What is Managed Data Services and Why Every Business Needs it?

Businesses today whether they are in the health sector, retail, education, technology, finance or any other industry, are dealing with huge amounts of data in their everyday transactions. Some of the companies are smart enough to value all this data, but it’s not commonly considered a practice to carefully manage this data into useful information which can later be monetized in a number of ways which are totally uncountable. Data generated from daily audits, conversions, orders, transactions and most importantly conversations with all the clients, stakeholders, business partners, and potential leads is extremely crucial for any business because all the information regarding any company’s next big projects, testing the suitability of launching a new product, tracking orders, managing customer satisfaction, learning about new markets, etc and many more of such useful insights, all this critical information is already lying in the data generated by any business or firm. All a company needs to do is to first accept the importance of its data, secondly hiring or outsourcing the work related to data services and finally aiming towards the solution provided by managed data services. Let’s look at how managed data services are different from ordinary data services and why every business needs such services?

Data Services VS Managed Data Services:

In a firm that is based on information technology, data service is a term used for outsourcing the data related tasks to a third party, which later will perform various functions on the data provided. The term data service is often called at DaaS – Data as a service, mostly provided by vendors who deal in cloud services, data analytics or business intelligence solutions.
A data service has both its advantages and disadvantages. If we talk about the advantages of using a third party to do all the tasks related to data processing, the biggest advantage is scalability and cost efficiency. Any company, who has bought data services from a third party, does not need to worry about the huge costs involved in maintaining all the servers and other hardware items. Also buying data services can be a great way to scale your business operations, overall improve the efficiency and expand to new markets.

When it comes to the disadvantages related to such data services, the main concern we hear from companies is the lack of security. Consider a situation, if you have trusted a third party with all your crucial data and they somehow manage to steal it or sell it to your competitors or in more worse situation delete the entire data by some mistake, who will be responsible for all this? If luckily, you managed to take your money back, you’re still at a loss, because what about all the efforts that had gone into creating that data?

This is where managed data services come in to rescue any company form such a black hole. Managed data services ensure reliable data storage, secure operations, and 100% transparency in its provided solutions.

How Managed Data Service is a Reliable Solution?

In a managed database service, usually, the client pays a third party to get access to a database. Contrary to typical database companies, when you go for a managed data service, it becomes no longer your responsibility to set up or maintain the database all by yourself and then manage it according to your needs and demands. However, in manage data services it is now the responsibility of the service providers to ensure proper setup, maintenance and oversee all the functions covered in your database’s infrastructure.

This feature not only saves time for the developers to focus on their other important tasks but also ensures 100% quality work from trusted sources, who know their work to the depth and can easily resolve any issue whenever needed.

Why Businesses “Need” Managed Data Services from a third party?

We know that security is the first need of any technology related company, but companies resist paying higher amounts to external parties to manage and secure their data, this is because of the risks involved in giving away your secret data, and the lack of trust. For whatever reason, firms do not find it quite easy to rely on external sources to oversee their every day to day transaction, so instead of outsourcing the work, they assign these tasks to their own employees. These employees, who have no experience working on such domains, find it extremely stressful to manage the data services for their company, and somehow fail to manage the data properly. So instead of spending the time and budget on training their own employees, such firms should consider the reliable option of managed data services. Let’s move forward and discuss some of the amazing advantages provided by managed data services:

Advantages of Managed Data Services:

Speedy Setup:

When you’re using a third party for providing managed data services, all you need to do initially is select the size of your required database server, do some configuration according to the instructions provided and you’re all set to integrate your app or website with this newly created database server. All this happens within the time frame of 2-3 minutes and you can see how drastically it speeds up the process of your database installation as compared to the time involved in training your employees, calling for help, removing bugs, testing, and updating, etc.

Automation:

Managing or creating a database yourself, involves a lot of time, resources and budget, and we cannot forget the human error involved in such tasks. With managed data services all the tasks from performing updates, creating backups, managing operations, all are automated and doesn’t require any of your employees to do the administrative tasks.

High Availability:

When we talk about technological solutions based on cloud computing, we refer a service to be highly available if only it is stable and reliable enough to continue for long hours without breakdown or failure. Similarly, managed data services fall in the category of highly available ones, because they are reliable, secure and stable.