Most organizations are in the process of moving at least some of their workloads to the cloud. The reason they are choosing this path is because they recognize the benefits of resiliency, data security, and the ability to stretch their budgets by moving capital expenditure costs to operating expenditures.
How quickly and reliably this can be done will influence the pace of digital transformation. The complexity associated with a hybrid IT environment means the potential for problems when migrating data is often unavoidable, delaying an organization’s ability to exploit the advantages of cloud computing.
This can be a lengthy and difficult process because there are a number of steps an organization should take to ensure its data and applications are highly available, its data is always protected and recoverable, and it has the insights to drive operational efficiency and regulatory compliance. If this process is ignored, an organization can put itself at risk of downtime and reputational damage.
While 94 percent of the respondents in the study said they were confident in their cloud service provider’s (CSP) ability to protect workloads against outages, over a third admitted to having experienced cloud service disruptions. Subsequently, 73 percent reported downtime, which resulted in 43 percent experiencing difficulties with customer satisfaction. These statistics show a need for IT departments to provide protection that extends further than what the CSPs offer.
The first step of any data migration project is working out what data actually needs to be moved.
This means having a clear understanding of what data exists, where it resides, how sensitive it is, and who exactly needs to access it. Then, businesses are in a good position to set clear criteria for what data needs to be migrated and how.
Unsurprisingly, a hybrid IT environment makes this difficult to achieve, as it is often fast-growing and fragmented. An immersive visual experience that offers a complete picture of the data an organization is holding regardless of where that data sits is one method through which a business can obtain an understanding of its data. This will help in identifying areas of value, risk and waste, thus reducing the cost of unnecessary data storage and pointless migration.
Once an organization has an understanding of the data it has and its relevance to the business, it can then decide what needs to be protected. Ensuring all data is secure is challenging in a hybrid IT environment given the various locations, platforms and applications in which it is stored. Various CSPs and customised private clouds add an additional layer of complexity as IT systems often need a number of disparate tools to do this.
In environments where multiple clouds interoperate, blind spots can wreak havoc.
