Cloud should not be exclusive but an integral part of IT strategy

Cloud adopting is no longer a choice but an imperative. The conversation has progressed from “if” to “when” and “how” to embark the cloud journey. This is a critical conversation as wrong moves in the initial cloud journey can seriously shake the organization’s confidence in cloud, delaying adoption, and even risk elimination of cloud as an option.

Cloud adoption is gaining momentum with many organizations steadily migrating critical workloads to the cloud. Organizations have been able to scale rapidly, innovate quickly and save tons of money by using the pay-as-you- go model without making huge upfront investments. Early cloud adopters are having a head start in the learning curve and gaining competitive advantage for the business.

Our interactions with savvy customers have found that they do not have an elaborate cloud strategy. Instead these customers found the cloud proposition valuable and started by testing and experimenting with the cloud. Once initial experiences were successful, more workloads were executed till they gained confidence in the cloud and tweaked the migration process.
In general we observed savvy customers have followed similar migration patterns, some of which we enumerate below:

• Savvy customers usually start small and scale after proof of concept is tested and validated. Cloud adoption like all other new technology must be tested with small steps before embarking on full scale adoption.
• Smart organizations start with non-critical applications. Selecting the right application is important as you do not know what you have in store on a new journey. Generally it is a good idea to avoid legacy applications or applications which have extensive internal connections as dependent applications may not be cloud ready.
•  Successful cloud deployments are those which require high scalability or are inherently unpredictable. This includes external facing websites for high-voltage marketing campaigns; promotional initiatives; internal initiatives such as specific HR programmes, employee outreach programmes, etc.
• Applications and software licences that have reached end of life are good candidates to explore cloud deployment when licenses are renewed.
• Savvy organizations understand that cloud and traditional IT will co-exist. Some applications and scenarios which require high level of security and confidentiality work best as on-prem deployment while scenarios with high level of unpredictability and scalability requirements are best suited for the cloud. The key lies in an organization’s ability to discern which application is best suited for specific scenarios.

Umbrella has extensive experience helping companies migrate workloads to the cloud. If you need guidance in deciding which workloads are best suited to embark your cloud journey, reach out to us.