With 83% of enterprise workload projected to be running on the cloud by 2020 as per Forbes, it is necessary for companies to have a definitive cloud adoption strategy. Also noteworthy is the distribution of projected adoption of the type of cloud with 41% of enterprise workloads to be running on the public cloud (AWS, GCP, IBM, Azure, and the likes). Another 20% are projected to be taking the private cloud route and 22% opting for the hybrid cloud.
Adoption of the cloud in a business setting is not an overnight exercise. Companies need to acquire the skills and knowledge before initiating the cloud migration process, which needs to be backed by a solid strategy. With proper planning and execution of the strategy, companies can start reaping the fruits of the cloud. The top practices, a company should adopt for successful cloud adoption are outlined below:
1. Identify the use cases of cloud consumption in your organization
David Cearley, research vice president at Gartner states, “Exploiting cloud successfully and safely requires multiple domains to coordinate and develop a business-driven decision framework and best practices IT operational models”. Drawing a leaf out, it can be safely assumed that, cloud adoption won’t be limited to one stakeholder but will be used across most of the divisions and operations in an organization.
Hence, it becomes imperative to identify correct use cases adopting various business needs. A strong decision framework needs to be developed to examine and filter out the use cases incorporating different scenarios for adopting cloud across the organization. The framework needs to understand the type of application being considered, its characteristics, needs, and constraints of the associated data.
2. Work out the finances
Once the decision of adopting cloud has been taken, businesses need to work out the finances and check if the migration will be viable. Businesses need to work out the number of people that will need access to SaaS software, as this software is usually sold on a per-user basis, separate from the storage required and computing power for public IaaS platform. Service of professional cloud architect is needed to ensure the correct decision is made.
3. Create a policy for access control depending on the need for access to information
Not every employee in an organization needs access to all the information pertaining to the business. One good way to achieve this is by using Identity access management services of cloud service providers. With the help of this, different sets of users based on their role in an organization can be given access to information related to their job and all other non-related information can be restricted. This is a good way to avoid data leaks and ensure business secrets are always in safe trusted hands.
4. Create a robust cloud security and governance policy
With the rapid adoption of cloud services, chances and occurrences of data breach attacks have become common. Also, with strict data governance laws in place, it is imperative for a business to have a robust cloud security and governance policy. This can be done in consultation with cloud security experts and leveraging various services such as restricting access, use of virtual private networks, encryption of databases etc.
5. Appoint a person in power to oversee the cloud migration and maintenance
Having a central decision-making command is necessary for successful project management, and cloud migration is no different. Someone overseeing the cloud migration and maintenance is critical to the success of the exercise. The person appointed should have both a sense of business requirements and the technical capabilities related to cloud platform and security.
6. Continuously evaluate and adopt changes to keep it future ready
Technological changes happen quickly, and business needs to be in sync with changes to reap benefits. Also, the threat perception changes with the advancement of technology, thus, it becomes necessary for businesses to continuously gauge the advancements in technology and the threat perception to their systems. This will allow for real-time information inflow for better decision making related to cloud security. Also, adapting to new technologies might allow businesses to lower the cost of operations and provide better services to customers which can be a deciding factor in a competitive environment.
7. Deal with legacy applications
Businesses may have some critical systems that they want to keep running the same way they’ve been running in the past. This may be to avoid taking unnecessary risks, to prevent exposure of business secrets on the cloud, to be in compliance with laws etc. Keeping this in mind, cloud migration projects need to keep in mind the legacy applications (if any) being used by businesses and find a way to ensure the legacy applications work in tandem and sync with
Conclusion
Cloud computing is an amazing technology which companies should start leveraging to expand their business. With such flexibility and options available in cloud market, what’s stopping your business from jumping on the cloud bandwagon?
Is your business ready to start leveraging the power of the cloud? Feel free to reach out to us at solutions@anant.us to discuss how we can get your business ready to use the power of the cloud!
Photo by Liane Metzler on Unsplash
