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Managed Services

Cloud Based Computing

Industry wide, there is a plethora of alternatives available in the realm of IT infrastructure.  To be sure, a one-size-fits-all approach is likely inappropriate. To help our customers evaluate and compare the attributes of the different approaches available today, we offer the following table compares BluePoint’s SkyServer to the traditional offerings of hosting, managed services infrastructure, and the more recent offerings under the heading of “private cloud” in the category of cloud based computing.

SkyNOC	skyserver	private cloud	Managed infrastucture	standard hosting
	I	II	III	IV
Reliable Power
Reliable Bandwidth
SLA		OPT
Fixed Costs
No Capital Outlay		SOM
Enabled Disaster Recovery
Disaster Prevention
Integral NOC Services		OPT	OPT
24 X 7 Monitoring			OPT

OPT = Optional    SOM = Sometimes

• A customer may take the more traditional route by purchasing equipment and hosting that equipment in a data center. Businesses must gauge whether the data center is offering reliable hosting. This approach has the advantage of being extremely evolutionary and therefore the customer may employ many of its traditional IT management practices. However, nearly without exception, this option is typically the most expensive as it includes little or no economy of scale. Therefore, the customer must be careful to avoid escalation of costs when moving traditional IT practices into a hosting arrangement.

 

• The second major approach is called managed infrastructure which includes managed services. With manage infrastructure one typically hosts their equipment in a data center in the same manner as an industry standard hosting agreement; however, the hosting center manages some or all of the  infrastructure. The greatest risk to this managed infostructure arrangement is that scope, lines of demarcation, and therefore cost can be vague. In its worst manifestation, this approach can be little more than a professional services agreement on retainer. Therefore, customers are urged to consider managed services arrangements carefully to ensure the provider is financially motivated to minimize outages, downtime, and labor.

 

• The third major approach is also the newist – cloud based computing. Private cloud is the most abused and least defined term in the industry. At it’s best is a scalable, reliable, cost-predictable IT platform. At its worst, it’s little more than a leasing agreement in disguise. The private cloud absolutely must include service-level agreements, inherent economies of scale, indirectly lower a customer’s cost of computing while adding significant degrees of flexibility.   Steer clear of providers that fall short of these goals.

 

• With BluePoint’s SkyServer the customer receives a complete, SLA-based private cloud from a company that has  been delivering private cloud services for over a decade. Our private clouds all run on ESX from VMware.   No proprietary operating system stack here. All of our virtual servers are all backed up to a remote data center such that recovery from disaster is always facilitated. There’s nothing to buy and we always offer a service level agreement or SLA… Always. If you’re looking for a comprehensive approach to one or more private cloud servers, BluePoint’s SkyServer offers a comprehensive low-cost alternative, from a company that has been running large-scale infrastructure in the private cloud value proposition for over a decade.

Whatever your chosen approach, ensure that you are getting the core value proposition from that approach. In other words, if you choose hosting ensure the center but you are hosting with has the highest quality bandwidth, power, and cooling. If managed services are chosen, look for SLA’s, remedies, and proactive services to minimize outages and downtime. Lastly, if private cloud services are chosen look for a provider that combines true economies of scale, true 24 x 7 support, and airtight SLA’s… Just like SkyServer!