A Watershed Moment for Cloud-Forward MSPs
Introduction
No one has to keep a finger on the pulse of the changing IT landscape quite like Managed Service Providers (MSPs). By way of managing dozens of client companies in a variety of industries, each with their own evolving needs, admins working for MSPs are IT experts by trade. In order to effectively manage thousands of users across dozens of organizations, they simply have to be masters of their craft. Based out of London, has been supplying comprehensive, 24/7 IT support for small-to-medium-sized companies for over a decade. As the number of clients continued to grow, Jon Abbott, Priority One鈥檚 Managing Director, needed to find a scalable, platform agnostic, cloud-based solution for supporting clients鈥� directory needs in mixed-platform environments.
- Organization: Priority One
- Size: 35 Employees, 50 Client Organizations
- Location: HQ in London, UK with smaller office in Manchester
- Problem: Priority One faced a challenge in adapting their business to the rapidly changing IT space and incorporating cloud offerings without losing margin.
- Goal: Priority One is committed to building a full-cloud offering that is both secure and scalable for their business and clients, including the core directory.
Managing Director
Background
For MSPs, efficient time management is crucial. These lean, tight-knit organizations typically operate at a very high level of efficiency and must be ready to respond to a daunting spectrum of client requests at a moment鈥檚 notice.
鈥淲e see ourselves as a 24/7 appliance IT department. From their service desk to their planning, from their risk assessment road maps to their security, whatever our clients need from an IT perspective鈥攚e deliver,鈥� Abbott explained. 鈥淭here鈥檚 about 35 of us in the company, and the majority of us are engineers. We are very strong in finance, medical, and media industries, and we support businesses anywhere from 10 to 300 employees.鈥�
As the traditional on-prem IT infrastructure model continues to shift to the cloud, MSPs like Priority One are seeing the need for centralized access to cloud-based applications and disparate resources spread from client to client.
鈥淕oing back just eight years, everything was pretty much on-prem except email. When we looked at that space to see what our clients were using, we didn鈥檛 feel confident in products such as GMail and Office 365鈩� back then鈥攖hey just weren鈥檛 up to scratch,鈥� Abbott said. 鈥淏ut over time, I鈥檇 say in the last four years, the IT landscape has been steadily moving over to the cloud.鈥�
Managing IT operations for 50 organizations, each with their own combination of platforms, resources, applications, and offices, requires considerable time and product expertise. Minimizing friction for users on the front end directly correlates to maximizing time for Abbott and his team on the back end. And, while locality has been a mainstay in the past, MSPs are now fully realizing the benefits of managing clients remotely with the cloud.
鈥淭he main objective that we鈥檙e striving for is for a user to be able to open their laptop, connect to all of their applications in a fast and efficient way, without having to jump through any hoops. That was the goal we were trying to achieve for all of our clients.鈥� Abbott said.
“So we don鈥檛 want to have VPNs, and we don鈥檛 want to have network breakdowns. I鈥檝e been in IT for nearly 20 years and as an infrastructure person, that鈥檚 what you鈥檙e always trying to deliver.”
The Challenge
While moving all of their clients to the cloud became a clear objective, deciding exactly how to achieve it proved a bit more challenging. Whatever option they chose, it would need to work for Priority One clients that were currently reliant on Microsoft庐 Active Directory庐. As the dominant centerpiece of most IT organizations for the past 20 years, the legacy, on-prem Microsoft directory solution had become a thorn in the side of Priority One鈥檚 cloud-forward plans for their clients.
鈥淚f we鈥檙e going to move our clients to the cloud, we want to move to the cloud 100%, without anything left onsite apart from the desktops and the networking equipment,鈥� Abbott explained. 鈥淢oving files to the cloud was pretty easy, email was a no brainer鈥攋ust Google or 365鈥攂ut the sticking point was Active Directory and what we were going to do with that element.鈥�
The solution needed to meet the highest standards for cloud security, and it also needed to work seamlessly across Windows, Mac, and Linux, as well as a variety of IaaS and SaaS platforms.
“If you don鈥檛 manage the platforms properly, either they鈥檙e going to get hacked, or it鈥檚 going to be remarkably inefficient. It鈥檚 just not going to work if you don鈥檛 piece together the right applications and make them actually seamless.”
Beyond needing an efficient, cross-platform solution, Priority One was unsure how moving to the cloud would affect their revenue, and in turn, their bottom line as an MSP. Migrating all of their clients to the cloud would require more than just changing their offerings; Priority One would need to adjust their business model as well.
