In the modern business world, pretty much every business is looking for ways to modernize and stay ahead of the competition. One key part of that puzzle is leveraging cloud computing. But the modernization process, such as moving to the cloud, isn’t always straightforward. This guide breaks down the steps to smoothly integrate cloud solutions into your modernization strategies.
The Benefits of Cloud Computing
Why should you even consider the cloud? Well, cloud services provide a competitive edge over traditional on-premises systems:
- Cost Savings: Cloud eliminates the need for expensive hardware/software and IT staff to maintain it.
- Scalability: Cloud resources can quickly scale up or down based on demand.
- Accessibility: Employees can access cloud data/apps from anywhere.
- Security: Cloud vendors have robust security measures to protect your data.
- Disaster Recovery: Data is safely backed up and can be recovered if there are any issues through effective and secure data management.
As you can see, the cloud provides an attractive combination of flexibility, accessibility, and reduced IT overhead. But how do you actually make the move to the cloud and achieve your business goals?
Assessing Your Cloud Readiness
Before jumping into cloud migration for digital transformation, you need to carefully evaluate your organization’s cloud readiness on a few fronts through the help of IT infrastructure support services:
Applications and Data Assessment
Take a detailed inventory of all your existing applications and data. Which ones are good candidates to move to the cloud? Legacy apps may not easily transfer over. Consider re-architecting or replacing them with cloud-native alternatives. For data, understand regulations around its storage location.
Cloud Skills and Culture Assessment
Do your IT teams have the skills to provision cloud resources and manage cloud environments? Or will training be required? Also consider whether your organization’s culture is receptive to adopting cloud processes and paradigms.
Network Assessment
How’s your network connectivity and internet bandwidth? Moving to cloud means more data transfer between your systems and cloud. Ensure your network can handle it.
Cost Assessment
Cloud can drive down costs long-term with reduced overhead. But migration itself has upfront costs to plan for like acquisition of cloud services, training staff, etc.
The goal is to understand potential gaps early so you can put a realistic cloud migration strategy and timeline in place.
Choosing The Right Cloud Model
With readiness assessed, it’s time to decide which cloud model fits best. There are three primary options:
Public Cloud
With public cloud, all resources (storage, compute, etc.) are owned and operated by a third-party provider like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform. It provides maximum flexibility and minimal maintenance overhead for you.
Private Cloud
A private cloud refers to cloud resources dedicated solely to your organization, whether hosted internally or by a provider. This model gives you maximum control but requires heavier investments in procurement and maintenance.
Hybrid Cloud
Hybrid takes a combined approach, keeping some core resources on-premises while integrating public cloud services. This allows private infrastructure to be supplemented seamlessly with public cloud resources when spikes in demand occur.
Most organizations start with a public or hybrid cloud to ease into cloud adoption before potentially shifting more resources to a private cloud model later on for continuous improvement.
Developing A Cloud Migration Strategy
With your cloud model selected, craft a robust cloud migration plan that covers critical areas like:
- Prioritizing apps/data for migration
- Designing secure connections between cloud and on-prem systems
- Continuously backing up data during the transition
- Testing apps/workloads in the new cloud environment
- Training IT staff on cloud skills needed
- Updating governance policies and monitoring for the cloud
The migration roadmap may be executed in multiple waves rather than all at once to reduce risk and create new opportunities for making adjustments.
Managing Cloud Costs
While operating in the cloud drives significant long-term cost optimization opportunities, your cloud spending needs to be carefully monitored and controlled on an ongoing basis. Common approaches include:
- Using cloud cost management tools to get full visibility into cloud resources being consumed.
- Implementing governance policies to prevent cloud resource sprawl and wastage.
- Leveraging auto-scaling of cloud resources to match provisioning with actual demand.
- Deleting unnecessary storage volumes and shutting down idle cloud resources.
Many cloud providers have pricing calculators to estimate potential costs before migrating. And various pricing models like reserved instances allow pre-paying for committed use to save money.
Ensuring Cloud Security and Compliance
Data security and regulatory compliance are top concerns when operating in the cloud, especially for businesses dealing with sensitive data. Key measures to have in place:
- Following security best practices for identity/access management.
- Data encryption in transit and at rest within cloud services.
- Cloud provider’s data center certifications and audit mechanism.
- Your specific processes for monitoring security posture.
- Clearly defined roles for cloud security responsibilities.
Cloud providers have robust built-in security capabilities, but you’re still accountable for properly configuring and managing security settings as well as meeting any regulatory requirements.
Integrating Cloud With Existing Systems
For most businesses, cloud won’t fully replace on-premises systems overnight. You’ll need an integration strategy to let cloud and non-cloud platforms interact and share data. Common techniques include:
- Virtual private networks between cloud and data centers
- API-based integrations between cloud and on-site applications
- Cloud integration tools offered by major cloud vendors
- Hybrid cloud appliances deployed at your data center
For a successful IT modernization strategy, the architecture should enable workloads and data to be transparently portable between on-premises systems and cloud infrastructure as needed.
Takeaway
While migrating to cloud isn’t trivial in this digital landscape, taking a phased approach focused on the right planning, integration techniques, security practices, and continuous optimization can set your business up for long-term cloud success. The inherent agility and efficiencies gained will prove Cloud a cornerstone of your overall technology modernization strategy.
