As businesses continue to digitalise their operations, moving to the cloud has, for many, become a necessity. While the cloud offers a wide range of benefits, including scalability, security and reliability, as well as high performance and cost efficiency, companies need a clear adoption strategy to take full advantage of the technology. In this post, we examine the key factors you need to consider for successful cloud adoption.
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Define your goals
Before moving to the cloud, it is essential to understand what your business wants to achieve through adoption. For instance, many firms will use it to reduce operational costs by moving away from in-house hardware, while others may want it to support remote working or improve application availability and performance. Additionally, some companies use the cloud for security and compliance reasons.
To be successful, your cloud adoption needs to align with your business objectives, supporting long-term growth and delivering measurable value. For this reason, you should know how you will measure success, for instance, by seeing reduced IT costs, improved uptime, faster deployment or increased workforce flexibility.
Not sure what you can use the cloud for? Read: 6 Ways Businesses Use Cloud Computing
Choose the right cloud model
‘Cloud’ is an umbrella term that covers a range of solutions that businesses can opt for. It is important to choose a model that best suits your company’s needs. The three main models are public, private and hybrid cloud.
Public cloud is an affordable option that offers on-demand, scalable resources and is ideal for most kinds of workloads, from running websites and critical applications to big data analysis. Private cloud, as the name suggests, offers regulated businesses increased security and compliance by hosting their systems on private, non-shared infrastructure.
The third option is a hybrid cloud, which combines public and private clouds and even dedicated servers. This approach offers flexibility, allowing businesses to store sensitive data in private environments while also making use of the scalability and affordability of the public cloud.
All three models above are known as infrastructure as a service (IaaS) solutions, where businesses pay providers for the use of the infrastructure. In addition to IaaS, there are other solutions, such as platform as a service (PaaS), which is designed for application development, and software as a service (SaaS), where companies utilise cloud-based software, like Microsoft 365, Salesforce and Adobe Commerce.
Need to know more? Read: Cloud Deployment Strategies and Service Models Explained
Understand integration and migration requirements
When migrating to the cloud, you will need to plan how things will be moved and in what order. Your plan should know which applications are cloud-ready and which may need to be adapted or replaced, as well as what data is being moved and how it is being stored, managed and protected.
Additionally, you will need to map dependencies and ensure that any third-party tools will be properly integrated after migration. Taking complete backups prior to migration is also essential.
Partnering with a provider that offers managed migration support can reduce the risk of issues arising during the move and make the process less technically challenging.
Prioritise security and compliance
Cloud security is shared between the provider and the customer. A reliable provider will use a variety of measures to protect your system, such as zero-trust access controls, advanced firewalls, end-to-end encryption, vulnerability scanning and automated patching.
However, businesses themselves are responsible for measures such as setting role-based access control privileges, enforcing strong passwords, enabling two or multi-factor authentication, protecting employee devices and so forth. These defences need to be implemented as soon as the system is migrated.
While responsibility for compliance lies with the business, working with a provider that understands data sovereignty and regulations, like GDPR, can enhance your ability to maintain compliance.
Plan for scalability and performance
A major advantage of cloud migration is the ability to scale on demand. This enables your business to cope with traffic spikes and manage long-term growth. Besides scaling, providers also help performance through the use of load balancing and caching.
Cloud platforms also let you analyse performance and track system behaviour. By providing insights that help you understand usage, you can find ways to better manage workloads, cut costs and plan upgrades.
Utilise automation and managed services
Managing cloud infrastructure can be time-consuming and technically challenging. If you opt for a managed cloud solution, the bulk of this work is taken care of by your provider, relieving you from server maintenance, software updates and system monitoring. Furthermore, managed cloud comes with 24/7 technical support, ensuring experts are on hand to help you deal with any issues.
Many cloud providers now utilise automation tools that further reduce the burdens on customers and mitigate the potential for human error. For example, routine tasks such as taking backups, software deployment and performance monitoring can all be automated.
Discover how service providers are utilising AI, read: AI and Web Hosting – a Match Made in the Cloud
Conclusion
Offering the agility, reliability, security and scalability businesses need in an increasingly digital landscape, together with access to the latest tools and technologies, cloud adoption can transform how your business operates. However, it is vital that companies take a multi-faceted approach to adoption to ensure they make the right choices and that migration goes ahead smoothly.
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