With more businesses beginning to migrate mission critical applications into the cloud and overall enterprise cloud adoption and use continuing to grow, companies (and specifically CIOs) need to think about how they invest in cloud to get the most value and using cloud in ways that move their business forward. While the lure of low cost infrastructure makes cloud appealing, enterprises that think strategically about their cloud use will reap the greatest rewards. Understanding that, here are four things enterprises should consider when evaluating cloud strategy technologies:
1. There’s more to cloud services than development & testing
The cloud is no longer being used as just a test-bed for new applications, but a place that houses the most critical aspects of business: customer-facing tools and applications. The deployment of traditional back-office applications such as finance, supply chain and ERP now account for a rapidly growing percentage of all cloud usage and will continue to see significant investment going forward with cloud strategy.
2. Hybrid clouds make best sense
It’s hard to argue that some enterprise applications are simply not suitable to run in the cloud. Hybrid clouds allow for complex interconnected workloads to run in traditional systems while taking advantage of the cost and performance benefits of cloud-based solutions. Hybrid models also make good sense for government organizations or highly regulated industries. They enable more control over applications – translating into secure, audit-friendly environments.
3. The cloud equals more cloud
As enterprises gain experience with cloud ecosystems, and realize the cost and efficiency gains, the result is deeper integration with existing systems as well as expansion into different geographies. Experience with cloud is leading to increased confidence and investment in cloud.
4. The cloud is open, simple and fast
With open source applications, there is no need to procure hardware, deploy a data center or license software for the application to be readily available. New software development ecosystems enable a “write-once-run-anywhere” approach to applications. The open, collaborative IT movement more enterprises are embracing today started in cloud projects and now is likely to become the default application development methodology.
These four factors are imperative for enterprises to weigh when deciding whether to increase their cloud investment and should be used to evaluate cloud services providers and the types of uses and cloud-based solutions a company implements.
