Member Article

Does your business need a cloud strategy?

Discover whether you need a Cloud strategy in your business and what the benefits are.

Short answer: “yes“.

Even if you plan to do nothing for now other than to watch the growth of your organisation, the demands on your existing IT system and how Cloud computing develops, that’s a strategy. But how do you know if that’s the right strategy for your business?

Cloud computing and Cloud storage have both crept into organisations in the form of Google Apps and Office 365, as well as file sharing and storage systems such as Dropbox. Such ‘Shadow IT’ solutions are often deployed on a small scale, ad hoc basis to answer particular business needs, but organisations of all sizes are increasingly using Cloud in an organised, strategic manner.

RightScale’s 2015 State of the Cloud Report shows that 88% of enterprises are using public Cloud, while 63% are using private Cloud. 82% of enterprises have a hybrid Cloud strategy, up from 74% in 2014.

The benefits of using the Cloud are as easy as ABC:

• Agility. A business unit can have the IT it needs immediately, without waiting for major infrastructure changes to take place
• Budget. Replacing outdated hardware is expensive and building a bigger data centre is even more so. Cloud computing is current expenditure scaled to suit current projects
• Capability. IT is still growing in importance in most organisations. Big data, better CRM, more eCommerce. The Cloud is elastic so you can expand and contract as much as you need.

All the above have costs and carry potential risks so you need to plan - not just react.

Strategy

A successful strategy will not stifle the IT department’s agility or autonomy but will increase understanding of how decisions on Cloud implementation can impact the business services, departments and individuals.

Applying best practice is critical to the success of your Cloud adoption strategy. Best practices are those proven to sponsor the focus on aligning IT services with the needs of business. Whether your Cloud is public, private or hybrid you should aim for:

1. A Standardised Operating Environment (SOE) which makes security, patching and upgrades much easier
2. A single SOE Management Platform across the whole of your Cloud infrastructure to manage, monitor and automate Cloud activities
3. Operational processes and procedures that maintain quality, agility and governance
4. Improved scalability, availability and capacity
5. Reduced time to implement new infrastructure
6. Greater efficiency, better information management and system status validation via automation
7. Reduced TCO.

Any strategy must constantly evolve in response to technological advances. Understanding how to adjust your strategy as your organisation’s demands change is also critical. Taken together, they ensure that your Cloud adoption strategy stays up-to-date and is fit for purpose.

Partner Power

It can be difficult to design a suitable Cloud strategy from within an organisation whilst you are busy with day-to-day tactics. Engaging with a partner who can holistically assess your organisation’s current needs and devise a future-proof agile strategy encompassing combinations of in-house, SaaS, Specialist PaaS, Commodity PaaS and IaaS is a huge help.

To ensure you are covered for all situations when you move to the cloud, get this eguide: Business Continuity Guide - How to Avoid Downtime when Moving to the Cloud. Copy and paste this link in your browser: http://bit.ly/businesscontinuityeguide

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Simon Mitchell .