Deploying cloud computing technology can save costs for an organisation, but how can investment be maximised?
The cloud is known to bring agility and scale to workloads within companies. However, with such a competitive market currently in place, alongside other aspects to consider, such as security, governance and capability of facilitating remote working to consider, knowing how to maximise cloud computing investment can be a conundrum.
With this in mind, we take a look at how companies can ensure that money, time and talent isn’t wasted on cloud computing deployment.
One step towards maximising cloud investment is to look for collaboration platforms and consulting services, both of which can help to get the best out of the technology, says Andrew Halliwell, product director at Virgin Media Business.
“First, it’s about choosing cloud collaboration solutions that offer simplification and integration within a single platform,” said Halliwell. “There are technologies available that create a joined up, personalised and differential worker and consumer experience across all departments and user types. So, rather than just buying a solution in itself, leaders are getting game-changing integration capabilities impacting every aspect of their organisation.
“Secondly, they need to seize on the potential of partnerships. The challenges enterprises face post-Covid are intricate and complex, and so they need to broaden the pool of expertise they draw on when investing in cloud infrastructure.
“By choosing partnerships, organisations can benefit from consultancy on every aspect of running their Business — from improving customer experience to bolstering security — driving value and maximising investment.”
As with any technology strategy, the entire organisation must be clear about what the cloud deployment will entail, and what is needed from the cloud vendor.
“The key to a proper cloud strategy relies on a crisp understanding of one’s own particular usage model,” explained David Feller, vice-president, product management and solutions engineering at Spectra Logic. “For example, organisations that require high access to data over time should consider aspects such as egress fees and connectivity bandwidth; in such cases, maintaining additional on-premise copies of data is often the best solution. For workflows that heavily use cloud compute resources, the ability to deliver content to those cloud services that can be abandoned once processing is complete has also become a popular strategy.
“Clarity on exactly what is needed from the cloud provider in terms of storage, compute power, scalability and application compatibility with specific public clouds, are all key variables that should drive decision-making to be weighed against budget. An awareness of hidden cloud costs (beyond the storage per-month fees) is the first step.
“Then, leveraging the strengths of cloud with a hybrid storage approach can create the best of both worlds and enable significant savings. This strategy involves keeping data copies onsite as well as in the cloud.
“Onsite copies enable organisations to control their own data, maintain copies offline on tape for air gap protection against ransomware, and avoid cloud vendor lock-in by being able to switch cloud vendors without paying excessive egress fees. Cloud copies can be utilised for extra protection and disaster recovery.”
According to Simon Pamplin, technical director at Silver Peak, maximising cloud investment can be ensured by having your cloud strategy be driven by business.
“At the core of the issue is that with a conventional, router-centric approach, access to applications residing in the cloud means traversing unnecessary hops through the HQ data centre, resulting in inefficient use of bandwidth, additional cost, added latency and potentially lower productivity,” said Pamplin.
