Gone are the days of storing and backing up files on hard drives. People and businesses are turning to cloud computing services to store data and access applications. Cloud-based storage is made to increase efficiency, speed, and security when saving information through a remote connection.
But cloud computing is more than just accessing business data from a virtual space. An organization should maintain a cost-effective information management system that will help them during the performance testing and migration process. Given the increasing popularity of cloud computing services, a company can reap a lot of benefits with a successful cloud strategy from the right cloud provider.
Factors to Consider in Creating a Cloud Strategy
What are the things you need to keep in mind when integrating cloud computing into your IT strategy?
Classify your Applications
Using different groups and categories enables you to organize applications depending on their significance and requirements. You can classify them according to these attributes:
Complementary abilities – assess applications based on their usefulness and effectiveness.
Management products – classified according to their relativeness and functionality to the management.
Business processing apps use for filtering and reporting – apps necessary for outlining the business operation.
Software model record and specifications- serve as a reference of the application progress and actions as per your company’s requirement.
Establish your Security Needs
As businesses plan to transition to the cloud, centralized security is fundamental to avoid unauthorized data access, breaches, and other threats. To mitigate security risks and challenges, here are the common practices that can work for every organization:
Employ the “Security as Code” or DevOps practices. This includes proactive monitoring and communication across different departments.
Deployment automation. Involves integration, testing, and continuous monitoring with less human intervention from delivery to deployment.
A unified management system is an operation that involves multiple technology domains in a single platform and a combination of data and its functionality to the business.
IT Service Management (ITSM)
ITSM is about specifying policies and procedures regarding the management of your on-premises and off-premises data center applications and includes change and asset management. Understand your requirement before finding the right cloud provider that would help you with your ITSM strategy.
Ask Questions to your Cloud Provider
Don’t hesitate to ask for detailed information about your cloud provider’s security programs. To secure your organization’s data, have an extensive approach in terms of the provider’s financial status, business longevity, customer satisfaction rate, and contingency plans. Choose a cloud data provider who has specific term s and conditions in any case of financial failure.
What is the Purpose of a Cloud Strategy?
Determine the risk and consequences of utilizing tools/software provided by external sources.
Develop security and protection to lower risks to data privacy, production costs, and resource extraction and consumption.
Establish policies and governance across your organization’s environment, management, and services.
Identify the appropriate services for public and internal consumption provided by your cloud partner.
Present major benefits from the cloud service consumption adopted by your organization.
Ways to Create a Successful Cloud Strategy
List down your Corporate Goals and Objectives
To begin with, identify the current system and technological procedures implemented in your company to know the overall corporate target and key factors for cloud adoption.
Document the needs, challenges, and objectives per business unit, and rank the complexity levels for each goal. This may include performance growth, operational concerns, finance processing, and others.
Assess the Readiness of the Company
The introduction of new technologies requires an assessment to determine whether your company fits the criteria or not. The evaluation checks every company’s security and availability in general while making sure they a have continuity and performance plan, security compliance, and reliable internal IT services.
Choose the Right Cloud Model
You can do this by simply identifying your preferred location for data and system. Here are the four types of cloud model you can choose from:
Public – Standard model and on-demand. Available for every kind of user but associated with a substantial risk if misconfigured.
Private – Also called as “internal cloud” which is used exclusively for one company. Access to the system and services are given only to a specific business entity. However, it has a limited capacity for less than 1,000 users.
Hybrid – A combination of the private and public model that provides greater flexibility in workloads locally. It also requires a huge amount of investment with proper hardware maintenance.
Community – Accessed by a specific group that shares similar computing cloud concerns in terms of protection, justification, and compliance. Its collaborative set-up calls into question the model’s accountability and control system.
Establish Strong Communication Plan
To communicate your cloud strategy effectively, make sure all staff completely understand its benefits and importance. You can engage with everyone through different channels to inform them of the strategy and implementation. For larger companies, you can assign a representative to share your strategy and other challenges associated with it.
Implement Low-Risk Cloud Strategy
Part of your cloud strategy should be low risk but has the potential to make an organization successful and profitable. In the IT industry, organizations equipped with strategic planning and stable performance can unlock business agility and achieve successful digital transformation with long-term value.
Managing your cloud strategy is a handful process that requires every company to select the best support team to ensure success. As an IT service provider, we are committed to helping your organization adopt an effective cloud strategy. Contact us today!
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