Spot PC is like your regular coffee order, same price each time - The Spot by NetApp Blog

$3.68. That's how much it costs for my 12oz double latte at our local coffee shop. Something is comforting about knowing exactly what the price will be. Whether I go in on a Monday morning to kick off the week with some caffeine or stop by on the weekend as an indulgence while running errands, my order is always $3.68. I know I can get my latte and leave a tip with a $5 bill, no fussing with swiping a card or dealing with change.

Even compared to an "Iced, half-caff, Ristretto, 32oz, 4 pumps sugar-free cinnamon, dolce soy skinny latte", public cloud costs and invoicing are complex and confusing. Understanding and controlling costs can be so intimidating that many MSPs avoid embracing the potential of public cloud services. It makes sense that you can get fixed reduced costs by making long-term commitments but predicting your client's needs over the next three years is risky. I'm sure you're also aware that you can optimize the cost of cloud resources by matching your consumption to your real-time needs, but how and is the time required to figure out and tune that really worth the savings? What to do? Do you get lower, predictable costs through long-term commitments? Do you invest time and effort to lower your costs to an unknown variable and unpredictable amount? Ideally, you'd get the best of both worlds, a low fixed cost with month-to-month terms and no learning curve.

There are plenty of platforms for end-user computing (EUC), but not all are the same. Are you willing to make a 3-year commitment? Can you afford to spend your top-tier cloud specialists' time on deploying and maintaining cloud desktops? Do you have the resources to work on finding ways to optimize your costs or hours to spend reconciling invoices? We've been in this industry for a long time and haven't found an end-to-end solution that delivers that desktop as a service. Sure, you can get automation and optimization tools, but you're still on the hook to use them and pay the variable invoice each month.

When we got acquired by NetApp, our veteran group of EUC experts realized that we had the technology and financial backing to do what no one else had yet done at scale: flat fee cloud desktops, built on security and performance with simplified administration tools and wraparound onboarding and support services. We've recently launched Spot PC into general availability. It is a complete DaaS offering, with excessive resource allocations, and low fixed per-user costs on month-to-month agreements. We deploy a dedicated Azure subscription into the end client's Azure AD tenant, NetApp pays the variable bill for that subscription, insulating our MSP partners from the risk of cost variability. Instead of fighting with the cloud, that valuable time can be spent serving customers and growing your business.

Spot PC isn't just some overlay to manage cloud services; it's a complete solution designed for the public cloud with observability, automation, security, and optimization built into the product from the start. From the first steps in onboarding to the cross-tenant management for ongoing support, Spot PC allows you to deploy and maintain your customers quickly and easily.

The next time you get your regular order and have the exact change ready, think about how you can have the same with an optimized cloud desktop from NetApp. Until then, check out Spot PC and discover how we can help your business grow.