A hybrid approach for MSPs: bridging the gap between on-premises and cloud
Managed Service Providers or MSPs play a pivotal role in delivering secure, flexible, and scalable IT services to their customers.
Serving as the backbone of IT operations, MSPs enable businesses to focus on their core activities while entrusting the complexities of IT management, remote access, and data security to skilled professionals using solutions like Parallels RAS. Get your free trial now!
Through their expertise, MSPs ensure their customers maintain seamless access to critical data and applications, enabling employees to work efficiently from anywhere while also playing crucial role in data backup and recovery services and safeguarding businesses against data loss due to unforeseen circumstances such as hardware failures, cyber-attacks, or natural disasters.
Traditionally, businesses relied solely on on-premises solutions for their IT needs. However, with the advent of cloud technology, MSPs have found innovative ways to blend on-premises with private and public cloud infrastructure, creating what is commonly known as a hybrid approach.
This strategy combines the best of both worlds, offering unparalleled flexibility, scalability, and efficiency.
Our recent survey into industry-leading IT professionals highlighted the various reasons for choosing a hybrid solution vary, with 49% of respondents citing its increased flexibility, 46% the improved security, 45% seeking cost savings, 44% needing increased reliability, and 40% looking for better scalability.
In this blog post, I’ll explore the benefits of MSPs utilizing both on-premises and cloud infrastructure to best serve their clients’ needs.
The flexibility of cloud infrastructure
Cloud infrastructure offers unparalleled flexibility and scalability, making it an attractive option for businesses looking to optimize their operations:
Scalability
Cloud services allow MSPs to easily scale their resources up or down based on customer demand. With the cloud MSPs, can optimize their operations efficiently and allocate resources precisely where and when they are required, whether it’s accommodating a sudden surge in user demand or ensuring the seamless onboarding of new customers.
Cost-efficiency
Public cloud services operate on a pay-as-you-go model, eliminating the need for significant upfront investments.
Unlike traditional setups requiring substantial upfront investments in hardware and infrastructure, cloud services allow MSPs to pay monthly only for the resources their customers utilize.
Reduced infrastructure maintenance
Using public cloud services frees MSPs from the complexities of managing, updating, and maintaining physical servers.
Public cloud providers handle the entire spectrum of server management tasks, ensuring servers are always up-to-date, secure, and well-maintained.
The power of on-premises infrastructure
On-premises infrastructure refers to the traditional IT setup where hardware and networking components are housed within the organization’s premises.
While cloud technology has gained prominence, on-premises infrastructure still holds its ground due to several key advantages:
Tailored solutions and client specificity
One of the primary advantages of on-premises infrastructure is the ability to offer highly customized, client-specific solutions.
Businesses, especially those with unique operational requirements, often demand tailored IT environments that seamlessly align with their business needs. On-premises solutions allow MSPs to craft bespoke configurations, ensuring that these needs are met with precision.
Enhanced data control and security
Data security is paramount, on-premises infrastructure can provide a heightened level of control and security. Certain industries, such as finance and healthcare, operate under stringent regulatory frameworks, mandating the storage and processing of sensitive data on-premises.
By providing on-premises solutions, MSPs can empower their clients with a sense of ownership and direct control over their data. This level of security is invaluable, especially in sectors where data breaches can have severe consequences.
Cost-efficiency and long-term investments
Contrary to the perception that on-premises solutions are cost-prohibitive, they can be highly cost-effective in the long run. For businesses with stable, predictable workloads, investing in on-premises infrastructure can be financially prudent.
Access to legacy applications
The continued importance of legacy Windows and Linux applications poses a significant hurdle.
These applications can be integral to day-to-day operations, and they are often designed to run on on-premises infrastructure. Migrating them to a fully cloud environment can be complex, time-consuming, and costly. Rewriting or refactoring them for cloud compatibility requires a considerable investment of resources, time, and expertise.
In our survey of IT professionals, 49% claimed that they currently need legacy Windows and Linux applications and will continue to need them in the next five years, so solutions (including the hybrid cloud) that enable access to legacy apps will continue to be necessary for the near future.
The hybrid approach: the best of both worlds
MSPs recognize the unique advantages offered by both on-premises and cloud infrastructure. By blending these two environments, MSPs can offer tailored solutions that meet the needs of their customers to navigate the complexities of modern IT landscapes, delivering flexibility, resilience, cost optimization, compliance, and security.
During this year’s Canalys Forum it was quoted that “46% of EMEA partners see some public cloud workloads moving to on-premises/edge.”
