5 Key Areas to Focus on While Integrating Cloud-based Strategies Selecting a cloud service provider is like a buying decision between Washington apples vs the Himachal apples
By Jagat Pal Singh •
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A few years ago, the big question was - are you tired of maintaining an IT team that performs the same mundane tasks of procuring hardware, maintaining server upgrades, security compliance, resolving routing loop issues, backups and other arcane operations chores?
Today, chances are, that 99% your competition has moved at least one of their applications to the cloud. The wide range of offerings that cloud service providers offer allows businesses to avoid allocating a large number of their staff to do no-core business tasks. This advantage of easing more profits while concentrating all your energies on your core business cannot be missed.
We are viewing enterprises in two ends of the spectrum. On one end are those enterprises who allocate big budgets on the first day for their cloud strategy and go all out to move to the new frontier. On the other hand, some enterprises prefer taking it slow and using a wait-and-watch approach.
Can "follow the competition' be your only reason to move to the cloud? It is very much required for decision makers to script their own cloud strategy and how it fits in their company's near and long-term vision. Let us look at the key areas to focus on and the benefits to be derived while integrating cloud-based operations in your enterprise-
Reducing your total cost of ownership,
Reducing total cost of ownership may involve moving some assets from CapEx to OpEx, reduction of IT skill sets to deliver, or reducing the cost of resources required to maintain your overall IT infrastructure.
Optimizing business requirements/operations
Operations compliance about data security and the need to modernize your business requires a business optimization approach while deciding on your cloud strategy.
New innovations/revenue streams
Monetizing your data, or increasing business agility will require an innovations cloud strategy to get started. A mix and match of the above three categories as targets can make your cloud strategy too cloudy.
Flexibility
The cloud brings in new features of rapid elasticity, on-demand provisioning, independently scalable and deployable microservices, which were not available in in-premise or datacentre offerings. Businesses capitalizing of these new features while moving to the cloud will carry a sustained competitive advantage with them.
Third-party assistance
Engaging a cloud expert, as an advisor to help you to blueprint your cloud strategy is of utmost importance. The cloud expert can educate your decision makers of the new added benefits of cloud-like elasticity, server-less computing, artificial intelligence ready-to-use models etc while setting flags of the risks of security, compliance, data leak, and backup strategy. An educated foresight on how the cloud would revolutionize your customers and vendors is a must while freezing on your cloud strategy.
Many cloud vendors have emerged in the last 10 years. There seems to be an agreement amongst the top 3 cloud vendors on the basic services and cloud features to be offered. Their deep pocket investments to make their platforms more usable and make self-service a reality and adds a sense of comfort while making a decision on a long-term partner. Selecting a cloud service provider is like a buying decision between Washington apples vs the Himachal apples. While one cloud service provider comes with a huge experience in search and AI, the other's expertise in handling a huge number of transactions cannot be ruled out. Though offerings look similar, their differences should be accounted while making a decision.
