Cloud Computing Adoption - An Analysis

Cloud-computing adoption has been increasing rapidly, with cloud-specific spending expected to grow at more than six times the rate of general IT spending through 2020 as per estimates of Salesforce.com.

Flexera's State of the Cloud 2020 report highlights how multi-cloud is becoming a default strategy for many enterprises and the big three providers are grabbing more of your cloud budget.

COVID-19 may also accelerate shifts to the cloud. Flexera found at least half of companies are accelerating their cloud plans amid the COVID-19 pandemic and move to remote work. Indeed, 59% of enterprises say cloud usage will exceed prior plans due to the pandemic, according to Flexera.

In the current scenario, companies would like to be jump with both feet, migrating their operations entirely into the cloud or starting up new companies based around cloud services. 

Cloud computing can be broken up into three main services: Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). 

There are four cloud deployment models: public, private, community, and hybrid. 

Across industries, cloud continues to be one of the fastest-growing segments of IT spend. “CIOs looking to prepare their organization to thrive in the upcoming turns must take a differentiated approach to cloud computing,” says Gregor Petri, Vice President Analyst, Gartner. “It will be essential for CIOs to develop a formal strategy that helps to put individual cloud decisions in the context of the enterprise’s strategic goals.”

This is because companies tend to fall into the trap of confusing simply moving IT systems to the cloud with the transformational strategy needed to get the full value of the cloud. Just taking legacy applications and moving them to the cloud—“lift-and-shift”—will not automatically yield the benefits that cloud infrastructure and systems can provide. In fact, in some cases, that approach can result in IT architectures that are more complex, cumbersome, and costly than before.

Traditional enterprises run into two major issues when moving to cloud. 

• Existing business applications were created using the traditional IT paradigm. As a result, these applications are typically monolithic and configured in a few data centres. Simply moving them to the cloud will not transform them with all the dynamic features of the cloud.
• The typical technology workforce of an enterprise is well versed in developing business applications in the traditional IT framework. Most of them need to be reskilled or upskilled for the cloud environment.

Cloud technologies will continue to be an important part of IT strategy in the future. Given the variety of cloud computing solutions available today, there is no reason to settle for a strategy that does not meet all of an organization’s business needs. Colocation data centres may present flexible choice for companies, but larger organizations may also consider the benefits of a strictly on-premises enterprise solution as well.

The full value of cloud comes from approaching these options not as one-off tactical decisions but as part of a holistic strategy to pursue digital transformation.

Companies should view cloud capabilities as a next-generation IT capable of enabling business growth and innovation in the rapidly evolving digital era.

While moving to cloud is a good thing, it is critical that an organization proceed with caution.

Organisations who have adopted cloud technologies in a piecemeal fashion, addressing specific needs would be committing the same mistakes of disparate legacy systems most companies have inherited, which would drive up costs and can lead to issues with compliance and security.

To address these challenges, CIOs should turn their attention to developing and implementing a centralized cloud strategy and use it as the foundation for governing the use of cloud services across the business and IT organization.

Many enterprises are stuck supporting both their inefficient traditional data-center environments and inadequately planned cloud implementations that may not be as easy to manage or as affordable as they imagined.

Extensive research would be required before an organisation decides to move into the cloud or not. Armed with this knowledge, the company will be able to take a better decision. The centralised cloud strategy should address the following concerns:

• Pain points analysis

Make a list of all the pain points the organisation currently faces and validate whether moving to cloud resolves the existing items of concern.

• Security

Security is an integral part of moving to the cloud. Check whether compliance, data security and privacy would not be breached when moving to cloud. 

• Cloud deployment and delivery models

There are 3 main categories to examine

1. Private vs Public vs Hybrid deployment models
2. Public Providers vs Local vs Hybrid
3. SaaS vs IaaS vs Paas service delivery models

Each business’ strategy for how to implement cloud solutions will vary based on these decisions and, even more fundamentally, on the business’ needs.

• Downtime

Cloud computing systems are internet-based; hence service outages are always an unfortunate possibility and can occur for any reason. Having a disaster recovery plan in line with the business objectives that provide the lowest possible recovery time. The fine print on SLA should mitigate any disputes that may arise in case of any outages.

• Ownership of Data

There are many questions when it comes to data ownership in the cloud. One big question with cloud implementations is the ownership of data. The company may have created the data, but would be stored at an external service provider. In case of the service provider going out of business, the consequences of getting access to data or in any eventuality of dispute with the service provider, would data be held hostage are some of the questions that needs to be addressed.

• Vendor lock-in

Switching between cloud services is a service that has not yet completely evolved, and organisations may find it difficult to migrate their services from one vendor to another. Differences between vendor platforms may create difficulties in migrating from one cloud platform to another, which could equate to additional costs and configuration complexities. Gaps or compromises made during migration could also expose data to additional security and privacy vulnerabilities.

• Service provider selection

Selection of provider that has adhered to the appropriate regulations for e.g. one that has passed a SSAE 16 Type II audit. This audit ensures that a provider meets a given set of compliance criteria.

• Redundancy 

However, technology is getting smaller, with backup, redundancy options all getting smaller. In a few years’ time, with miniature storage, high speed internet, 5G, IPV6, and miniature servers, companies will question the need to host shoebox size technology than runs their entire company in a data centre for thousands of pounds/dollars a month vs on premise managed by few personnel.

Cloud computing strategies will undoubtedly continue to be a huge part of every organization’s network strategy in the coming years. With scalable power and flexible services, cloud providers give companies the tools they need to drive better business results. However, instead of racing to adopt the latest technology, businesses first need to adopt a top-down approach that looks at the business model first, and then acquires the capabilities, skillsets and people needed to create that change. In doing so, businesses greatly reduce the risk of making heavy investments in technology solutions that later need to be completely rebuilt.

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