Migrating workflows to the cloud has jumped to the front of businesses’ priority lists. ResearchAndMarkets.com reports that the global Platform as a Service (PaaS) market is projected to grow from $49.41 billion in 2021 to $57.15 billion in 2022. Furthermore, it’s expected to reach $96.24 billion in 2026, a 13.6 percent CAGR.
Value-added resellers (VARs) and managed services providers (MSPs) can find opportunities to sell PaaS in any market, especially among businesses looking to solve remote work issues or reduce their on-premises footprint. Organizations open to PaaS solutions include larger companies that don’t want to spend time managing the hardware lifecycle or data center workloads. VARs and MSPs may also be able to capitalize on the demand for PaaS from businesses with small IT teams – or no in-house IT.
Growing Revenue Through PaaS
Providing PaaS not only benefits your clients by lessening their workloads related to managing hardware, data center infrastructure and physical networking. It can also have benefits for your business. You can expand a monthly PaaS subscription with additional services. With your software built into the PaaS stack, you can monitor, update, and protect the solution.
VARs and MSPs can also bundle PaaS virtual machines (VMs) with managed services offerings like antivirus, security, or helpdesk to grow revenues and build a stickier relationship with your clients.
Develop Expertise
Helping your clients move workloads to the cloud takes knowledge and expertise. Therefore, it’s a good idea for VARs and MSPs to familiarize themselves with the PaaS offerings in their portfolios to answer questions on storage, CPU architecture, and hypervisor capabilities.
Depending on the PaaS solutions you’re selling, you may want to pursue training and certifications on building architecture, for example, when providing AWS or Azure.
Certain cloud partners, for example, Virtual Systems, GreenCloud, and INAP, provide in-house cloud experts to help you build your solutions, reducing the need for the MSP or VAR to possess such knowledge. Understanding the pricing models, however, can be tricky, as well as how to consistently predict costs over time.
The decision to partner, however, also takes some careful consideration. Check out the pricing models, figure out where you need your margins to be and determine whether or not the market will bear that price.
The Demand for PaaS in 2023 and Beyond
With the steady rise in cloud adoption, VARs and MSPs may be concerned that it’s too late to begin offering PaaS; however, that’s not the case. Markets are still on the front end of the adoption cycle for PaaS, and mid-market and SMBs are lagging behind larger companies. Additionally, some companies migrate back to on-premises systems after bad experiences with the cloud. Look for opportunities to help your clients successfully transition and find value in PaaS.
