As a small or medium-sized business owner, you’re an expert at running your business. You know it inside and out. But when it comes to your IT, you may need some help evaluating your options.
Technology can be complicated.
For example, take network as a service (NaaS). You may have heard the acronym and may even know what it stands for, but what exactly is it? What are the pros and cons? How can managed IT help you leverage this tool to boost efficiency, streamline operations, and save money?
In this article, we’ll provide a straightforward overview of NaaS in simple language.
After reading this article, you’ll have a more complete understanding of NaaS, and you’ll have the information you need to decide whether it’s a good option for your organization.
How Does NaaS Work?
Network as a service (NaaS) is a subscription-based cloud service model that allows companies to run their networks without having to house all of their own physical equipment on premises or hire the internal IT staff required to maintain it.
Rather than an in-house infrastructure, businesses pay a fixed amount of money to a cloud service provider for virtually managed networking and computing resources.
With this model, cloud providers deliver infrastructure resources—such as servers, switches, firewalls, and routers—to businesses over the internet. Other NaaS services include wide area networking (WAN) connectivity, data center connectivity, bandwidth on demand (BoD), security services, and other applications.
NaaS products are purchased on a per-user basis for a set period.
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Top 6 Benefits Of Implementing NaaS
NaaS offer businesses a variety of advantages. Here are 6 key benefits:
1. Cost savings
NaaS reduces many IT costs, particularly upfront, capital expenses associated with infrastructure, hardware, software, operations, and maintenance.
With NaaS, you don’t have to worry about having to upgrade or deploy new network hardware.
Instead of facing a hefty capital budget hit to buy on-premises hardware, the network is managed in the cloud as a pay-as-you-go or subscription service, which is booked as a standard operating expense.
This allows for a predictable expense that simplifies budgeting.
2. Improved network performance
NaaS allows businesses to instantly modernize their legacy network setup to streamline network management, optimize network traffic, and boost overall network performance.
The right NaaS provider can determine whether or not your network is capable of supporting the traffic you are getting and make adjustments to keep it operating smoothly and efficiently.
3. Flexibility and Scalability
NaaS is scalable.
By outsourcing your network management, NaaS provides the flexibility to quickly scale services up or down, as your business needs change.
In other words, rather than having to upgrade physical hardware, NaaS makes it easy for companies to increase or decrease network bandwidth and resources to reflect the real-time demands of their business.
This way, you can easily tailor services and connectivity to best meet fluctuating data loads. This makes NaaS a cost-effective choice for organizations that experience a rush at certain times of the year, such as seasonal businesses.
4. Proactive maintenance
Reactive maintenance simply isn’t enough when dealing with the network demands of modern organizations.
NaaS is proactive, providing the opportunity to detect and even predict network issues early on by performing ongoing monitoring and preventative maintenance.
NaaS tools can generate alerts when a particular site is exhibiting abnormally high latency or other issues pop up, allowing your NaaS partner to start fixing the problem even before you know about it.
It also ensures that the latest solutions and updates are pushed out to your network quickly. This helps ensure the ongoing integrity and security of your data while in transit and at rest.
5. Enhanced security
With news of devastating data breaches constantly in the headlines, information security is a huge concern for businesses of all sizes and industries.
NaaS has the added benefit of providing powerful, built-in cybersecurity tools to protect your business and sensitive information from cyber threats.
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Your NaaS partner will work with you to implement best practices for IT security, and can recommend hardware and software platforms that are tailored to your needs.
So, you can implement proactive measures to fix hidden vulnerabilities before they can disrupt operations, leading to headaches such as connectivity issues, network bottlenecks, data loss, or cyber incidents.
Also, if you’re required to meet specific regulatory compliance requirements, a NaaS partner with experience helping other businesses within your industry become compliant can prove an invaluable resource for compliance guidance and support.
6. Improved visibility
NaaS provides enhanced visibility across an organization’s cloud or hybrid-cloud environment.
You can’t fix what you don’t know about. NaaS provides real-time network monitoring, allowing organizations to gain end-to-end insight across their infrastructure.
By identifying the root cause of problems, you can take steps to solve them and prevent them from happening again.
What Are Some Disadvantages Of NaaS?
As with other solutions, there's also a downside. Here are some key disadvantages:
1. Vendor lock-in
With NaaS, organizations usually need to commit to a multi-year contract with a NaaS vendor. If things don’t work out, the customer can be looking at an expensive contract termination fee.
This makes it hard to switch vendors or return to a traditional on-prem network configuration if it’s not a good fit.
2. Compatibility & system integration
The provider’s solutions may not be compatible with legacy hardware or existing applications that may be integral to the business.
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Compatibility issues can also make the move to NaaS more difficult, especially for larger enterprises or when legacy equipment is involved.
These issues can often be overcome, but it is definitely something to watch out for and discuss with the provider.
3. Long-term financial cost
While the pay-as-you-go subscription model does give businesses upfront savings, the ongoing subscription fees add up over time.
In addition, businesses have no control over future cloud vendor price hikes.
Benefits Of Using A Managed IT Services Provider (MSP) As Your NaaS Partner
Using a managed IT services provider to manage your NaaS can help your business in several ways. Here are 6 of the main advantages:
1. Increased staff productivity and efficiency
Configuring and managing devices such as routers, WAN optimizers, and firewalls is no easy task even for IT experts.
