Inspiration for Cloud Manager

Inspiration and vision for Cloud Manager

In October of 2020 we announced the general availability of Cloud Manager, our 3rd product at SkyKick and one we believe is a significant extension to our platform.

From the very beginning, our mission has always been to help IT Services Providers be more successful in the cloud. We do this first by helping to move their customers to the cloud through migration project automation; then by protecting users and data with Cloud Backup; and now helping IT Services Providers tackle cloud operations complexity with automation from Cloud Manager (with free trial period for all registered SkyKick Partners).

In the video below you’ll hear SkyKick Co-Founders and Co-CEOs Todd Schwartz and Evan Richman share the inspiration for Cloud Manager and some of the early thinking that went into the product – which for us, has been a product eight years in the making.

Early days and bets on cloud adoption

One of the earliest problem statements SkyKick Co-Founders and Co-CEOs explored, before writing even a single line of code, was to ask ‘how does a world that is clearly going to march towards more and more cloud adoption look in the future.’

Discussions back then focused on how difficult it might become for MSPs, relative to the on-premises IT world, as more and more of their customers eventually adopted cloud. Anticipating that the complexity would become almost exponential, the inspiration for Cloud Manager began.

The past few years have certainly showed that many of the challenges that were anticipated back then are here today. Think about the challenges SMBs and ITSPs are tackling day in and day out – user onboarding and offboarding, permissions, security, identity access and more.

Projections have become reality and the pressures related to managing all of this cloud operations complexity is only intensifying – cloud operations is serious business.

Building a ‘Command Center’ for the Cloud

As the inspiration for Cloud Manager came to life, the team envisioned a dashboard or central ‘command center for the cloud.’ In theory this would serve as a single pain of glass, helping MSPs abstract out cloud complexity through automation  – something that time and time again Partners told us they needed.

As we talked with our global Partners in those early days, and throughout the journey to Cloud Manager, several recurring themes – or challenges really – emerged. Top challenges we often heard were around:

  • Managing help desk tickets
  • Handling increasing numbers of escalations, which are managed by a relatively smaller number of technical escalation engineers.
  • Ensuring greater security and compliance for customer and MSP operations through more secure practices, auditing, reporting and role-based permissions.
  • Unifying services across could and hybrid environments

With Cloud Manager, we’ve reimagined what automation looks like for MSPs and ITSPs around the world – ensuring they are armed with a streamlined approach to navigate the complexities of cloud operations, while also decreasing fragmentation across the organization, as cloud adoption rates soar.

It has been quite a journey to get to this point today and witness the inspiration for Cloud Manager come to life. Our 3rd product definitely serves to continue our promise to the global MSP community… help IT Services Providers be more successful in the cloud.

Get to know Cloud Manager

We hope you enjoyed the video and invite you to learn more about Cloud Manager here.