For added flexibility and scalability, organizations are now using cloud-based infrastructures. Usually, business organizations rely on MSPs (Managed Service Providers) for the management and monitoring of their cloud-based infrastructure. MSPs also rely on a cloud-based infrastructure for offering services to their clients. MSPs need to have the right tools to boost the service availability of their clients. In short, MSPs must manage their cloud infrastructure as well as the cloud infrastructures of clients. An organization wants an MSP to
reduce the frequency of cloud outages and deliver best cloud computing solutions. If the MSP fails to deliver, the organization might consider some other provider. MSPs need to have a proper plan to prevent cloud outages and boost service availability. Read on to know how MSPs should deal with cloud outages in 2022.

Recognize the problem of cloud outages

The first step to preventing cloud outages is to accept that it is a big problem. It is not something hyperbolic as organizations suffer due to outages. Also, achieving an ideal infrastructure without any outages is a myth. You cannot remove the possibility of cloud outages from your infrastructure. You can only decrease the frequency of cloud outages with better monitoring and incident resolution. The aim is to quickly get the infrastructure up and running after an outage. If cloud outages continue, they will seriously impact service availability. A single minute of downtime due to a cloud outage can hamper the service’s reliability and business continuity.

Most IT workers get frustrated when a cloud outage occurs. If they had planned for a cloud outage, they would not have gotten frustrated. MSPs need to have a proper plan when a cloud outage occurs. The plan should be implemented in the internal architecture of an MSP to boost service availability. The same plan can be used by MSPs to boost the service availability of clients. Even during a cloud outage, the basic services must be up and running. If a cloud outage will affect only a few services, you need to know those services beforehand. Once MSPs realize that there is a problem, only then do they move towards the solution.

Focus on data availability

MSPs need network data, performance data, and more to predict cloud outages. Also, data is needed to perform the basic managed services operations. For example, MSPs often manage the IT infrastructures of their clients remotely. For doing so, they always need performance and monitoring data. It helps an MSP to find shortcomings in the IT infrastructure and fix them before a service issue occurs. MSPs need a solution that can always maintain data availability. It is why many MSPs prefer redundant data storage so they can perform basic operations even during a cloud outage. It will ultimately boost the service availability as basic tasks will be completed irrespective of a power outage.

Many organizations rely on only a single cloud provider. Cloud providers offer many microservices that are essential for a business. Even if an organization uses a single cloud provider, a cloud outage isn’t the end of the world. If a proper backup is created, you will have the required information to work with even during a cloud outage. MSPs should look for automated solutions to create data backups alongside workflows and projects. MSPs need to do the same with the data of their clients. When MSPs ensure high data availability, they can gain observability into the IT infrastructure of the clients.

Backing up data manually can get tiring at times. It is why MSPs need to always look for automated solutions to backup data. By creating copies of the data, you can ensure that you have something to work with even during a cloud outage. Data backup becomes more essential for a cloud-based architecture. It is because data, files, services, and servers are created and wiped off within seconds on a cloud architecture. If you do not back up the data in real-time, it will be wiped off from the cloud. However, not all services can continue only due to data availability. Service availability will still be impacted during a cloud outage as some services require more than data.

Cloud monitoring is the solution

As discussed above, even if you create data backups, some services will still stop during a cloud outage. To boost service availability in such a situation, the only option is to prevent cloud outages before they happen. Even if you can’t prevent a cloud outage before it happens, you sure can prepare for it. However, the real question is how to identify cloud outages proactively. Well, round-the-clock monitoring of the cloud infrastructure is the only way to know about service issues and outages in advance. Cloud monitoring is an integral part of IT infrastructure-managed services.

MSPs need powerful technology to perform round-the-clock monitoring of the cloud infrastructure. At present, AIOps (Artificial Intelligence for IT Operations) is the only hope for MSPs looking to reduce cloud outages. How AIOps can help detect cloud outages proactively is as follows:

• With an AIOps-based analytics platform, MSPs can ensure round-the-clock monitoring of the cloud infrastructure. No human interference is required as an AIOps-based analytics platform can collect data from all cloud sources.

• Without any human interference, an AIOps-based analytics platform will find unusual patterns in the performance data. Performance data will contain signs which can help in predicting cloud outages. For example, unusual or unexpected behaviour of system software can indicate an upcoming cloud outage.

• With event correlation, MSPs can find vulnerabilities within the cloud infrastructure. Also, MSPs need an AI automated root cause analysis solution to get to the bottleneck of a service issue. AIOps has the power to identify the source where the service issue will originate.

• Once MSPs predict the time of a cloud outage with AIOps, they can take proactive steps to tackle it.

In this digital-first era, MSPs need to find a way to limit cloud outages, boost service availability and deliver cloud computing solutions. AIOps not only limit the cloud outages but also remove the need for human intervention. Start using AIOps to prevent cloud outages now!