Managed Services Provides a Pathway to the Cloud and Composability.

For most organizations that have been hosting their CMS on-premises, making the move to the cloud is really not a one-size-fits-all strategy. While your CMS software provider may offer a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution, managed cloud services from an experienced third-party vendor should be considered as well — especially when it comes to large enterprise deployments that require more advanced support -or- are looking to modernize their architecture to become more composable.

Software SaaS offerings do bring solid economies of scale. Applications like Salesforce, Gmail, and Microsoft 365 come to mind as great examples of straightforward SaaS solutions. However, when it comes to enterprise content management and the fluid challenges of maintaining adaptability and resilience in today’s constantly changing marketplace, SaaS alone may fall short due to their limited support and role in an interchangeable architecture — where applications are single building blocks to a bigger strategy. This is where Managed Cloud Services comes in.

Apples vs. Apple-Pie (à la mode)

There is really not a fair comparison between SaaS and managed cloud services. It’s not 1-to-1. Simply put, managed cloud services provide the benefits of SaaS + a dedicated cloud architecture; top-to-bottom support (including front-end, plugins and other customizations); “concierge-level” customer experience as well as fault-tolerant content pipelines to provide agile workflows and sustainable integration that meet your specific needs and requirements.

Managed Cloud Services adds more value than a SaaS solution including:

1. The option and ability to move to the cloud “as is” — providing a more smoother migration experience in avoiding the change management, uneasiness and disruption of trying to fit a square-peg (on-premises setup) into a round-hole (SaaS configuration). By moving over the same architecture, version and configuration as your on-premises setup, managed hosting services can provide a smoother and staged transition. This option gives the customer more flexibility, confidence and familiarity with the initial migration and setup. There is nothing behind the curtain.
2. Once migrated over, you will have better control and proving grounds for optimizing and modernizing your CMS deployment. Managed cloud services can apply your specific needs and business outcomes in fine tuning a more optimized, scalable and composable deployment. This includes; (a) automation in promoting content (workflow, CI/CD); (b) fault-tolerant syncing and integrating content with environments and other applications; (c)horizontal scaling across regions and cloud providers (AWS, GCP, Azure, etc) and (d) ongoing access to other capabilities and efficiencies to meet tomorrow’s demands.
3. You get a seasoned team of experts for the CMS codebase, your implementation and cloud hosting. We are focused on supporting your deployment and making sure it meets your business outcomes. We are able to work with all of your departments and their specific needs and business requirements. We enable your organization to get out of the CMS hosting and support business — allowing your teams to innovate and create new services for your own customers.
4. This is also a transferrable cloud architecture and continuity that allows your organization to take back ownership or transfer ownership to other managed service providers. With several organizations, this is a critical need that is required in their own governance and compliance policies. It also removes the vendor lock-in by giving the customer the control of their deployment and cloud architecture it runs on. This includes running on two separate cloud infrastructures (Hybrid Cloud).

So, in short, managed cloud services provide more… more hosting options, more service capabilities, more flexibility and more future growth. Its broader shoulders represent a better fit when it comes to enterprise content management deployments.

How do you like them apples?

For more information on Motiv Solutions and ImpulseSync™, visit MotivSolutions.com