Technology has the uncanny ability to turn something that was invented yesterday obsolete today. No wonder that the technology
industry experiences a transformation once every five years. IT infrastructures has evolved through the ages and it is the age of the
Cloud.
Cloud services enable businesses to purchase IT resources as a service platform, which means that businesses only pay for what they
use. Facilitating access of IT resources from multiple locations at any given point in time is no longer a figment of someone's
imagination but a reality for most businesses. They get to keep a tab on their data flows and scale their IT capacities without making a
considerable investment on hardware or software. According to a McKinsey report, a business that uses Cloud, can save up to 20-30%
across their IT budget. That means that they can invest that saved capital into some other mission-critical activities. There is no
doubting the fact that Cloud has completely transformed the way that IT resources are invested in, deployed, and accessed.
Cloud services are offered across multiple deployment
platforms. The two of the most common Cloud platforms
that businesses use are Private Cloud and Public Cloud.
However, Cloud platforms such as Hybrid Cloud and
Community Cloud are also being continuously developed
and deployed.
As a business that is still identifying the best service model
that would be most beneficial for their IT estate, here's a pro
tip, courtesy McKinsey. The workload of each IT resource
should determine the Cloud deployment model. A workload
is 'an integrated set of demands on IT, generally fulfilled
through one or more applications.'
The days of dispute over selection of a public Cloud vis-à-vis a
private Cloud are over. Companies are fast realizing that a
Hybrid Cloud model is the way forward because it offers the
best of traditional IT infrastructure, public and private Cloud.
Private Clouds are operated solely for one organization. They
may be managed by the organization itself or by a third party,
and they may be located on or off the user's premises.
Public Clouds are open to the general public or a large
industry group and are owned and managed by a Cloud
service provider. These are located off the user's premises.
Hybrid Clouds combine two or more Clouds (private or
public) that remain unique entities but are bound together
by technology that enables data and application portability.
Community Clouds feature infrastructure that is shared by
several organizations and supports a specific community of
users. They may be managed by the user organizations or a
third party, and they may be located on or off the user's
premises.
5 Best Practices on Cloud Migration
The concerns that still clouds Cloud services are IT security and manageability. Businesses struggle to arrive at a consensus on which
applications they should migrate to the Cloud. According to a Cloud Computing Survey, 2016 by a reputed technology enterprise, 70%
of businesses have only one app on the Cloud. Companies are still wrestling with the thought of moving away from their on-premise
storage due to apprehensions concerning the security of their data. So, here are five best practices that will help you manage your
applications and solutions in the most secure manner on the Cloud.
Identify your workload to decide which
applications to migrate to the Cloud
Automate more processes and drive
efficiency
Businesses experience safety in hosting traditional IT
services that involve confidentiality and privacy as part of
their on-premise storage. According to a Forbes report,
data analytics, data storage and management shall lead
in the Cloud Adoption. We have observed the same in
action with most of our customers looking at Storage on
cloud for Data Archives. Companies with a need for high
performance computing find the pay as you go model of
the Public Cloud as an attractive offering against setting
the same up on premise. Development and Testing is
another area which has seen a massive cloud adoption
due to economic benefits (No Capex, with complete scale)
of a Pay-as-you-go charges. Typically, we have seen
application selection following the “Low-Medium”
Business impact scenarios for Cloud.
Enterprises have heterogeneous IT Infrastructure with
virtualized environments on-premise and the Cloud.
Managing, monitoring, and optimizing human intensive
processes becomes a challenge. By automating
processes, businesses do not have to wait for hardware
and software to be available at data centers. They benefit
from end-to-end process automation that involves zero
manual intervention. By Automating the Test/Dev
environment for a customer, we helped them reduce
their Cloud expenses by upto 45% through “right”utilizing the Cloud.
Discuss and decide your IT budgets after
CFO, CIO and CMO discussions
The Cloud computing survey report, goes on to highlight
that businesses are likely to spend 28% of their IT budgets
on building a better Cloud infrastructure for their
organization. A move to the Cloud can impact the CFO in
two ways – A better cash flow and Capex converting to
Opex. It is upto the organization to prioritize and decide
whether this is in line with the company's financial goals.
Nurture new technology to be
future-ready
Technology is sophisticated; it is relevant that you invest
in an IT infrastructure that can keep your business agile.
Build a resource that gives you the leeway to scale and
adopt newer technologies as per business requirements.
Companies nurturing new technologies can be agile
enough to adopt a technology that might become a
hygiene factor in the future.
Don't write off Public Cloud
A McKinsey report highlights that businesses are open to
including public Clouds as part of their IT infrastructure. It
goes on to record that 15-20% of businesses are ready to
move their entire workloads to an IaaS (Infrastructure-asa-Service) or PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) model. Over
the last 5 years, we have seen customers who had written
off Cloud owing to then existing TCO, discovered that the
same changed after a couple of years. As scale of the
Cloud DCs increase, so do the economies. The timing of
the adoption is also key – The TCO for Cloud when the OnPremise infra still has 2-3 years' life left, On-Premise will
be cost effective; but when the Hardware refresh looms,
the TCO comparisons completely change.
A move to the Cloud is inevitable. Businesses that are
testing, learning, and modifying their IT estates by
migrating more and more applications to the Cloud are
gaining a cutting edge while those who are not Cloud
active are losing out on the flexibility and the IT efficiency
that Cloud provides.