Mike Vizard

All posts by Mike Vizard

Mike Vizard has covered IT for more than 25 years, and has edited or contributed to a number of tech publications including InfoWorld, eWeek, CRN, Baseline, ComputerWorld, TMCNet, and Digital Review. He currently blogs for IT Business Edge and contributes to CIOinsight, The Channel Insider, Programmableweb and Slashdot. Mike blogs about emerging cloud technology for Smarter MSP.

Demand for cloud data migration expertise will soon increase

Demand for cloud data migration expertise will soon increase

Managed service providers (MSPs) have over the last 10 years racked up a significant amount of revenue helping organizations move data into the cloud. However, a new survey suggests that there is now an opportunity starting to emerge to help...

/ August 18, 2022 / 5 Comments
MSSPs will be at forefront of wave of security platform consolidation

MSSPs will be at forefront of wave of security platform consolidation

Managed security services providers (MSSPs) are going to soon be at the forefront of a wave of consolidation of cybersecurity platforms as more organizations not only look to reduce overall costs but also streamline security operations. A survey of 280...

/ August 11, 2022
Confidential computing starts to gain traction in the cloud

Confidential computing starts to gain traction in the cloud

A survey of 452 IT and security professionals conducted by the Cloud Service Alliance (CSA) finds more than a quarter of organizations (27 percent) surveyed are already using confidential computing platforms to better protect data, with another 55 percent planning...

/ August 4, 2022 / 6 Comments
AWS adds raft of security competencies for MSP partners

AWS adds raft of security competencies for MSP partners

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has raised the cloud security bar for managed service providers (MSPs). At the AWS re:Inforce conference, the leading provider of cloud services added six AWS Level 1 MSSP Competency Specialization Categories spanning identity behavior monitoring; data...

/ August 1, 2022
Zero-trust IT transition requires MSP prudence

Zero-trust IT transition requires MSP prudence

Gartner is predicting that while 60 percent of organizations will embrace zero-trust as a starting point for security by 2025, more than half will fail to realize the benefits. In that same timeframe, however, 80 percent of enterprises will as...

/ July 20, 2022
MSPs will be increasingly caught up in remote work debate

MSPs will be increasingly caught up in remote work debate

While the debate over the merits of enabling a much larger percentage of the workforce to work remotely intensifies as the COVID-19 pandemic becomes an aspect of daily life, it appears most organizations are now resigned to the fact that...

/ July 19, 2022 / 6 Comments
MSPs will need to drive MFA adoption for small businesses

MSPs will need to drive MFA adoption for small businesses

Multifactor authentication (MFA) is a critical element of any approach to achieving zero-trust IT security. Yet, a global survey of 1,403 small business owners conducted by the Cyber Readiness Institute (CRI) finds that more than half still rely only on...

/ July 13, 2022
Alternate cloud service providers are on the rise

Alternate cloud service providers are on the rise

A much larger percentage of IT organizations appear to be less committed to the top three cloud service providers as it becomes more apparent that the compute and storage platforms being delivered have become commodities. A survey of 458 development...

/ July 6, 2022
Salaries for IT pros with cloud expertise present MSP challenge

Salaries for IT pros with cloud expertise present MSP challenge

As the number of workloads shifting to the cloud continues to accelerate, one of the biggest limitations in terms of the addressable market for managed service providers (MSPs) is now the salaries of the IT professionals that have the expertise...

/ June 29, 2022
Survey shows MSPs gaining ground with SMEs

Survey shows MSPs gaining ground with SMEs

A survey of 1,007 IT decision makers at small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) in the U.S. and United Kingdom suggests that managed service providers (MSPs) are now being viewed as more essential than ever before.

/ June 16, 2022 / 4 Comments