...written in the context of when one plans for an Enterprise Scale Hosted Web Application
The term Cloud Computing is probably mentioned as often as Web 2.0 was (back in the day) and with it comes the question of whether we need Managed Hosting anymore. I think its fair to say that it's never going to be a clear yes or no answer.
Managed Cloud Services
Will there be such a thing? We will start to see this come up in conversation more and more as people either start to develop serious green field projects in the cloud or include it as an extension to existing on premise services such as federation services or CRM.
Managed Hosting can mean different things to different roles. If you're the head of IT being asked to provide levels of support for a system or entire enterprise that demand everything from 24/7 support to a meaningful SLA, you'll see Managed Hosting as a good option. If you're the head of a software development project you'll expect Managed Hosting to include a responsive service desk that can either troubleshoot an environment issue or assist in procuring additional services quickly whilst following a process.
Co-Lo VS Managed Hosting
Simply speaking, you would typically engage a Co-Lo hosting company to provide you with not much more than Power, Cooling, Networking and Rack space. You would engage a Managed Hosting company to (depending on your budget) do all the Co-Lo things plus the OS, Server Applications, Security, Capacity planning, 24/7 ITIL based service desk and much more.
Cloud Computing and Your Responsibility
I'm assuming that as cloud computing services mature or Managed Cloud Services enter the picture, the levels of support will start to increase and meet your requirements beyond just the hosting aspect, but for the moment you need to remember what you’re getting for a per £ per hour cloud model.
Built for Operations
You will need to 'bake in' monitoring to your cloud services application, you will need to select your preferred method of how to notify and report against application health, you may even need to pay an external party to monitor your application (outside in). Essentially you may find that cloud computing services feels a bit like Co-Lo. Another thing to remember is that your internal operations head count could increase with your newly freed cloud services application.
So, back to the question – Do we still need Managed Hosting?
For starters, you may want to consider asking yourself the following questions:
- Does your hosted application need an external SLA that you can claim against?
- Does your hosted application demand outsourced monitoring and a 24/7 application focused ITIL service desk?
- Do you have the skills and know how to build hosted applications that will include monitoring, notification, reporting and self healing?
For more information about hosted applications, feel free to contact us: matt.mould@conchango.com