Is your company planning to do more with less when it comes to the cloud? If the answer is yes, then take a look at our quick guide which highlights 3 quick wins in cloud adoption that aren’t going to be disruptive, won’t cost a lot of money, or require a lot of commitment…
1. Storing workloads
Storing workloads the old way (in house) takes longer, costs more and needs more resource, but doing it the cloud way will make it quicker and cheaper. Yes, that sounds obvious, but you would be surprised how many companies are still storing workloads in the old way and have not even considered using the cloud.
Let’s say for example, the compelling event to move to the cloud is that in advance of the GDPR in May 2018 you need a new HR portal (i.e. containing all your internal personal data). The old system you have isn’t going to be compliant anymore, uses old software and sits on an ageing server so will no longer be fit for purpose.
The old way to approach this would have been to buy yourself new servers, which you would purchase, install and configure yourself. This means that: you would have to budget for the equipment and its upkeep; you’d need to find somewhere to put it; make sure you have the right software and employ someone to configure it.
The new way, you’ll be pleased to hear, is much simpler and can be achieved in just a few easy steps. Go to your chosen cloud service provider, tell them what your requirements are and then leave it with them to sort out. Essentially, you’re making it someone else’s problem, but not just anyone else - the experts. Your time is then freed up to get on with tasks that cannot be outsourced, whilst giving you peace of mind that your HR system is GPDR compliant.
2. Increasing internet bandwidth
You’re in the position where your company is increasingly using more internet access for various applications so you need more bandwidth for your internet and your firewalls no longer have enough capacity. This can be a tricky situation because if you have more bandwidth than firewall capacity your firewall becomes a pinch-point. As it approaches full capacity, it slows down, causing issues throughout your company as business-critical application response times (like CRM) increase.
So, what do you do? Again, the old, premises-based way could cause quite a headache (you’ll see there’s a pattern forming here). First things first, hopefully you’ve budgeted for this potential event, then you’ll need to think about your plan of action - are you just going to buy more capacity? Again this involves the old way of doing things: ordering, installing, configuring and maintaining…you get the idea. Alternatively, you could make life easier for yourself and find a Firewall as a Service (FaaS) provider, give them your requirements, including throughput requirement and the policies you require for your firewall. Then you simply leave this with the FaaS provider to implement.
This way, you take away the headache of doing it yourself by simply writing a specification of what you want and then handing this over to the FaaS provider. Then if you need any more bandwidth you have the flexibility - simple! This has the added advantage of taking away completely the issue of how much you need to buy because you can flex it at any time.
3. Moving office
If you’re moving, or planning to move office, there’s a lot to consider. A major challenge of relocation is removing and relocating existing IT infrastructure, including computers and servers. To keep things simple, most companies simply shift their old equipment from one office to the other. Many companies don’t consider that they could instead virtually move their core IT into the cloud. Doing this minimises the physical burden of managing equipment in-house.
If you’re moving office, now is the time to think about how you can do things a bit differently, most importantly how using the cloud from the get-go will make it cheaper and faster. You might not even need a comms room, for example, so before you start you’re already saving money because you don’t need to budget for all that extra space, power and cooling.
Along with a whole host of tangible benefits (savings) cloud computing delivers intangible benefits such as enabling companies to build and define a unique company culture. You can embrace new ways of working such as BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and rolling out remote working to more of your staff. Using a cloud solution offers increased flexibility and mobility to employees, attracting new talent and boosting employee satisfaction.
Summary and Next Steps
Companies can improve collaboration, reduce office space and energy costs and quickly react to change owing to the scalability of the cloud.
If your company is trying to do less with more and the above quick wins have got you thinking about your next move, why not take advantage of our complimentary cloud audit and see how we can help you on your journey to the cloud…
