Several factors that must be considered in developing a cloud strategy

Over the past few years, executives at the corporate level have been hesitant to move data within the data center to the outside because of the inability to guarantee the security and availability of the data that was moved out. However, as the cloud technology matures, the ideas of CIOs have changed dramatically, and they want to leverage the mix of public and private clouds in the most efficient way possible. Hybrid Cloud provides an improved way to blend in-house resources and public services. There are many benefits to deploying a hybrid cloud environment: flexibility, on-demand billing, precise scheduling, more resources, better control, better SLAs, guaranteed security, improved performance, and more.

Market research firm Gartner said that by the end of 2017 there will be nearly half of the large enterprises to deploy hybrid cloud. Over the past three years, private clouds have come a long way from trying to grow to half the size of large corporations. Today, hybrid clouds are also in the same situation as private clouds three years ago, and target expectations are high, despite the lower actual deployment rates.

While costs are always an important consideration when it comes to the driving force of private clouds, organizations that choose a private cloud do not find cost reduction a major reason for deployment. Thomas Bittman, a well-known analyst and vice president of Gartner, said: "Virtualization reduces capital expenditures, standards and automation to reduce operating expenses, but self-service products and auto-configuration require technical investment when it comes to adding metrics With this in mind, this will not be a significant reduction in operating costs, which is driven by agility rather than cost. "

Agility is the main motivation for private clouds, and Bittman said IT needs to understand how agility is a feature of existing services and understand what kind of new services can be helpful if it is agile, closely aligning it with IT Customers work together to make these decisions.

Organizations that are embarking on private cloud projects seldom use technology as a major consideration. Of course, the technologies that propel the private cloud are relatively immature and are evolving, and many find they need to tailor their approach to their needs, but the more difficult ones need to be tweaked to take advantage of those technologies. Cloud services require speed and custom service operations. The deep-rooted, IT-focused culture is not suitable for a fully automated self-service model that requires a service-led culture of teamwork.

Bittman said: "We often see that the private cloud project started from the choice of a technology, but the technology itself can not solve the problem of transition and process problems.A better approach is to first focus on the transformation of the way the transformation took place In many cases, this means creating a separate organization outside of traditional IT processes - at least to hatch these projects - and first and foremost focusing on a simple project bought between IT and IT customers. "

According to Gartner, processes based on private clouds tend to vary widely. Most deployments start small and try limited features. However, as these private cloud portfolios increase, the cloud infrastructure will most likely be based on the technology chosen for the pilot project. Gartner believes that in a market with a large number of vendors competing for market share, winners and losers will be quick to recognize because integration through cloud management platforms is important and small vendors may be bought out or eliminated in the coming years.

Bittman said: "It is true that manufacturers are turning private cloud computing into infrastructure and operations - but only with the right choice of service, virtualization is a very widespread trend that affects A very high percentage of IT infrastructure.Private cloud is a specific type of computing that will take advantage of virtualization but not all services.Although most medium and large enterprises will build and deploy private cloud services in the coming years, Private clouds are used only as specific, proprietary services. "

When organizations have decided to deploy cloud services, the technology they choose becomes important. While pilot projects typically start with a small, limited set of features, it is extremely important to choose a technology foundation that has room for expansion, whether it's feature richness or future hybrid interoperability. Another approach is to choose a technology that provides a quick return on investment, such as two years, to address the possibility of future technological changes.

In developing a cloud strategy, the following factors need to be considered:

Learning Beforehand - Businesses can not rush to deploy clouds, but rather need to take full account of how the cloud meets their needs. Need to consider whether the choice of outsourcing, or their own operations.

Do more research - companies need to evaluate a number of service providers and software companies. Many software companies are struggling to provide efficient and comprehensive solutions, so they must have an open mind when looking at the many options on the market.

Finding the best service provider and software vendor - It is best to choose a company that is both a service provider and a software vendor. If you only choose software companies, there will certainly be some restrictions. If you choose the vendor is both a service provider and software vendors, will increase the chance of seamless migration. The number of firm's customers should also be an indicator of choice.

Ensuring Security and Compliance - Organizations often require that stringent security and compliance requirements extend to their cloud providers. Businesses also need to examine service providers' operational transparency, compliance support, a broad range of support options, and the ability to continually improve.