Here are just some of the reasons why a hybrid approach is gaining traction:
Cost optimization
Cost considerations play a pivotal role in any technology adoption strategy. By combining on-premises and multi-cloud solutions, businesses and MSPs can optimize expenses. They can utilize on-premises infrastructure for workloads with consistent demand and predictable usage, while using the cost-effective scalability of the cloud to handle peak periods or temporary resource needs.
Flexibility
MSPs can design hybrid solutions that allow businesses to scale seamlessly.
Whether accommodating growth or adjusting to fluctuations. MSPs can scale solutions up or down, optimizing costs for themselves and their customers alike.
Critical workloads can remain on-premises, ensuring data control, while non-sensitive tasks can leverage the cloud’s scalability.
Compliance and security
For businesses operating in regulated industries, a hybrid approach allows them to maintain compliance by keeping sensitive data on-premises, while benefiting from the cloud’s enhanced security features for non-sensitive operations.
Optimized performance
MSPs can optimize performance by strategically allocating workloads. Latency-sensitive applications can run on-premises, while applications requiring vast computational power can leverage cloud resources.
Disaster recovery and redundancy
A hybrid infrastructure provides robust disaster recovery and redundancy capabilities. Data can be backed up both on-premises and in the cloud, reducing the risk of data loss due to hardware failures or natural disasters.
The advantages of Parallels RAS in hybrid environments
Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) offers a multitude of features to bridge the gap between on-premises and cloud infrastructure. This seamless integration not only optimizes resource utilization but also ensures a consistent user experience, regardless of whether applications are hosted locally or in the cloud, without the need for complex, or extra licensing requirements.
Parallels RAS empowers MSPs to meet the unique needs of their customers, offering a unified solution that effortlessly spans the divide between traditional on-premises setups and the dynamic capabilities of the cloud, enabling businesses to embrace the benefits of both worlds seamlessly.
Moreover, Parallels RAS stands out as a game-changer, simplifying the complexities associated with Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (RDS). With Parallels RAS, MSPs can effortlessly set up environments with just a few clicks, through a centralized single pane of glass management console. It optimizes productivity by automating common, complex, and repetitive tasks using its REST-API, saving valuable time and costs.
Centralized management and administration
Parallels RAS offers flexibility by enabling the integration of resources, whether on-premises or in the cloud. Administration and management are centralized within a single console, ensuring a consistent user experience and ease of management across platforms no matter where resources reside.
Seamless load balancing
Parallels RAS load balancing capabilities distribute workloads evenly across servers, enhancing performance and reliability.
This is especially critical in hybrid setups where seamless transitions between on-premises and cloud resources are paramount. The load balancing feature in Parallels RAS becomes especially critical in these scenarios, facilitating smooth shifts between on-premises and cloud servers.
Enhanced security features
Parallels RAS provides robust security protocols, safeguarding data during transit and ensuring compliance with industry regulations, whether stored on-premises or in the cloud.
The solution integrates with the latest SSL encryption protocols and is FIPS 140-2 compliant, in addition to MFA and demilitarized zone (DMZ) deployment for highly secured connections. By employing these robust encryption protocols and advanced authentication mechanisms, Parallels RAS ensures that data integrity and confidentiality are maintained at all times.
Azure Virtual Desktop management and cost savings
Creating a hybrid deployment with Azure Virtual Desktop native requires specific, costly hardware, additional license fees, heightened management overhead and lacks features such as monitoring and auto-scaling.
In contrast, Parallels RAS offers unmatched flexibility, allowing hybrid setups on any on-premises environment without added fees, seamlessly integrating with existing Azure Stack to ensure a unified admin experience.
By seamlessly integrating with Azure Virtual Desktop, Parallels RAS provides comprehensive management capabilities, simplifying complex tasks and ensuring streamlined operations.
It optimizes costs by reducing Azure compute and storage costs, allowing MSPs to maximize their existing resources and ensuring businesses only pay for the resources they need, leading to significant cost savings maximizing their ROI.
Freedom from vendor lock-in
Embracing a complete hybrid approach and all the associated capabilities not only opens new avenues to unparalleled flexibility, but also liberates MSPs from the constraints of vendor lock-ins.
It guarantees the freedom of choice, enabling MSPs and their customers to make decisions without being tied to a single cloud vendor, allowing seamless transitions between different cloud providers as necessary.
Therefore, organizations are not confined to a single cloud provider; they can leverage resources from various leading cloud services like Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud Platform (GCP), alongside on-premises infrastructure.
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