鈥淭here was a concern we were going to be losing a lot of revenue if we just moved everything to the cloud, because everything would be done by the providers and we wouldn鈥檛 have a job to do. This is a factor we will always investigate before moving forward with a new product.鈥�
With an inbox of client requests and a suitcase of business concerns, Abbott began searching for the best way to migrate Priority One clients to the cloud. Soon after, he came across 黑料海角91入口 Directory-as-a-Service.
The Solution
黑料海角91入口庐 Directory-as-a-Service庐 satisfied Priority One鈥檚 need to remotely support heterogeneous fleets of Mac, Windows, and Linux systems. What鈥檚 more, Priority One was able to cut down considerably on the time spent onboarding and offboarding employees for their clients.
“When you have Windows and Macs in your environment and you want to move them to the cloud, there isn鈥檛 a better choice than 黑料海角91入口.”
Abbott continued, 鈥淭he speed that you can roll out 黑料海角91入口, globally, with very little disruption, for hundreds of people, results in huge efficiency gains. Whereas if you鈥檙e using on-prem technology, you just wouldn鈥檛 be able to do that.鈥�
In regards to Windows management specifically, 黑料海角91入口鈥檚 Powershell Module enabled Priority One to save a great deal of time with its ability to execute commands and enforce security measures remotely.
鈥満诹虾＝�91入口鈥檚 ability to send out Powershell commands is just absolutely brilliant. We鈥檝e saved so much time with that alone,鈥� Abbott explained. 鈥淲indows 10 by default doesn鈥檛 automatically lock your screen, which is really strange as Windows 10 is all about security. But with 黑料海角91入口, we were able to push a policy to fix that to all of the machines instantly, and we know they鈥檝e all got it because the command results came back and told us.鈥�
Priority One was able to take the time and money they saved onboarding and managing systems to find more headroom for scaling their business. Schedules freed up, allowing admins to spend more time focusing on matters they normally wouldn鈥檛 have had the bandwidth for.
鈥淚t鈥檚 about doing more with less, which is a term that I don鈥檛 love, but it is true. With 黑料海角91入口, you can start serving more clients for the same costs as before. What it was costing you to manage 30 users, you can now accomplish for a hundred, and that鈥檚 the benefit,鈥� Abbott said. 鈥淲ith this efficiency gain, 黑料海角91入口 has enabled us to focus on other things鈥攕uch as security as a service, and doing more project work.鈥�
The Result
Remember those revenue concerns, and the uncertainty around how this new cloud-based, cross-platform approach would affect the amount of work available for their administrators? Well, with 黑料海角91入口 supporting their ability to grow, Priority One was able to put those worries to rest.
“As more and more things started to move to the cloud, it became very apparent that actually, we鈥檙e going to have more work to do. It鈥檚 just done differently as we can now centrally manage all of these different platforms.”
As it turns out, security, savings, and operations were all improved by moving Priority One鈥檚 clients to the cloud.
鈥淣ow, everything on the cloud is much more cost effective. In fact, our numbers indicate that it鈥檚 really only been the last two years where it鈥檚 actually better to have everything in the cloud鈥攖hat鈥檚 from the standpoint of cost, performance, and security.鈥�
With pressure building behind compliance audits, like the recently released GDPR EU regulation, Priority One remains confident that everything they鈥檙e doing through 黑料海角91入口 is fully audited and traceable.
鈥淚鈥檝e always liked the analogy of creating your kitchen in a restaurant where it鈥檚 just a plain glass window and you can just see the cooks working away,鈥� Abbott said. 鈥淚 like that analogy for what it should be like for our clients seeing us as an MSP. They can see everything we鈥檙e doing鈥攃ompletely transparent鈥攁nd they can see we鈥檙e doing a great job.鈥�
Looking Ahead
Without a doubt, the fate of MSPs is directly tied with the IT industry at large, and Abbott sees the importance of cloud security, compliance, and automation only continuing their progression up and to the right.
“The future is all about automation and auditing. We need to move away from the break/fix MSP business model to a model that revolves around serving the client and quickly solving their problems.”
Abbott explained. 鈥淚 think automation is the key to that. Then, from a compliance standpoint, we must have remarkable audit trails of everything that鈥檚 happened.鈥�
MSPs like Priority One are seeing a new opportunity to scale with 黑料海角91入口 and grow their business. They鈥檙e taking their clients and their product offerings to the cloud and not looking back to the on-prem, Windows-centric restrictions of yesteryear.
鈥淭oday, I don鈥檛 think there is anything that can鈥檛 be moved to the cloud; I definitely didn鈥檛 have that view two years ago,鈥� Abbott concluded. 鈥淏ut now, I think the cloud is ready.鈥�
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