Managed Service
Definition
A managed service in the cloud is a service where the cloud provider takes on the responsibility for the operational management of the service, including maintenance, patching, backups, and scaling. This allows the customer to use the service without having to worry about the underlying infrastructure.
Why It Matters
Managed services significantly reduce the operational burden on development teams. They provide access to complex technologies like databases or message queues as a simple service, allowing teams to focus on building their application instead of managing infrastructure.
Contextual Example
Amazon RDS is a managed database service. Instead of installing, patching, and backing up a MySQL database on a virtual server yourself, you can use RDS. You just choose the database size, and AWS handles all the administrative tasks for you.
Common Misunderstandings
- Managed services are a key part of the PaaS (Platform as a Service) model.
- They typically cost more than running the software yourself on a VM, but they save a huge amount of time and effort.