5 ways to ensure cloud computing success Cloud computing is becoming increasingly pervasive across various industry verticals today. But to ensure cloud computing success and to reap maximum benefits from the game-changing services based on the cloud, organizations will have to take care of all the important practices before the implementation. 

Allowing businesses to connect with stakeholders anywhere and anytime, cloud computing is becoming one of the hottest topics in today’s Internet-enabled technology-driven world. With every application residing on the web today, cloud computing services have paved a path for businesses to view, access, share, or retrieve data, enhancing the elasticity, scalability, transparency, and control over business connectivity. Transitioning from the conventional way of handling IT resources, cloud computing also aims to provide benefits, ranging from cost-savings on hardware and software set-up, collaboration efficiency, flexible workflows, and productivity gains. For companies having to deal with huge chunks of data, making data accessible almost instantaneously when in need, with zero turnaround time can be quite challenging. But since cloud computing services perform best on demand and in real-time, it becomes one of the most suitable and optimal solutions for IT organizations today.

The advantages of cloud computing services have been the cause for many eyeballs to roll, around the world, becoming a commonly discussed bone of contention in the boardroom. However, organizations planning to shift to this incredible technology should be mindful of the fact that these benefits would be short-lived if not strategized well. To ensure cloud computing success, there are certain essential practices (mentioned below) that should be considered without fail. If you are planning to take your enterprise to the cloud, take a look at the tips or steps mentioned below, which will help create a holistic strategy for cloud computing success:

1. Define realistic business goals

Even though cloud computing promises to offer huge returns on investments, making the most of this sophisticated technology is difficult until and unless a comprehensive strategy is prepared. To get started with the process of cloud computing implementation, organizations should have their goals defined, gauge competitors and their moves, and benchmark against them. These objectives will help organizations understand the possible impact of cloud computing services for their business. Besides, organizations should identify the resource requirements for cloud adoption. With enough funds and a team of professionals having boundless knowledge on cloud computing technological aspects, organizations can meet their cloud implementation goals faster. Furthermore, organizations should move on to creating their cloud computing strategy after finding the answers to the questions mentioned below:

• Why did you think of adopting cloud computing?
• What were the issues with the traditional approach?
• How is cloud computing different from the traditional approach?
• Will cloud adoption solve all the current issues?
• Do you have a flexible infrastructure?
• Are your workers ready for the change?
• Have you hired enough candidates who are aware of the new technology?

2. Implement a cloud governance framework

The prime aim of organizations who are planning for cloud adoption is to optimize workflow execution while minimizing operational expenses. But to make sure that everything functions in the right way for organizations to meet their aim, a set of guidelines or policies should be created. Cloud governance is basically a set of rules that organizations draft for ensuring that the collected data is being appropriately used across various departments. The rule set might have a predefined spending limit for particular departments, which cannot be exceeded, or, who can access which application, or just rules that mention ways of using a cloud application. However, these are just examples of what cloud governance means. Depending on the work you do, organizations can have their governance and policies framed, keeping it flexible for further changes as and when required.

3. Consider data security practices

Without quality organizations just cannot meet their digitization goals. With this objective in mind, organizations are striving their best to collect more and more relevant data for their business processes. Considering this as a golden opportunity, hackers try to steal digital assets. For quite some time now, hackers have been continually advancing their ways of conducting illicit activities. To make it worse, insider attacks are also on the rise. A legitimate employee, knowingly or unknowingly, leaks sensitive data through digital means. With data security becoming a superior concern in today’s hyper-competitive world, organizations should consider this while adopting cloud computing services.

As a fix to this thorny issue, with the help of new-age technologies, automation, and stringent policies framed such that they adhere to the regulatory compliance, organizations can endeavor to make a hacker’s job difficult, curb insider security threat, and also ensure cloud security.

4. Create a data backup and recovery procedure

Losing digital assets could be the worst nightmare for any company, for sure. The traditional on-premise IT infrastructure has greater risks to data loss due to an equipment breakdown, server failure, technical glitch, or a catastrophe. With all the confidential data lying on the offline data centers, cloud computing becomes the best solution to these and similar problems. Now let’s find out why organizations must care about cloud-to-cloud backup.

As we know that cyberattacks are skyrocketing like never before, they can try to sneak in the cloud-based applications, get access to the data center, steal all the data, and then delete it. Hence, to better be safe than sorry, organizations should strategize for data backup and recovery by having backing data on another cloud, even if they choose to switch to cloud computing.

5. Choose the right cloud vendor partner

The need for a vendor can crop up anytime, especially if you are a beginner in cloud adoption. Obviously, for a successful cloud migration process, a number of factors are important, ranging from resources to infrastructure to security mechanism to governance and just so much more. Missing any or one of these might cause a huge failure for the cloud strategy. Hence, it is better to select the best vendor that can assist in the right manner when stuck with the migration process. Besides, a trusted cloud partner can help organizations with the several assessments that are required, craft a holistic strategy, and most importantly, choose relevant tools and technologies. While reducing the risk of failure in  cloud migration, having a cloud partner will predominantly help organizations to minimize the piled up pressure.

Migrating IT infrastructure to the cloud can be a challenging and also complicated endeavor, but since it is a ’must-have’ technology today, organizations have to dip their toes into the cloud. To make things a bit easier, we are here with the checklist mentioned above. However, organizations planning for this change should be heedful of the fact that the tips or practices discussed above aren’t a one-stop solution for ensuring cloud computing success, it is actually an iterative approach. Depending on the needs and demands of your organization, you will have to alter the strategy, as and when required, keeping the tips mentioned above in mind.