Cloud adoption strategy — What’s the best model to use?

The cloud provides a fast, secure, and cost-effective way for companies to do business. So little wonder it’s being adopted at rapid pace by companies of all sizes and industries. Especially in the UK, with London one of the most connected places worldwide after Silicon Valley.

Every organisation has its own approach to cloud adoption and each cloud model comes with its own pros and cons.

Some of the main models and their capabilities are:

A hybrid cloud approach

This is a cloud strategy that nearly three out of four enterprises use. It involves a company using some on-premises infrastructure, as well as a private and public cloud like Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure.

A multi-cloud approach

This involves distributing the same workloads across multiple cloud providers, with or without an existing private cloud. Adopting this strategy avoids vendor lock-in and gives companies extra flexibility.

A poly-cloud approach

This is different from a multi-cloud in that it enables companies to distribute different workloads across different cloud providers, using the strengths of each vendor to their advantage. For example, a company may use Microsoft Azure Cloud for routine services and turn to Google Cloud for their Machine-Learning (ML) capabilities.

An industry cloud approach

This includes a wide range of industry-specific cloud applications, tools, and services that are optimised for use by specific industries. For example, a joint venture between Microsoft and SAP has resulted in a SAP supply chain solutions system for manufacturers.

A distributed cloud approach

This is a public cloud service that allows companies to run public cloud infrastructure in different locations — not just on a cloud vendor’s infrastructure, but on premises, in other cloud providers’ data centres, or other third-party data centres with everything managed from one place.

Distributed cloud provides the perfect environment for edge computing, where servers and apps are run close to where data is created.
 

5 factors to consider when selecting a cloud adoption strategy

1. Security concerns

Companies moving to the cloud are often concerned about security, especially if they have lots of sensitive customer data to maintain. However, public cloud providers invest heavily in security; in fact, far more than any single company can.

Microsoft invests over a billion dollars per year in cybersecurity for Azure Cloud, a platform that defends against 7 trillion threats per day.

2. Vendor lock-in

Another factor companies try to avoid, vendor lock-in is a pertinent worry, as the cost of cloud services tends to get cheaper and cheaper. Multi-clouds can resolve this issue since systems are hosted on multiple cloud platforms.

3. Governance and compliance

Governance and compliance are other factors to consider when choosing a cloud model. This is of especial concern for healthcare providers where companies need to adhere to specific industry regulations. They need to ensure that their cloud adoption model is aligned with their protocols and overall business strategy, so keeping some data in-house while using their public cloud for routine operations could be the answer.

4. ROI

On-premises systems generally require a significant upfront investment while an SaaS model requires no initial investment and simply incurs running costs. Managing technologies in-house also incurs maintenance costs and require labour to carry out upgrades while cloud service providers take on these elements as part of the package.

5. The digital skills gap

A big challenge to successful cloud adoption is the lack of skilled personnel. A recent survey revealed that 70% of IT leaders are concerned about the shortage of cloud skills. With the cloud becoming ever more complex and more cloud service providers entering the market, companies are struggling to keep up. In order to move to the cloud of their choice, businesses need staff versed in cloud technologies and with platform-specific expertise.

Are you ready for the Cloud?

For the past twelve years in a row, we’ve been named one of the Top 20 IT Training Companies in the World. We offer accelerated courses in all aspects of Cloud Computing, from app development to architecture, AWS to Microsoft Azure, and many more. Perhaps one of them is right for you? See them all.