The pivotal role of cloud technology in modern business strategies. From enhanced visibility to robust security measures, uncover the distinct advantages driving organizations towards cloud adoption.
The cloud has become the cornerstone of businesses seeking to transform, differentiate, and gain a competitive edge. Many organizations are now prioritizing cloud-first strategies as they focus on advancing the utilization of cloud services across various industries and enterprises. The flourishing cloud market has made experts wonder, “What’s attracting businesses to the cloud?” While benefits may vary across industries, the rationale for cloud migrations can be distilled into a few distinct advantages:
- Visibility: Cloud-based systems consolidate data from various business sectors into a unified location, providing 360-degree visibility. This data proves invaluable when scaling for growth and optimizing efficiencies.
- Security: Businesses are increasingly entrusting sensitive data to the cloud. Cloud-based storage offers access to iterative software patches, secure data centers, and contractual network security obligations via the vendor.
- Scalability: A significant challenge for ambitious business owners is developing a technology strategy that fosters growth. Additionally, some cloud providers operate on a pay-as-you-use principle, allowing offerings to scale alongside a company. This enables companies to activate or deactivate cloud applications per changing business requirements.
Here are six steps to consider when building and maturing cloud strategies:
Develop a Cloud-first Multi-cloud Strategy
A cloud-first strategy should extend beyond IT and be comprehended and embraced by the organization. IT departments should emphasize the merits of the cloud to business leaders, aiding them in extracting business value and benefits that confer a competitive edge and greater profitability.
It’s important to note that ‘cloud-first’ does not equate to ‘cloud always.’ Different organizations may have varying long-term goals, ranging from moving all applications out of their data centers to migrating a subset of applications to the public cloud. Regardless, the emphasis should be on prioritizing investments to advance the organization’s use of cloud services.
Also Read: Explained: Predictive Analytics
Practice Workload Placement Analysis
Traditionally, assessments heavily focused on feature comparisons to alternative solutions, as the placement of workloads (e.g., in on-premises data centers) was typically predetermined. However, in the cloud era, expanded placement options and ownership of stack elements come into play, necessitating the evolution of established workload life cycle management models.
This also entails periodic reassessment of workloads to determine if the current execution venue sufficiently meets the organization’s needs and if migrating to an alternative model offers higher value without introducing significant risk to operations.
Cloud Adoption Maturity
Cloud projects are inherently complex, and organizations must allocate time to develop the requisite skill sets across all affected functional areas. Simultaneously, they must continually refine processes to progress to maturity. Successful organizations meticulously plan a multi-layered effort to enhance cloud adoption by focusing on multiple work streams across various maturity phases.
Build Multi-cloud Governance and Management Processes
Cloud computing governance is challenging even with a single cloud provider, and it becomes even more intricate as organizations move toward multi-cloud environments. Cloud providers offer on-demand, self-service resources with seemingly limitless capacity, making it difficult for organizations to gain visibility and manage consumption. Consequently, organizations must govern the consumption of cloud services by provider and across providers. With clear visibility into consumption, effective governance and management become easier.
Develop a Multi-cloud Management Tooling Strategy
Organizations can forge a cloud management tooling strategy by selecting and adopting the most suitable cloud management solutions. Crafting a cohesive cloud management tooling strategy necessitates a well-defined, systematic approach to identify requirements and align tools accordingly. The primary objective is to minimize the required tools while meeting all management needs.
Evaluate Multi-cloud SaaS Integration Requirements
Through ongoing requirements evaluation, organizations can present optimal choices to those tasked with extending and integrating SaaS solutions. Shifting some applications and integrations to an existing SaaS offering might yield a superior return compared to utilizing a PaaS technology with per-solution costs. However, organizations must continuously assess their requirements and compare them against SaaS offering capabilities to maintain the optimal mix of SaaS-provided capabilities and PaaS technology.
