Enlisting A Cloud Partner? Here Are Three Things To Consider
When do you first remember hearing about “the cloud?”
Google’s Search Engine Strategies Conference in 2006 has widely been credited as the conversation starter around the cloud and its capabilities, leading to organizations spending more than a decade determining how to best use the cloud to improve their business. Fast forward to the present, and public cloud adoption is at 91%, while private cloud adoption is at 72%, according to RightScale’s 2019 State of the Cloud Report.
Today’s high cloud adoption rate is no surprise. Cloud competencies have become essential for businesses to remain competitive, and more enterprises have realized the ROI of leveraging cloud architecture, such as enhanced efficiencies and scalability and reduced IT costs. Industries that collect raw data, like retail data that ranges from customer information to store operations, have seen how cloud-based applications can make data more actionable.
However, despite the large number of organizations using the cloud, not all workloads are in the cloud. The same RightScale study found that moving more workloads into the cloud is a top priority for 2019.
The complexity of the cloud makes the journey to 100% deployment a greater challenge than many would prefer, but enlisting a cloud partner (or partners) can help. When vetting cloud providers, it’s essential to understand the fundamentals to make a more informed decision:
Organizations that choose the single cloud route decide to use one provider to handle migrating their chosen applications and services to the cloud, either private or public. A single cloud environment tends to be more suitable for smaller organizations, as they typically need fewer cloud resources and one cloud is not as complicated as managing multiple clouds. Although, a single cloud means there is less flexibility because you are limited to one provider’s offerings, making it more difficult to meet unique business needs.
With a multicloud approach, businesses can use more than one provider and can employ a private, public or hybrid strategy (combining public and private clouds). A multicloud environment can be more accommodating to specific desires and workloads, as you can leverage several providers’ offerings based on the various applications your business serves. For example, retailers can choose the best partner per solution — one can help increase supply chain visibility, while another can assist with improving merchandising decisions.
According to a multicloud study from IBM Institute for Business Value, by 2021, 98% of organizations plan to adopt multicloud architectures, but only 41% have a multicloud management strategy and 38% have procedures and tools to operate a multicloud environment. These findings reveal how much more education is necessary to achieve the multicloud world that’s expected to come to fruition.
To help take the next step toward multicloud adoption, businesses need to decide whether a private or public cloud is right for their environment. The main differentiation between private and public clouds revolves around how data is stored and secured and related step function costs.
A company that owns and operates a private cloud, which can be stored on-site or housed in an owned or outsourced data center, will face step function costs once the deployed infrastructure reaches the limitations of virtualization. A public cloud means businesses purchase server space from a provider that scales linearly, and their data may be stored on the same server as another company’s data.
The choice between public and private clouds — or using both — depends on how much control an organization would like over their data. In making this decision, it’s useful to understand the role open source platforms play in cloud management strategies.
