Ben­e­fits of Microsoft­’s Cloud Solu­tion Provider model

Many orga­ni­za­tions have already migrat­ed to Microsoft Azure, and con­ser­v­a­tive­ly esti­mat­ed, over 80% of Fin­land’s largest orga­ni­za­tions use Azure for some areas of their busi­ness, for exam­ple for vir­tu­al machines, soft­ware devel­op­ment, inte­gra­tions, data plat­forms or advanced ana­lyt­ics, as well as machine learning

Ear­li­er, orga­ni­za­tions either had their own data cen­ter or they bought data cen­ter ser­vices from a part­ner (in hybrid mod­els it still exists and will remain with us to some extent). The pat­tern was clear, that is, all infra­struc­ture came from one source, and one part­ner or ded­i­cat­ed team was respon­si­ble for all server‑, network‑, fire­wall- and ser­vice-relat­ed issues.

With­out div­ing deep­er into the ben­e­fits of pub­lic cloud, the world has changed sig­nif­i­cant­ly since the afore­men­tioned mod­el, with a much short­er go-to-mar­ket time for the lat­est solu­tions, where there is no need to order a serv­er and wait for some­one to car­ry it down the hall and con­nect it to the network.

It’s still best to keep the main­te­nance of the basic infra­struc­ture with one part­ner in the pub­lic cloud, which means that one part­ner is respon­si­ble for all the basic ports and net­works with fire­walls. How­ev­er, the pub­lic cloud world allows a more effi­cient and flex­i­ble model.

The over­all solu­tion for a par­tic­u­lar domain, which is in your own Azure sub­scrip­tion (or sev­er­al), can be pur­chased from a niche part­ner in that domain. So even if one part­ner han­dles the Azure resources and basic infra­struc­ture issues, it makes sense to out­source cer­tain spe­cif­ic solu­tions to oth­er part­ners. That allows this par­tic­u­lar part­ner to han­dle all the basics, with­out order­ing work from a gen­er­al part­ner who does not have deep knowl­edge of the spe­cif­ic solu­tion in question.

The method described is Microsoft­’s Cloud Solu­tion Provider (CSP) mod­el. In this mod­el, the niche part­ner can offer an Azure sub­scrip­tion to a cus­tomer, with the costs going through that part­ner, and the part­ner also has exten­sive rights and capa­bil­i­ties to track the costs. The CSP mod­el nev­er com­mits the cus­tomer orga­ni­za­tion to buy Azure con­sump­tion from a par­tic­u­lar part­ner, but the part­ner can be changed very eas­i­ly if nec­es­sary (unless lim­it­ed by con­tracts between the parties).

Islet pro­vides Azure resources to its cus­tomers on a CSP mod­el, includ­ing SAP on Azure deliv­ery, and of course in the data and ana­lyt­ics area. The abil­i­ty to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the incur­ring costs, and to use cost man­age­ment capa­bil­i­ties, improves ser­vice lev­els and keeps costs under control.

It may seem like an extra has­sle to buy an Azure data and ana­lyt­ics solu­tion from Islet, instead of buy­ing it from the same basic infra­struc­ture part­ner. Below is a short list of ben­e­fits that, in our expe­ri­ence, this mod­el brings:

Microsoft­’s CSP mod­el pric­ing is cost effec­tive in many ways

• In gen­er­al, the price can be low­er than buy­ing direct­ly from Microsoft with a cred­it card. In any case, the price is nev­er high­er, and Islet does not add its own mar­gin on top of the Azure prices. On the con­trary, we often pro­vide our cus­tomers a small dis­count from the list prices.
• The mod­el gives Islet full vis­i­bil­i­ty of the incur­ring costs, sig­nif­i­cant­ly improv­ing pre­dictabil­i­ty and allow­ing the cus­tomer to retrieve actu­al costs from Islet in the mid­dle of the month and improv­ing fore­cast accuracy
• Bet­ter vis­i­bil­i­ty on costs enables us to opti­mize the solu­tion from cost per­spec­tive, e.g. by scal­ing the per­for­mance lev­els of dif­fer­ent com­po­nents accord­ing to usage, etc. With­out real-time vis­i­bil­i­ty, opti­miza­tion is a gam­ble and may not lead to desired results.
• The cus­tomer gains vis­i­bil­i­ty into the full cost of the solu­tion, i.e. the expert ser­vices pro­vid­ed by Islet, and the Azure-based data and ana­lyt­ics solu­tion we deliv­er, with­out being bur­dened by oth­er Azure costs.

Pro­vid­ing sup­port in Microsoft­’s Cloud Solu­tion Provider model

• In gen­er­al, Islet is bet­ter able to sup­port the cus­tomer in case of prob­lems and to sort things out direct­ly with Microsoft, with­out requir­ing the cus­tomer to cre­ate issue tickets.
• The absence of third-par­ty inter­ven­tion allows a much faster and more cost-effec­tive service.
• Eas­i­ly man­age­able solu­tion with­out the need for third par­ty assis­tance, e.g., for tasks requir­ing admin­is­tra­tor rights or oth­er spe­cif­ic con­fig­u­ra­tion issues.

Lia­bil­i­ty angles of the CSP model 

• Islet has full con­trol over the envi­ron­ment devel­oped and there­fore respon­si­bil­i­ties are clear.
• If the envi­ron­ment is pro­vid­ed by anoth­er part­ner and not by Islet, Islet’s respon­si­bil­i­ty is more lim­it­ed, i.e. only for the appli­ca­tion. In this case, the respon­si­bil­i­ty ulti­mate­ly lies with the cus­tomer, even if the cus­tomer has no real con­trol over the situation.
• Islet is able to pre­dict costs and take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the costs incurred. It is not entire­ly uncom­mon for an unat­tend­ed resource to gen­er­ate huge costs in case of an error — in such cas­es the respon­si­bil­i­ty always lies with the cus­tomer in the end, since Islet has lit­tle influ­ence on it.

Would you like to hear more about the CSP mod­el and its ben­e­fits with our solu­tion deliveries?