When an organization has a proper cloud strategy in place, cloud usage will be easier. As it compares the advantages and disadvantages of the cloud, it will work to maximize the advantages. To stay relevant in this generation, a lot of businesses have decided to build a digital presence. That is why there is a huge demand for cloud services. Since cloud solutions are becoming more important, a lot of organizations are focused on working on a cloud strategy that will bring results.
The reason cloud adoption is important
With an enterprise cloud strategy in place, you can easily get cloud adoption for your business. Before you study the basics of cloud strategy, you have to understand why using the cloud is a smart move for your brand.
Advancement in technology has changed the way things work. To find stability in your business, you have to make use of emerging technologies. When you combine that with agile methodology, you can easily develop your product. Even though cloud technology can help you grow your business, it can put you in danger. That is why you have to work on your security before making any important decision.
Why cloud strategy is important
When you have a cloud strategy in place, you can easily maximize benefits from your business. Hindrances to your business growth will also be minimal. When there is no cloud strategy in place, it would be difficult to provide technological solutions. Such a thing can place your business at risk from bad environments. While creating a cloud strategy, you should start by analyzing the status of your organization. Then you can proceed to a migration strategy.
Just make sure you only stick with a strategy that suits your business. It should also be in line with your functional requirements. You can even make further plans for how the digital transformation will help you get the right momentum. Apart from helping you set business goals, there are other things a good sound cloud strategy can help you achieve. It can help you adopt cloud technology. It can also help you decide on the service that you will process internally.
Hire Enterprise Cloud Strategy: A Complete Guide
Types of Cloud strategy
You can choose from different types of cloud strategies. Just ensure that the one you choose is in line with your business plan. The majority of people prefer to go for multi-cloud strategies. They just ensure that a hybrid cloud is present there. On the other hand, only a few people go for the single public and private. As we go further, you will learn more about the different types of cloud strategy.
1. Single Public
In the single public strategy, services are solely provided by the cloud provider. The services include computing, software and cloud storage. To use any one of the services, you have to pay. You won’t be allowed to use services if you haven’t made payments. To keep availability, providers keep and maintain a lot of data. If you run an enterprise that is focused on maintaining its infrastructure, you should go for the public cloud strategy. You will even be able to create more time for business functionalities.
2. Single Private
In a single private strategy, all data belongs to you. These include the applications and cloud you used for your data. When the technology stack compatible with your business plan has been identified, it will be hosted by your cloud provider. All these things will be carried out in a data center. If you run an enterprise that finds it difficult to move data, the best thing you can use is the private cloud strategy. Your data will also be secured.
3. Hybrid Cloud
As you can find features of private clouds in hybrid, you can also find features of public clouds there. It is a combination of both. Since hybrid cloud strategy has a lot of interesting features, enterprises prefer it to other strategies. It can even keep specific applications and work on others simultaneously. Since there is a time all enterprises move to the cloud, they’ve all experienced the hybrid state.
4. Multiple-Public
In the multiple-public strategy, the enterprise depends on a lot of cloud service models. The models are IaaS, SaaS and PaaS. Even though the multiple-public and hybrid cloud look similar, they are not the same. If you want to experience an orchestrated cloud, you shouldn’t think twice before choosing a multiple-public strategy.
Types of cloud services
There are three different types of cloud services. The 3 are on different levels. When it comes to the application level, SaaS is offered. SaaS is the short form of Software as a service. PaaS is usually used for the middleware level. The last one is the IaaS. It is used at the hardware level. As IaaS stands for Infrastructure as a service, PaaS stands for the platform as a service.
Since the three types of cloud services are meant to be used for three different cases, you have to study the three options before choosing one. If you choose the wrong one, it might not fit with your business plan.
To get a good cloud adoption, you have to create your enterprise cloud strategy in the right way. A lot of principles can determine how a cloud strategy works. Some of the principles are cloud-first, best of breed, and buy before build.
