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How managed services will evolve in 2022

Businessman standing in server room covered by the digital image of a cloud.
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The past two years have been monumental for the rise of cloud computing and the cloud-managed services market. As more organizations shift to the cloud to enable their employees to work from home because of the pandemic, the managed services market has exploded to $51 billion.

For many organizations, the COVID-19 pandemic created a rapid need to move to the cloud, which has also increased the number of organizations that require managed services support in configuring and managing secure cloud environments.

As we move forward into 2022, cloud infrastructure vendors, SaaS solution providers, and cloud-managed service providers, including 2nd Watch All Cloud, Navisite, and Mission, are all expanding their cloud service offerings and investing in greater data analytics to enable technical decision-makers to better process the data they hold in the clouds.

In 2022, cloud-managed service providers are not only looking to support decision-makers in configuring and maintaining cloud environments, but also providing expertise on how to manage the data they store in the cloud, as more organizations demand access to insights at the cloud level.

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AWS premier partner 2nd Watch acquires Aptitive

As the need for managed services increases among enterprises, many cloud managed service providers are in a state of expansion, attempting to add new data analytics expertise to their services.

One such provider is 2nd Watch, a managed cloud service provider and one of the original AWS premier partners that’s helped organizations from Condé Nast, Lenovo, Hearst Corporation and McDonald’s France migrate to the cloud, which last week announced the acquisition of cloud data and analytics consultancy Aptitive.

Since 2013, Aptitive has offered clients multicloud support, to help them implement and optimize data solutions for cloud solutions including AWS, Microsoft Azure, GCP, and Snowflake.

In an interview, CEO of 2nd Watch, Doug Schneider, said that “the acquisition of Aptitive further enhances our capabilities by expanding our analytics and data consulting solution offerings and competencies, thereby enabling our clients to accelerate their digital-first strategy with the cloud service provider-native services along with other leading modern cloud data ISVs like Snowflake.”

Schneider and 2nd Watch are looking to use Aptitive’s data strategy consulting, data management solutions, analytics data science, and application development services to build the organizations’ data analytics service and to offer organizations greater support in leveraging insights.

“Adding Aptitive’s solutions provides greater depth of understanding for our clients, expanding our ability to deliver a comprehensive range of data and analytics consulting services. With actionable insights presented in a way that makes decision-making easier, less time-consuming, and more precise, our clients will see immediate improvements in productivity, efficiency, ROI, and – ultimately – their profits and other key business outcomes,” said Schneider.

The acquisition will enable 2nd Watch to enhance its data and analytics capabilities through adding new services and expertise, which will enable the company to better cater to enterprises in media, entertainment, healthcare, and retail sectors.

“Together we can offer more services, more exceptional performance and a deeper bench across more technologies and skillsets,” said CEO of Aptitive Paul Corning.

While financial terms about the acquisition aren’t being exposed, 2nd Watch has previously raised over $70 million since its formation in 2010 and its acquisition by ST Telemedia in 2019.

The drive to invest in data analytics solutions

2nd Watch isn’t alone in investing in data analytics capabilities to cater to cloud-driven enterprises.

In July, last year, AllCloud, one of Channel E2E’s Top 250 Public Cloud MSPs, announced it had acquired data analytics provider and AWS cloud partner Integress, enabling the organization to expand its AWS and Salesforce data analytics capabilities.

Similarly, on November 10th, Navisite, another Top 250 Cloud MSP, announced it had acquired Salesforce partner EightCloud, a Salesforce consultancy company, adding new Salesforce experts to its team in an attempt to support customers when integrating Salesforce data with their infrastructure.

This growing trend of managed cloud providers investing in data analytics is likely to continue not only as more organizations need access to greater cloud expertise, but as they also seek to unlock the power of data analytics, better leveraging their data with cloud technologies, in order to access greater operational insights that can help improve wider decision-making.

It’s for this reason that managed cloud providers like Mission are eager to showcase their data analytics capabilities, by publicizing the AWS Data and Analytics Competency status for demonstrated success in helping customers use AWS tools and implement best practices for data collection, management, and storage.

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