The hype surrounding cloud computing is overwhelming today – so overwhelming that business decision makers are struggling to grasp the cloud evolution, making business cloud computing integration a risky decision making.
To help you making sure that you will benefit from the cloud, here are some issues to avoid you from business cloud computing deployment failures, inspired by an FT.com business article:
1. Failure to acknowledge that cloud computing is much more than just private or public cloud services
Thinking about cloud computing adoption, you need to expand your horizon. You will miss the power of the cloud by thinking that cloud computing is only about signing up with public cloud service providers or transforming on-premise IT into private cloud.
In cloud computing, private and public cloud seamless integration is where the real benefit of cloud computing lies for your business.
What’s more than just deploying cloud services externally and/or internally, cloud computing transforms your business; you are empowered to do business the different way, collaborating with your partners the different way and more. All in all, your business will be more agile and adaptive to changes, not mentioning will be better in tapping for business opportunities.
2. Not taken into account the challenges brought by integrated clouds
Despite the opportunities presented by the cloud for your business, you must be aware that managing the cloud is a complex and challenging process. You need to take into consideration the issues of scalability and security by having your business cloud accessed by each and every employee you have.
You need to set rules that govern the usage of cloud services – remember, the cloud is scalable, but scalability relates to costs – ineffective and inefficient usage of the cloud services mean more costs to your business and more risks of security troubles (i.e. leaked personal info to public originating from a dissatisfied employee, etc.)
Just think cloud computing integration as cable installation for your office: You can get things to work by connecting your equipment to the wall socket, but if you didn’t use floor cord cover, expect people to trample over the cords and you should expect power disruption someday in the future.
3. Going cloud without a proper strategy
In cloud computing, execution is everything. You need a strategy to ensure everything is executed according to plan, within the budget you’ve set for cloud business integration. IT-wise, proper strategic planning can help you avoid IT architectural issues by implementing the cloud. Remember, once you decide you partner with a cloud vendor, it is highly complex and trivial to migrate to other cloud vendors.
