Nearly every organisation aiming to make its data operations more efficient is looking to the cloud. It is critical for IT departments and business leaders to have a clear cloud adoption strategy in place, in order for the implementation to be successful. Unplanned cloud adoptions can lead to failure due to costs spiraling out of control or other factors.
The first question to ask before beginning the process of cloud adoption is Why? The answer to this lies in the fact that business requirements that are driving this adoption will define the technical aspects that are to be considered while developing a cloud adoption plan.
What Technical Aspects Should Be Considered for Cloud Adoption?
There are a few significant technical aspects to be considered when an organisation is making its first foray into cloud computing.
The first of these is the public cloud provider, also known as hyperscaler. There are three major providers – Amazon’s AWS, Microsoft’s Azure and Google Cloud. Each of these public cloud providers offers their own cloud adoption framework (that includes best practices, implementation guidance, tools, documentation) to aid organisations in their cloud adoption journeys.
The next aspect to be considered is the cloud computing model offered by public cloud providers to deliver services. These include infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS).
Lastly, it is important to understand the deployment architectures that are in wide adoption today. These include private/on-premises cloud (owned and managed by a single organisation for their internal consumption), public cloud (owned and operated by the large public cloud providers/hyperscalers), hybrid cloud (a mix of public cloud and private/on-prem cloud deployments), and multicloud (a specialized hybrid cloud deployment combining multiple public cloud platforms, with or without private clouds).
Understanding the full scope of options available, with the pros and cons of each of these, and selecting the deployment architectures, computing models and cloud providers most suited to the organisation’s business needs, is the first step to effective cloud adoption.
Key Technologies for Storage & Security
MD & VP,
NetApp India & SAARC
Flash storage is a key data storage technology that will be focused on this year. Based on high-speed, electrically programmable memory, flash storage offers unique benefits to organisations grappling with challenges such as exploding data volumes or slow, unpredictable data access. With the availability of cost-effective all-flash storage solutions, organisations realise the benefits of the technology at scale – including accelerated application performance, improved data center economics, and future-proof infrastructure.
A flash system that supports cloud integration allows organisations maximum flexibility to take advantage of the latest innovations in flash technology without disrupting business operations.
Cyber resilience is another major focus area for enterprises in the near future. There is a need for robust cyber resilience solutions to secure organisations’ digital transformation efforts in the face of threats ranging from natural disasters to application failures, ransomware and other cyber-attacks. Combining data protection and data security, effective cyber resilience keeps business data available and recoverable, and detects and thwarts threats before they can cause damage – thus enabling organisations to swiftly bounce back from attacks.
A strong portfolio of cyber resilience solutions offers ransomware protection (combating threats and accelerating data recovery), facilitates business continuity (maintaining availability of data & applications across the hybrid cloud and distributed workforce), enables backup and recovery (eliminating backup windows and guaranteeing swift & full recovery in case of a disaster), and ensures governance and compliance (preventing unauthorized access, disclosure and modification of enterprise data).
