Amazon has launched AWS Managed Services, which are designed for Fortune 1000 and Global 2000 customers. Translation: Amazon is countering IBM and Microsoft with large enterprise customer cloud support, essentially leaving third-party MSPs to support SMB customers.
The enterprise-cloud showdown should be intense. Amazon Web Services (AWS) are largely adopted by startup companies and small businesses, while Microsoft (Azure and Office 365) and IBM Cloud are better known for their Fortune 500 focus. AWS Managed Services seeks to change that perception, particularly with Global 2000 CIOs who are seeking "digital business transformation" strategies.
Amazon's initial AWS Managed Services will support:
- Change management;
- Incident management;
- Provisioning management;
- Patch management;
- Access management;
- Security management;
- Continuity management; and
- Reporting.
MSPs: Competing and Cooperating With Amazon AWS?
Of course, some mid-market MSPs and data center partners could get caught in the crossfire as Amazon, Microsoft and IBM promote their own enterprise-class managed services.. Dozens of MSPs now support customers on AWS. A few key names -- Rackspace comes to mind -- have bet their businesses on AWS and Azure managed services, particularly for midmarket and larger customers.
Still, many MSPs see plenty of room for profits outside of global 2000 AWS accounts. And some partners are starting to focus on multi-cloud management. Bali Kuchipudi, product marketing lead at SoftwareONE, put it this way:
"Amazon's move into the managed service provider space is exciting news for companies committed to AWS environments. For enterprise-grade organizations operating on a single-cloud platform, AWS Managed Services will help them deploy an efficient AWS environment. However, companies looking to make the move to the cloud or manage a smaller AWS environment will have to look elsewhere for CSP support, as AWS Managed Services isn't built to scale down."
While other cloud providers do offer a layer of managed services, Kuchipudi added, the market for CSPs and MSPs is maturing towards multi-cloud platforms. "Organizations of all sizes are looking for an aggregation of services across clouds and they want insights from multiple providers," he said. "While this new AWS feature will be a powerful tool for a subset of existing AWS customers, we're interested to see how AWS will address the growing demand for multi-cloud MSP tools."
We'll be watching, too.
