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MSP’s Pack the Room for MSP Partners Meeting at ComPTia Breakaway

July 30, 2012 , 0 Frank Gurnee

The MSP partners meeting kicked off Breakaway 2012 with a round of introductions that set the tone for the event. It was exciting to see a packed room for the pre-day meeting and the turn out speaks to the interest in the community to stay on top of the changes that are so apparent in our industry.

Many of the MSP’s in the room talked about differentiating their business through cloud solutions. This was brought more to light with a panel session that was moderated by well-known channel advocate Amy Luby.

Panel participants included Vince Tinerello from Anchor Network Solutions, Wendy Frank from Bromberg Frank, Rex Frank from Sea-Level Ops, and Michael Minnich from Netgain. The discussion quickly went to cloud and the expectations of SLA’s and requirements from cloud vendors.

A question that got many head nods in the audience was a question directed towards vendors with regards to the “data” and specifically who owns the data? Though there was no real clear answer, it was a question and point that created a definite stir in the audience.

An additional challenge that was brought up was the ability to manage vendor SLA’s. As the requirement for aggregating many cloud solutions becomes more necessary, SLA management poses a huge issue for MSP’s, especially considering there is no standardized SLA across cloud solution vendors.

Mobility came up as another big question for MSP’s. Application management, device management, problem solving, and remote data deletion topped the services that MSP’s are providing.

The sentiment with regards to mobility still seems to be a wait and see type feeling. MSP’s have not yet been provided with the tools, marketing, policies, or monetization needed to provide services for mobile users. The concerns around mobile security continues rise but the demand from clients in the SMB space is still not apparent.

Both Cloud and mobility seem to be at the top of the list for MSP’s to figure out. I can foresee this being a big part of the discussions to come over the next few days.