Enterprise Cloud Strategy Plan
Before you move to the cloud, you have to craft an enterprise strategy. Even though Enterprise strategies are not the same for different enterprises, they follow the same steps. The steps are explained below
1. Create a strategy team
To keep your adoption journey running, you have to create a cloud strategy team. The CTO is in charge of the strategy team consisting of networking and IT teams. The main responsibility of the cloud strategy team is to create a strategy roadmap. Alongside the roadmap, they also have to create a checklist. Some members of the team must make sure that the checklist is properly implemented.
Communication should also be made with the stakeholder frequently. While selecting a deployment model, the cloud strategy team should be used in making decisions. As the same thing applies to the cloud migration strategy, it also applies to the cloud providers.
The most important roles of the cloud strategy team are listed below
- Making the right decisions while selecting from the different cloud strategies
- Keeping regular contact with stakeholders
- Differentiating different applications and deciding on the work each will perform
- Using a great cloud strategy to address issues working against cloud adoption
- Analyzing, managing and planning cloud as things change.
2. Analyze applications
Before deciding on the enterprise cloud strategy to use, you shouldn’t only analyze applications. You should analyze their relevance. You should also decide on the applications that need to be moved to the cloud and the ones that have to remain on-premises.
Whenever you’re dealing with mission-critical applications, you must ensure that they are on-premises. You should also do the same thing for outdated applications. If you migrate those applications to the cloud, the costs will increase. Even though it will cost you more, you might not gain anything in return. When the risk of moving an application is too high, you should keep it on-premises.
3. Create a roadmap for hybrid cloud strategy
As you can migrate all applications to the public cloud, you can migrate all services too. Some applications can be kept safely on-premises while others need to be abandoned. There is no point in keeping an application that is not valuable. To move faster in cloud adoption, you have to study the strategies explained below
Rightsize
There are a lot of misconceptions that enterprises have about cloud migration. A lot of people think that it meansre-hosting applications to the cloud. Since optimizations are important in adjusting to a strange environment, cloud migration is not the perfect solution. To get cloud-ready applications, there is a need for reconfiguration. The reconfiguration is mainly about changing their size. To do that, there is a need to destroy the application structure.
After doing that, you have to use the microservices architecture. The main focus of this architecture is creating applications with little modules. You don’t have to couple them tightly. With all these things in place, the cost of cloud adoption will be significantly reduced. Less effort would also be needed.
developing the same applicationThere will be flexibility to carry out iteration whenever it is required. A good example is in the case of Netflix. Before it could convert its applications and make use of microservices architecture, it took about seven years. In the end, its applications successfully migrated to Amazon services. When the application structure had changed, IT cost were reduced drastically. Service availability also became better.
Retire
When an application needs an update, you should search for SaaS solutions. The same thing should be applied to applications that deserve to be retired. If you want to reduce the time for cloud adoption, you should take that step. Apart from the fact that it costs less, it saves you from wasting time on developing the same application from the start. Some third-party SaaS companies are capable of developing applications for specific business needs.
There is a need for the cloud strategy team to find out these providers. They should proceed to compare their advantages, disadvantages and pricing. After carrying out all that, it will be easy to decide on the best fit. An example is in the case of relation
management software. If the management software is starting to lose relevance, it should be replaced with CRM software. It could even be third-party software.
4. Reskilling
When you apply a cloud strategy, there will be a shift in IT operations. Then there will be a change in the roles of individuals in the IT department. To keep things stable, you should prepare your enterprise for the change. With the help of upskilling and reskilling, you
can make everybody learn to adapt to a new environment. It will lead to a reduction in burnout. While traditional roles continue to gain more ground, there will be changes in cloud-given roles.
As time goes, DevOps culture will start to develop. DevOps will be developed from the combination of two important things. They are the development and operations department.
5. Implementation
While applying a cloud strategy, you have to decide on the part of legacy infrastructure to move. Since it is not a one-time thing, you have to be careful. It is a decision that will affect you in the long term.
Conclusion
You shouldn’t just set goals for your business, you should work towards achieving them and this is exactly where Esferasoft Solutions can help you. One of the fastest ways of doing that is setting an enterprise strategy plan. The various steps involved in the plan were discussed in detail. To be successful, the steps have to be taken in the right order. Since there are various principles involved in enterprise cloud strategy, you have to study each one to make a nice decision.
