Distinguishing between managed and unmanaged services

Berta walks into the office and overhears Gloria talking to someone on the phone.

Gloria: Thank you so much.

She ends the call and finds Berta facing her.

Berta: Good morning, Gloria. How are you?

Gloria: Good morning. I am okay, but I’d be better if I could get a cup of coffee.

Berta: Can I get you a coffee from the machine?

Gloria: The machine is showing not in service on its display. I was on the phone with the company that is managing it for us. Glad that it was open early and is sending someone to fix it soon.

Berta: Wow, a coffee mechanic on call. Interesting.

Gloria: Their contact number is on the Managed by sticker on the coffee machine, in case you need to call them sometime. Let’s get some coffee from the shop downstairs. I hope they are in service.

Berta: Let’s go. I need a coffee too.

The downstairs coffee shop is not crowded and service is quick. Gloria knows the barista and introduces Berta to him. Afterward, they find a secluded corner and settle there, sipping their coffee.

Berta: I like their service. Fast, easy, and cheap. It won’t burn a hole in my wallet if I get my coffee from here every day.

Gloria: It’s much better now; previously, they didn’t have enough staff, and customers had to wait a long time to get their coffee. Luckily, they realized it and fixed the problem.

Berta: That’s the best thing about a managed service.

Gloria: Wait. What? Managed service? I heard that word in the cloud training I attended, but I was so distracted I couldn’t focus.

As Berta is about to speak, Alex walks in, looking like he too needs a coffee before starting his day.

Alex: Hello! Sometimes, a broken coffee machine leads to a good conversation. Hope I am not interrupting.

Gloria: Not at all. We were talking about managed services in the cloud. Join us.

Alex pulls up a nearby chair and settles down as Berta starts explaining.

Berta: What happens when you’d like to drink some coffee? Maybe you do this at home… you have bought a coffee machine and probably some coffee. Then, you connect it to the power, pour in water and coffee grounds, and press the buttons. You have to do all the work. You also pay for the electricity, and you need some space at home to keep the machine. Finally, after using it, you have to clean it.

But there are other options. Now, consider the coffee machine in our office. You just press a button, and you get your cup of coffee. Someone does the maintenance, adds water and coffee, and cleans it.

Gloria: Not as frequently as I’d like.

Berta: That is a service. A service means someone is doing tasks for you, hiding the complexity from you, so you have more time for other things. You can be more creative, instead of spending your time doing routine tasks such as cleaning the machine – and when, like today, the machine is not in service, Gloria calls the company responsible for it, and someone visits to fix it. Then, there are also smart coffee machines that can automatically inform the maintenance company if there is any problem via the internet.

Alex: I prefer to come here, request my coffee, grab it, and that’s all…

Berta: Yes, that is an even better example of a service – or maybe of a better service. Of course, someone is doing the work for you; in this case, you don’t even see the details. Which coffee machine are they using? How many of them do they have? How much electricity is used? You don’t need those details; you just want a cup of good coffee, reasonably fast and reasonably cheap. That’s a service. You get what you need and nothing else, and you don’t worry about the nitty-gritty of the implementation details.

Gloria: And every service in the cloud is built this way? This seems like a completely new way of working!

Berta: Well, it depends on what you need. If you just need to store files or a table in a database, you just provide the data—you don’t need to see the physical servers. The service provides access to the data, not to the infrastructure needed – but if, for some reason, you need a server with RAM and CPUs, there are services that can provide these to you. Each service can be different, but the idea is the same for all.

Gloria: Interesting, so does that mean that all services are managed by the cloud provider?

Berta: The level of managed may vary. Let me give you one more example.

Berta addresses Alex.

Berta: Alex, look at yourself. You wear nice, trendy, and clean shirts – but what do you do when you want your clothes clean? You have multiple options: you can build your own washing machine. Completely DIY, you buy the parts, you assemble it, but very few people do this. Let’s assume instead that you have bought or rented it. Now, you have your own washing machine at home. You own the machine. Now, you also need two supplier companies for electricity and water, and, of course, pay for them. Energy is not particularly cheap now. Then, you provide the space for it; it must fit into your house, as well as your house’s weird plumbing. You also buy soap, and you take care of any cleaning and repairs when needed. You also assume full responsibility for it: if there’s a leak, you need to fix it or get it fixed.

Alex: I agree. I have some memories of busted pipes.

Berta: There’s an easier option. You may find a common place where washing machines are available. Maybe they are in your cellar, belonging to the community and shared with other tenants – or maybe you take your basket to a launderette you find on your street. You go there, choose an available machine, insert the coins, stuff your clothes into it, close the door, push the button, and wait until it’s finished. You don’t worry about the water supply, electricity, plumbing, and so on:

Figure 1.11 – Cleaning as a service

Some people prefer to use an even more elaborate service. You just take your dirty clothes to a specific place, usually a counter. Some places will even pick your clothes up directly from your home. I’ve even seen some hotels with a hole in the wall, where clothes seem to disappear, but after some time, they are returned to you, completely clean. Magic? No, just a more elaborate service model. You don’t see how it is done, you don’t see any washing machine, and you don’t care. You only get what you need, that is, your clean clothes.

Gloria: Agreed. During my last business trip, I stayed in a hotel where they had laundry bags in the room. You put your clothes into it, housekeeping collected them when they came to clean the rooms, and the next day, you found them in your closet, neatly folded and ironed. They even had a 2-hour turnaround service for urgent cleaning.

Alex: Yes, I used a washing machine at home when I lived with my parents. We had 3 leaks in 2 years, and 3 not-so-happy neighbors. Now, I go to a launderette. I don’t have the space in my small flat for a washing machine, nor the required power. And the place I go to provides additional amenities: I have my shirts cleaned and ironed too.

Berta: Similarly, in the cloud, managed services mean that someone does all the configuration, maintenance, and monitoring for you, and you only worry about requesting the service and using it. For example, for all the databases we want to move to the cloud, we just have to migrate the data, and our cloud provider will take care of the hardware and software that might be needed. They will do the backups, updates, and monitoring; they will even update everything to the latest version based on the maintenance window we define.

Gloria: So the remaining option is unmanaged services, which means we have to do all these tasks?

Berta: You’re right. It’s like having your own washing machine. You have to maintain it, connect it to the electricity and water supply, and pay for it even if you don’t use it.

Alex: Who would use this then?

Berta: Well, you may want to use it if you need a high degree of customization or controls. Sometimes, there may not be a ready-to-use service for a specific task, and you may want to build it from the ground up. That’s where an unmanaged service can be helpful.

Alex: By the way, the expression managed services versus unmanaged services implies a point of view. The service still has to be managed by someone; in the case of managed services, the provider manages it, and in the case of unmanaged services, the user manages it.

Berta: Exactly.

Gloria: Thanks, Berta. That was very insightful. Let’s head back to office; I have quite a busy day today. Now that I have had my coffee, I can take anything head-on.

They enter the office and find a coffee mechanic fixing the coffee machine. Berta and Gloria smile and get busy with their day jobs. After a while, the coffee machine starts showing in service.