Journey to the Cloud Part 2: Establishing if your IT is Cloud-Ready

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Many organisations now opting for the cloud aren’t start-ups who have no previous IT setup and no risk – instead, they are enterprises who have realised the potential cloud computing has to offer and have then decided to act upon it. Overall cloud adoption rates among British businesses now stand at 88% and the rate of cloud adoption has increased by a whopping 83% since 2010. These figures show how crucial it now is to move to a cloud computing setup.

By coming to this realisation, it then triggers the process of backtracking as to where each piece of current kit, software, data and applications have come from. For those who have not yet opted for a managed service provider approach to IT, it is likely that these aspects have been collected from various IT distributors to create a non-integrated platform for workers. Although, at the time this was properly the easiest option (as in-house IT did not completely lose control and responsibility of data), it then creates the issue of cancelling applications, sending any kit back and ensuring that all direct debits have ended.

This creates complexity, leads to escalating costs from duplication and makes it difficult to ensure compliance with internal policies and external regulations.

Once the physical aspect of an on-premise IT setup is refined, consider what support can be provided from in-house resources.

By determining the current skill level within your organisation this can then help to develop what the plan of action needs to be as 32% believe a lack of internal skill is limiting their success in terms of cloud adoption. Establishing this will enable IT to determine what external resources are required.

It’s more than likely that in-house staff will not have the ability to integrate a secure platform and continue to manage it. This is where a managed service provider, like Atlas Cloud, would step in to provide organisations with IT that increases productivity with no added workload.

At the bare minimum, a strategy should address; when it is appropriate to use public versus private cloud; when it is appropriate to use off premise versus on premise; where different types of data can be physically stored and accessed and how users will be equipped for the move to the cloud.

An assessment of all current and planned applications will identify which applications can be immediately migrated to the cloud, which applications will require re-working to move on and which applications are not suitable for a cloud environment. In addition to this, subscription renewals and software updates should also be considered – can your version of an application be delivered through an updated cloud platform?

To effectively drive modernisation, the hundreds (potentially thousands) of existing workloads within the current IT setup must have the ability to drive digital transformation. The cloud governance that is then put in place must strike a balance between protecting the organisation whilst optimising cloud value.

The next step in your journey to the cloud is establishing a migration strategy through careful consideration and staff involvement.

Atlas Cloud is here to help aid your digital transformation. For a free cloud-readiness assessment, please click here.

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