It’s likely clear to most companies by now that any realistic view of the future of the business world involves cloud computing in some way. It’s difficult to ignore the variety of benefits that come from adopting the cloud, including more productivity from employees, more business agility, and, of course, significant cost savings. Even with these advantages in mind, many companies still feel a reluctance to make the cloud part of their operations. A move to the cloud is certainly a significant change, one which should not be considered lightly. While many of these reluctant businesses won’t dispute the benefits of cloud computing, they may have trouble seeing how to maximize those benefits to make such a transition worth it. The answer is to take a “deep dive” into the cloud.
Information from a recent State of the Cloud report by RightScale provides the bigger picture about cloud adoption. In the report, companies of differing levels of cloud focus were asked about the challenges of cloud adoption and the benefits they saw once they made that leap into the cloud. The results show just how effective adopting the cloud in multiple aspects can be. In particular, the more broadly that a company adopts cloud computing for its operations, the more benefits they see. These benefits include greater scalability, greater IT efficiency, higher performance, and overall cost savings. In addition to these findings, the report shows that the longer a company uses the cloud, the more the benefits are maximized and the less impact cloud challenges have. In other words, to fully benefit from the cloud, a company should adopt it as broadly as possible and plan to stay with it for many years to come.
Of course, for some businesses simply adopting the cloud can be a challenge itself. That’s why organizations will sometimes do so piece by piece, little by little, until eventually using it for a majority of business functions. As the RightScale report shows, that’s actually an inefficient way to adopt cloud computing, leading to the loss of many benefits. But widely adopting the cloud can be an intimidating experience. Here are a few helpful tips that can prove effective in a broad adoption of cloud computing.
Cloud services brokers can be an extremely useful resource, especially for those companies with little experience in the cloud or struggling to find the right cloud provider. Cloud services brokers, or CSBs, work with their clients to identify the cloud providers that will meet their business needs the most. Not only do they evaluate providers, they also negotiate contracts with them once a provider has been chosen. In this way, businesses can know that they are getting the cloud services they need at a reasonable price. CSBs with a trusted reputation can make the cloud adoption process much easier, ensure that cloud security is a priority, and reduce the costs of using the cloud. When it comes to cloud adoption, sometimes it’s better to leave the details to the experts. Well-known CSBs include AWS Marketplace, Dell’s cloud computing services, VirtaCore and Cordys.
Adopting a public cloud can strike some as a complicated undertaking, so sometimes the best option is to use a hybrid cloud, which combines the benefits of a public and private cloud into one. For the purposes of cloud adoption, hybrid integration should be the goal many companies strive for. Hybrid integration essentially takes into account systems present in the cloud and on-premise, fully connecting them for maximum effect. This makes the overall transition into the cloud much smoother, allowing business to continue as normal with few, if any, hiccups.
At the same time, businesses should find the right adoption pattern, determining what type of service would best suit their needs. Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service, and Software-as-a-Service all have varying levels of control. IaaS offers the most customization, but it also leads to comparatively higher costs and a slower time to value. SaaS, on the other hand, has less customization but lower costs and a faster time to value. To truly take advantage of the cloud, a deep dive should include a service bundle featuring SaaS, which has the most systems running in the cloud.
While broadly adopting the cloud in as many business aspects as possible might seem like a frightening prospect, the best way to maximize the effectiveness of cloud computing is through this deep dive. The cloud has a lot to offer businesses of all types, and the best way to see results is to use cloud computing in as many ways as possible. The results will be proof enough that fully embracing the cloud is the best choice to make.