Leaseweb: The Future of Cloud Is About Choice, Not Migration, Podcast

“Hybrid used to be a transition strategy. It shouldn’t be anymore. It should be the strategy.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Tim Mandell of Leaseweb continues an ongoing discussion about infrastructure strategy and why MSPs should think workload-first rather than defaulting every application to the cloud. Leaseweb is a private and sovereign infrastructure-as-a-service provider offering colocation, public cloud, private cloud, bare metal and other infrastructure options. Mandell says the company’s technology-agnostic model makes it a natural fit for MSPs because Leaseweb can provide the underlying infrastructure without competing for the MSP’s customer relationship. The key shift, Mandell says, is moving from a cloud-first mindset to a workload-first strategy. Different workloads have different requirements. A predictable, repetitive workload may be more cost-effective on dedicated infrastructure. Applications that need to scale rapidly may belong in public cloud. Sensitive workloads may be better suited to private cloud, while latency-sensitive applications may require edge infrastructure. “Not everything is optimized from a performance or cost standpoint in a cloud environment,” Mandell says. That makes hybrid infrastructure more than a temporary stop on the way to public cloud. MSPs should instead treat public cloud, private cloud, bare metal, dedicated servers and edge infrastructure as tools that can be combined according to the customer’s actual business needs. Choice can also become a competitive advantage. Mandell warns against placing every customer into the same stack simply because it is familiar. “If you start looking under the hood, you may find opportunities to improve performance and significantly reduce cost,” he says. “That creates better margins and better value for the customer.” Start with the workload Mandell recommends that MSPs begin with a workload assessment rather than a technology discussion. Ask what the workload does, what success looks like, what performance is required, and what business outcome the customer is trying to achieve. MSPs should then document why each workload is placed where it is, establish measurable financial and performance benchmarks, and revisit those decisions regularly. Quarterly business reviews can provide a natural opportunity to determine whether the original placement still makes sense. Regulatory changes, data sovereignty requirements, AI workloads and new customer demands may all require workloads to move over time. The larger goal is to become a long-term trusted adviser rather than simply selling a particular infrastructure stack. “Ask better questions, listen more and understand what the customer is actually trying to accomplish,” Mandell says. Visit Leaseweb.com to learn more.