The managed service provider landscape is shifting rapidly. While public cloud adoption soared in recent years, many MSPs now face a harsh reality: their clients are getting hit with escalating bills, complex re-engineering requirements, and performance issues that threaten business operations.
NFINIT, a forward-thinking MSP, found themselves at this crossroads. Their clients needed high-performance, low-latency services delivered at the edge, but traditional public cloud solutions were creating more problems than they solved. The solution? Zadara Federated Edge – a program that’s redefining how MSPs deliver infrastructure services.
This isn’t just another cloud story. It’s about how one MSP discovered a way to offer enterprise-class infrastructure without the typical constraints of public cloud platforms, and how other MSPs can follow the same path.
Understanding the MSP Challenge: Why Public Cloud Isn’t Always the Answer
Jeremy Fitzpatrick, NFINIT’s VP of Sales and Marketing, puts it bluntly: “Six years ago, early cloud adopters were putting everything in the public cloud. But it didn’t take long for CEOs to realize that public cloud savings didn’t apply to every workload.”
The problems MSPs face when relying solely on public cloud are real and costly:
Re-engineering Nightmares: When businesses migrate to platforms like AWS, they often discover their applications need significant modifications. “I’ve seen customers spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to retrofit their applications,” Fitzpatrick explains. This creates a barrier that many businesses simply can’t overcome.
Variable Cost Explosions: What starts as an attractive pricing model quickly becomes a budget nightmare. Data egress fees, transaction costs, and storage IOPS charges multiply rapidly once applications go into production. The predictable monthly bills that businesses expect turn into volatile expenses that can spike without warning.
Performance Limitations: Public cloud infrastructure isn’t always optimized for every workload. Latency-sensitive applications, high-performance computing tasks, and data-intensive operations often struggle with the one-size-fits-all approach of major cloud providers.
Why MSPs Choose Zadara for Flexible Cloud Solutions
This is where Zadara steps in with a different approach. Rather than forcing businesses to adapt their applications to fit platform requirements, Zadara enables MSPs to build infrastructure that adapts to business needs.
“We take the outdated colocation model of space and power and infuse it with tools and services that help our customers do more than they could manage on their own,” says Fitzpatrick. “With our engineering expertise, we help our customers map out the best solution for their use case – instead of asking them to change their applications to fit one set of tools.”
The Zadara platform provides MSPs with the flexibility to offer multiple service tiers from a single infrastructure stack. Whether clients need high-performance storage for demanding workloads, budget-friendly solutions for cost-conscious projects, or archival storage for long-term data retention, MSPs can deliver it all without managing multiple vendor relationships.
Streamlining Edge Deployment for Global MSP Operations
The real innovation comes with Zadara Federated Edge, a program that leverages fully-managed, distributed cloud architecture. This enables MSPs anywhere in the world to create new revenue streams through edge computing without the traditional infrastructure investments.
For NFINIT, this meant the ability to expand their geographic reach instantly. “We have leveraged FE to spin up a zCompute node in Germany to meet a client’s strict regulatory needs,” Fitzpatrick explains. “It’s enabling us to reach geographic areas where we don’t have a presence.”
This capability addresses one of the biggest challenges MSPs face: how to serve clients with specific geographic or regulatory requirements without establishing physical infrastructure in every location. Edge deployment through Zadara Federated Edge solves this by providing:
Instant Geographic Expansion: MSPs can deploy services in new regions without capital investment in physical infrastructure
Regulatory Compliance: Meet data sovereignty and compliance requirements by keeping data within specific geographic boundaries
Reduced Latency: Deliver services closer to end users for improved performance
Scalable Operations: Add or remove capacity based on demand without long-term commitments
Enhanced Backup Solutions with Zadara Storage Integration
One of the standout features of the Zadara platform is its pre-integration with Veeam, creating enhanced backup offerings that MSPs can deploy immediately. This integration provides Veeam Object Storage Immutability, giving MSPs a powerful tool for protecting client data against ransomware and other threats.
“We love Zadara because it gives us so much flexibility in a single platform,” says Fitzpatrick. “We’re able to meet all kinds of business requirements – performance storage for this particular workload, a budget-friendly solution for this client, and we can push this dataset into an archive or off-site.”
The Zadara Storage integration eliminates the complexity of managing multiple storage tiers and vendors. MSPs can offer:
Immutable Backup Storage: Protection against ransomware and accidental deletion
Flexible Storage Tiers: From high-performance to archival storage within the same platform
Instant Scaling: Pre-installed additional storage capacity that can be switched on or off as needed
Cost-Effective Archival: Long-term data retention with predictable pricing models
Real Results: How NFINIT Transformed Their Service Portfolio
The partnership with Zadara has delivered measurable benefits for NFINIT and their clients. The results speak to the practical value of the Zadara Federated Edge approach:
Enhanced Service Offerings: NFINIT can now provide a complete portfolio of edge cloud services, including advanced backup and disaster recovery solutions that were previously complex to implement and manage.
Non-Disruptive Scaling: The platform allows customers’ critical environments to avoid planned downtime during scaling operations. This is crucial for businesses that can’t afford service interruptions.
Flexible Capacity Management: Pre-installed additional storage capacity can be activated instantly when needed, eliminating the delays typically associated with infrastructure expansion.
Geographic Expansion: The Germany deployment demonstrates how MSPs can serve clients with specific regulatory requirements without establishing physical presence in every target market.
Improved Financial Models: “If a customer wants to create a forever archive of a dataset, for example, Zadara enables us to offer a financial model that makes sense,” Fitzpatrick notes. This predictable pricing helps both MSPs and their clients plan budgets more effectively.
The Future of MSP Edge Computing
The success NFINIT has achieved with Zadara Federated Edge points to a broader trend in the MSP industry. As Fitzpatrick observes, “Now the pendulum is swinging back and we believe it’s landing in the middle, where businesses need the right tools on all sides.”
This middle ground represents a hybrid approach where MSPs can offer the benefits of cloud computing without the limitations of public cloud platforms. Edge computing solutions like Zadara Federated Edge enable MSPs to:
Deliver services closer to end users for better performance
Meet regulatory and compliance requirements more easily
Provide predictable pricing models that clients can budget for
Offer enterprise-class infrastructure without enterprise-level complexity
Scale services globally without massive capital investments
For MSPs looking to differentiate their offerings and create new revenue streams, the edge computing opportunity is significant. The key is finding a technology partner that provides the flexibility to serve diverse client needs without forcing applications to conform to platform limitations.
Taking the Next Step with Edge Computing Solutions
The NFINIT case study demonstrates that MSPs don’t have to choose between the flexibility of on-premises infrastructure and the scalability of cloud services. Zadara Federated Edge provides a path that combines the best of both approaches.
For MSPs ready to explore edge computing opportunities, the first step is understanding how distributed cloud architecture can enhance existing service portfolios. The ability to deploy services globally, meet regulatory requirements, and provide predictable pricing creates competitive advantages that traditional hosting models can’t match.
The edge computing revolution is already underway. MSPs that embrace solutions like Zadara Federated Edge today will be positioned to capture the opportunities that emerge as businesses continue to seek alternatives to traditional public cloud limitations.
Read the full story
Partnering with Zadara has helped NFINIT to transform its service offering and reap significant business benefits, including:
- An enhanced Veeam backup offering, thanks to the pre-integration between Veeam and Zadara
- Pre-installed additional storage capacity that can be switched on or off as needed for instant flexible scale
- Non-disruptive scaling, which allows customers’ critical environments to avoid planned downtime
Click below to read the full story on these outcomes, how NFINIT is putting Federated Edge to work, and more.
