Introduction to Managed Cloud
Sitecore Managed Cloud is a hosting service that enables customers to deploy Sitecore Experience Manager (XM) and Sitecore Experience Platform (XP) on Microsoft Azure. It's an alternative to running the Sitecore platform on-prem or via the public cloud. With Sitecore Managed Cloud, Sitecore actively monitors, manages, and maintains both the infrastructure and the applications, enabling you to:
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Focus on achieving business results faster, while constraining costs and contributing to security and brand reliability.
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Deploy Sitecore on Microsoft Azure’s flexible, enterprise grade cloud platform via Azure App Services (PaaS) or containers with Kubernetes (only available in Managed Cloud Premium) across many Azure regions.
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Reach new markets by scaling your solutions nearly anywhere in the world.
Sitecore Managed Cloud benefits
Sitecore Managed Cloud offers the following benefits:
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Availability of Sitecore XM and Sitecore XP on Azure according to Microsoft and Sitecore best practices.
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Support for Sitecore XM and Sitecore XP.
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Full access to Sitecore instances and the ability to deploy custom code.
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Focus on achieving business results faster, while constraining costs and ensuring the highest security and brand reliability.
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Monitoring and support for production deployments.
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Integrated support for the Sitecore platform and hosting solution.
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A set of infrastructure services and add-ons available within a service catalog.
Managed Cloud hosting services and capabilities
Sitecore offers two Managed Cloud hosting services: Managed Cloud Standard (MCS) and Managed Cloud Premium (MCP). These hosting services support a combination of Platform Hosting capabilities:
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Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)
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PaaS 1.0
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PaaS 2.0
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Containers (Only supported for Managed Cloud Premium)
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Azure Kubernetes Services
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For more information on the platform hosting capabilities, see Managed Cloud PaaS, and Managed Cloud Premium Containers.
Managed Cloud Standard (MCS)
Managed Cloud Standard supports PaaS 1.0 and PaaS 2.0 as hosting tiers. It does not support Containers.
MCS is a combination of technologies and services on top of the Microsoft Azure platform. There are a wide variety of optimizations available, and Managed Cloud Standard is a fundamentally open product where you adapt the starting topologies to suit your implementation patterns.
The scope of Managed Cloud support is defined by the following KB articles:
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PaaS 1.0: Sitecore Managed Cloud Standard (MCS) – PaaS 1.0 Service Catalog on-demand requests and Sitecore Managed Cloud Standard (MCS) – PaaS 1.0 Monitoring Metrics
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PaaS 2.0: Sitecore Managed Cloud Standard – PaaS 2.0. Service catalog on-demand requests and Sitecore Managed Cloud – PaaS 2.0. Monitoring Metrics
Managed Cloud Premium (MCP)
With Managed Cloud Premium (MCP) you get a more consultative approach to your overall solution architecture and best practices, including security, scaling, non-standard topologies, and hybrid environments (including containers). Ultimately, Managed Cloud Premium provides individualized advisory support alongside your solution development team with an enterprise SLA.
MCP supports the following hosting tiers:
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Platform-as-a-Service
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PaaS 1.0
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PaaS 2.0
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Containers
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Bespoke/customized deployments
Managed Cloud Premium gives you access to deep Sitecore expertise, including:
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Meetings with a named cloud solutions engineer
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Possibility of joining a weekly standup
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Infrastructure and application observability
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Upgrade planning – jointly owned with the customer
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Sitecore hotfixes, patching, and cleaning databases — jointly owned with the customer
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Scaling and security consultation
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Azure and Sitecore performance optimization