With NaaS, organizations remove the responsibility and hassle of monitoring and updating hardware and applications from their internal engineers.
While a cloud-based NaaS eliminates the need to maintain physical network devices on premises, you still need a team of IT professionals to proactively monitor your NaaS to ensure optimal performance.
By having your MSP take over this responsibility, a NaaS unburdens your in-house IT team from the time-consuming task of managing and maintaining a physical infrastructure, allowing them to focus on other prioritized tasks.
2. Gain expertise and experience
Working with a NaaS managed IT partner means that you gain an expert team of experienced, diverse and qualified personnel at your fingertips.
You can save on the considerable payroll expense of having to recruit, hire, and manage a team of engineers with the specialized skills needed to properly monitor and maintain the equipment.
With a managed IT service provider (MSP) partner, you can get customized services that include comprehensive, proactive monitoring, management, maintenance, and enhanced cybersecurity solutions tailored to your business.
3. Proactive, customized maintenance
Using a managed IT provider, you can rollout your NaaS integration in phases to minimize disruption to your regular business operations.
For example, a branch office hundreds of miles away may be experiencing high latency due to a large software update that your IT department is installing all at once, instead of staggering it over time.
At the same time, NaaS is proactive, providing the opportunity to detect and even predict network issues early on by performing ongoing monitoring and preventative maintenance.
4. Flexible service level agreements
Service level agreements (SLAs) are another key reason to use managed IT to implement and manage your NaaS.
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SLAs are contracts between a business and the managed IT service provider (MSP) that guarantee levels of availability, network uptime, and response and resolution times for addressing issues.
It’s important to find a managed IT partner that’s flexible enough to allow the SLA to change over the course of the relationship as your business needs change.
For example, you might assume that service between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. is enough for your needs, but then change your mind a month later.
On the other hand, if you’d rather manage your network yourself or prefer a co-managed solution, your managed IT partner can also help with training and knowledge transfer to help you succeed.
5. Quarterly business reviews
Your choice of NaaS partner should provide quarterly business reviews (QBRs) to discuss your recurring pain points and how they can be solved or mitigated.
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The right NaaS partner will also send you monthly reports, improving your ability to track issues and analyze important trends.
With your unique business and IT needs in mind, your NaaS partner will be at your side throughout the process, from the planning phase all the way through to implementation and afterwards to deliver adaptable, long-term support.
6. Reduced and predictable costs
With managed IT, you get reliable service at a predictable monthly cost. This allows you to budget the expense as a regular operating expense, such as your utilities or accounting services.
Is NaaS The Right Fit For My Business?
At Kelser, we include NaaS as part of our comprehensive managed IT support services.
While NaaS offers predictable costs, increased flexibility and scalability, and performance enhancements, it’s not the right solution for every organization.
It may be a good solution if you’re looking to lower your capital expenditures. In addition, it might also be beneficial if your business experiences seasonal surges in demand, or if you have limited IT resources to regularly maintain and upgrade hardware and software.
On the other hand, if your business is steady year-round, or you use legacy hardware or applications, then NaaS might not be the right solution for you. Also, if your business needs to meet certain regulatory compliance requirements, it may not be the right fit.
The Bottom Line With Network as a Solution (NaaS)
At this point, you now know some of the main advantages and disadvantages of NaaS.
You know that NaaS offers financial, operational, and scalability advantages. You also know that it often requires a multi-year commitment and may not be compatible with legacy hardware and applications.
You may be ready to make a decision or you may still want to do more research to determine whether it is the right solution for your organization. Either way, you have the basic understanding to support your next step.
At Kelser, we pride ourselves on publishing informative, easy-to-understand articles about complex technical topics. As a managed IT support provider, we know the importance of being able to understand technical terms to make informed decisions.
We’re committed to helping you find the IT solutions that are right for your business.
NaaS is just one of the things usually included in managed IT support.
If you are considering partnering with a managed IT provider, check out this article to learn Why Are More Small And Medium-Sized Businesses Using Managed IT?
If you’re already in the process of researching MSPs that offer NaaS, we encourage you to check out Kelser's managed IT offerings.
While we know that managed IT isn't the right solution for every organization, if you are looking for an external provider to help with some or all of your IT needs, we invite you to check out our offerings. But don't stop there, explore several providers to make sure you get one that is the best fit for your organization.
In fact, we take this advice so seriously that we've even done some of the legwork for you. Check out this article which offers a direct comparison of Kelser vs. ADNET Technologies.
Why publish articles about our competitors? Because as consumers ourselves, we know the first thing we do when making an important buying decision is to start researching our options on the internet.
We’re just saving you a step and make it easy to see a head-to-head comparison of publicly available information from the internet about both companies.
It may seem strange that we encourage you to check out several providers, but the truth is that it doesn't do you (or us) any good to work together if we aren't the right fit.
Your infrastructure is a critical part of your business, and you want to be sure you get a partner that can align your IT needs and long-term business goals.
If you'd prefer to speak to a person, click the button and provide your contact information. One of our IT experts will get in touch to learn more about your IT challenges and see how we can work with you to help solve them.
