being distracted by implementation tasks, they will have reduced capacity for their normal work. This will leave you having to choose between:

1. Accepting the reduced productivity and lost revenue opportunities it can cause;
2. Adding more IT personnel on a short-term basis to cover lost productivity; or
3. Scheduling existing IT personnel for longer shifts to allow them to cover both their regular tasks and implementation work (potentially causing burnout among your IT staff).

A fully managed cloud computing solution eliminates the variable labor cost by having the CSP’s team handle implementation tasks for your business.

2: 24/7 Management of Your Cloud Technology Infrastructure

One of the distinctive features of a fully managed cloud solution is that it comes with “around the clock” management. Your managed cloud solution provider will constantly monitor the status of your cloud infrastructure, working to resolve any issues that occur as soon as possible. To proactively prevent major issues, a managed cloud computing service provider will apply new software patches and keep their computing solutions operating in top shape—helping to maximize uptime and avoid unexpected loss of service.

This 24/7 management of your cloud computing service also helps to speed up response times to your requests because the cloud provider is constantly watching to help resolve issues. This, in turn, helps improve infrastructure uptime without creating extraneous in-house maintenance costs.

3: Centralized Servers and Applications in a Single Managed Cloud Platform

Many cloud services consist of a single solution that you then have to integrate with all of your other software and technologies. However, a fully managed cloud solution offers the option of creating a true “all-in-one” software and service platform that can unify your operations.

With a single database to manage on a single, fully-integrated solution such as cloud computing from Oracle, your enterprise can massively simplify enterprise software management—saving time and money on managing software.

Also, by using a single, unified managed cloud computing solution, your enterprise’s employees can have a more seamless user experience. This increases the adoption rate of cloud-based services among your workforce so your business can realize a greater ROI for managed cloud platform investments. A seamless user experience also reduces the amount of time employees waste on managing logins for different software solutions—increasing efficiency by removing obstacles to productivity.

These are just a few of the potential benefits of using a fully managed cloud computing solution. Does your enterprise need a managed cloud platform to simplify IT management and make its business processes more efficient? Reach out to the Drivestream team to get started with a fully managed cloud solution now!