Why Do I Need Run and Operate When I Have AEM As A Cloud Service?

For many businesses that are using AEM as a Cloud Service to host their website, investing in a Run and Operate agreement may seem unnecessary or redundant – after all, AEM as a Cloud Service is responsible for hosting the platform, so you shouldn’t need any support, right? This may seem like a reasonable position, however, there are other variables that you should consider before ruling out a Run and Operate contract entirely. For the sake of this article, we’ll be discussing Run and Operate in terms of what we provide at Hoodoo; however, there are other Run and Operate offerings in the market that may provide other services or support levels than what will be discussed here. 

The first variable that you should consider for your system is that a Run and Operate service comes with 24-7 site monitoring. While AEM as a Cloud Service is responsible for the Cloud Service as a whole, they are not responsible for monitoring your site specifically. At Hoodoo, our Run and Operate team ensures that someone is always available to address and fix an outage on your site – even if the outage is not related to AEM. This means that if something goes wrong with your site, we will know immediately, and more importantly, we will accept responsibility for the outage until it’s resolved. 

24-7 site monitoring and issue-remediation allows you to free up your team for other projects without taking on additional risk that an outage might impact your business. Which leads to the second variable you should consider; using a Run and Operate service is significantly more cost-effective than maintaining a team of professionals who are capable of handling the widely varied reasons why you might have a site outage. 

Simply put, maintaining one AEM expert on your team is not enough to ensure you have the capabilities and expertise to address any outage issue with your site at any time. This is where Run and Operate becomes tremendously effective as you have a team of resources with a wealth of expertise at your disposal as needed.  In general, most businesses would need to invest in two to three employees to ensure they have the depth of capabilities that a robust Run and Operate service can provide. 

Another thing to consider is that selecting the right Run and Operate partner can be critical in resolving issues with your site quickly by augmenting your service relationship with Adobe. The Hoodoo Run and Operate team has built a collaborative relationship with Adobe that allows us to contact the right people to resolve an issue quickly. When it comes to issues with your site, this can be a critical component to addressing your problem with ease and efficiency. 

Finally, it’s important to keep in mind that when you invest in a Run and Operate service, you get to set the parameters based on the level of support you need for your business. This will allow you to either augment your own team with experts, not just in AEM but also in all the other technologies that go into modern site deliverability; or you could offload the work entirely, freeing up your in-house team to manage other tasks. 

If you have more questions about how Run and Operate works or whether or not it’s a good fit for your business needs, please don’t hesitate to contact our team.