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Accelerate business growth with a cloud-smart strategy

September 21, 2021  | By Brandon Carroll

Cloud Computing

Since public cloud debuted in the mid-2000s, cloud computing has evolved rampantly. Cloud strategy remains a hot topic for leaders looking to maximise the value of their technologies and stay ahead of what’s next.

Cloud evolution and its business impact

The evolution of cloud computing has closely mirrored the evolution of high-speed network connectivity that global enterprises have grown to attain. As organisations became able to provide employees and customers real-time access to applications and data, leveraging the “cloud” became a must-have to maintain the resiliency and elasticity to scale operations.

Many companies adopted the public cloud, which offers cloud-based services shared via the internet. This allowed organisations the ability to host IT services, share resources and scale in ways that would not otherwise be possible for a single organisation.

Many early adopters of public cloud focused on cost savings as a primary driver to adopting cloud computing—with mixed results. Organisations that focused on SaaS-based solutions to replace traditional on-premises services (like CRM, content management and business applications) realised lower total cost of ownership and solid ROI. In many cases, organisations that went all-in on cloud-first directives saw the opposite. They simply moved technical debt, outdated business processes and bad code to infrastructure outside their four walls.

From cloud first to cloud smart

Today, most savvy IT organisations are looking at the cloud in a much different light. Being “cloud first” is no longer relevant. Organisations with the most success are highly selective of which applications and related data should be optimised before migrating to the cloud.

The days of traditional IaaS models are behind us. It’s time to use advanced cloud technologies to deliver deployment and delivery platforms for next-gen services that ultimately drive business value—not just IT cost savings.

A cloud smart model may sound too simple at first glance. But the truth is that not all applications and data services are meant for cloud consumption. Likewise, no single cloud provider has the best services for all business applications.

The biggest cloud migration mistake to avoid

Organisations often overlook overall network and accessibility or availability. Most large enterprise organisations employing a traditional multi-data centre model aren’t properly equipped to quickly migrate workloads to the cloud. Why? Many mission-critical and consumer-facing applications require frequent data access and lookups, and some of the most significant costs of living in the cloud are data ingress/egress charges.

If your cloud migration strategy is not focused on enabling near real-time data access for core applications at the lowest total costs, you will likely have significant cost overruns or a poor user experience. Cloud-smart organisations have caught on. They are moving to a distributed core/edge network topology to enable direct cloud connectivity to internal data sources and external applications.

In 2021 and beyond, successful organisations are putting data at the centre of everything they do. IT decisions and strategies need to evolve accordingly and ensure that organisational data access and availability are at the forefront of any architectural and operational change.

Owning Change in Cloud

It’s not about being cloud-first; it’s about being cloud-smart. Our talent can help you build, move, store and optimise everything you already do—and everything you want to do—in whatever cloud platform and structure that best fits your future.

Learn more about our cloud capabilities.