In short:
- After rewriting, your rewritten sentence will use the following word pattern:
subject + (verb) + because.
- Developing a strategy for your cloud services can maximize speed, resiliency, and agility.
- Unlock the power of cloud storage and let your business grow with hybrid infrastructure.
- Create a talent pipeline internally and consider creative strategies to hire individuals who could be an exceptional fit for your company.
Over the past few years, public cloud services have become more prevalent in every industry. But many IT organizations don’t optimize their use of cloud services; even though it can be a necessary tool for businesses to streamline operations and grow.
“The adoption of cloud computing technologies has accelerated rapidly in the last few years as businesses began to realize that they can leverage these technologies to respond quickly to opportunities, or threats. Businesses that successfully implement these technologies will have an advantage over their competitors, and it might even determine if they’ll survive.” says Paul Delory, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner.
In 2022, new advancements make it possible to improve IT organizations’ cloud deployments. These six essential design principles provide a framework for how to better implement and grow your cloud computing strategy.
Step 1: Prioritize design decisions that will increase speed and business value.
Organizations of all sizes know that it’s crucial for them to move quickly, now more than ever. With cloud services, organizations can be more agile, increasing the chances of success.
Cloud computing has brought the promise of organizations entering new competitive markets, but it also brings a new set of challenges. With the cost savings and technology flexibility that cloud computing provides, it is imperative that both engineering and business understand how to capitalize on this opportunity. First, conduct your own mapping of cloud technology in terms of three CIO priorities: infrastructure and operations (I&O) professionals often focus on perfecting technical architectures at the expense of delivering maximum business value in minimal time.
“Businesses can save time and money by using cloud-based software instead of customizing and installing software on individual devices. This reduces the need for IT staff to manage multiple installations, and increases overall productivity.” Says Jeroen van Gils, CEO of LiFi.
Cloud-based applications can solve a variety of business problems and enable new innovations in your company.
Governance and security: Focus on adaptable governance frameworks that have the flexibility to handle different implementation demands and risk profiles.
Mobilizing and migrating: To support the transformation of your organization, work together to choose the right tools for your company.
Step 2. Prioritize a primary provider in multi-cloud architectures
More organizations are looking to add a second cloud provider to increase their flexibility without going over budget. Multi-cloud strategies help with current and future needs, but they also come with increased complexity and cost.
Know what you need and how to get it in an affordably priced fashion. When your organization needs something that a cloud provider can’t meet, specify your needs and channel them to the right-fit provider. Develop a framework for cloud workload placement that matches needs with providers.
Step 3: Build resilience into application architecture
The increased focus on IT resilience is only going to continue to grow as the frequency of cybersecurity threats (including ransomware), organizational disruptions, natural disasters and catastrophes, continue to grow. This is one of the biggest business differentiators–if your competitors are suffering through delays and downtimes while your business carries on, then your IT services will create an opportunity for you outshine them by showcasing the superiority of your product to any potential new clients.
Reliability has traditionally been the responsibility of the operators. In times of high volumes or disaster, they ensure that it is up and running by building into the infrastructure. However, modern information systems are increasingly reliable because end-user applications are themselves becoming more resilient. By 2025, as many as 30% of enterprises will establish new roles focused on resilience and boost their ability to tolerate and recover from failure, to 45%. Encourage your company to switch the focus away from individual service continuity and modern IT resilience.
Step 4: Enable hybrid architectures with distributed cloud
With this in mind, IT organizations have decided to build private or hybrid clouds. However, they often end up failing with unmanageable projects that are more difficult to manage than public cloud options. These expectations often lead to the same service consumption and fixes as the public cloud platform but rarely deliver.
Distributed cloud platforms provide better flexibility and can serve applications with unique needs. The platforms extend the same native public cloud services to local infrastructure, while remaining under the same management schema. These platforms are well-suited to hybrid and private cloud needs, while still retaining the advantages of classic public cloud consumption.
Step 5: For a more efficient and cost-effective solution, choose containers and serverless.
The inception of public cloud computing was through virtual machines. But today, new methods of virtualization are taking hold, including containers and serverless computing. New IT principles that are becoming more embedded in application development and infrastructure operations will make these two new technologies increasingly attractive to use for computing purposes.
Modern applications are designed to serve up APIs. These applications need a high degree of service discovery, so that they can be useful across multiple networks. They also require programmability in order to adapt to changes, which makes them more agile and efficient.
Step 6: Grow public cloud skills internally to bridge the talent gap.
There’s a shortage of skilled I&O technical professionals who are experienced with cloud tools. This can delay or curtail projects which were initially meant to help innovate. To quench the increasing demand for cloud services, IT organizations will need to form their own skills internally as they find it difficult to hire skilled personnel.
To help keep up with the rapidly changing information age, IT departments are best served by developing a talent enablement program. This will help define the workforce and ensure that individuals have acquired the skills necessary to meet IT needs. These programs will help facilitate a more open recruitment effort to direct technical professionals to those areas of expertise they’ll need most.
Look for creative ways to bridge the cloud skills gap. For example, organizations can look to their existing community of practice to recruit internal candidates for cloud roles. Employees who wish to enter a cloud role can enroll in cloud provider training courses and eventually earn the opportunity to train on the job on a project basis. Pairing is also an effective way to grow cloud skills. Set up an external skilled resource with an employee who does not yet have cloud skills but has solid general architecture skills, with the goal of developing the internal employee into a full-fledged cloud architect.
