Do you want to increase performance while keeping the cost down? If yes, then the cloud is the best option for you. Many government and private companies are moving towards the cloud. Moving your IT infrastructure to the cloud isn’t easy, and you need to follow a disciplined approach to conduct a successful cloud computing implementation.
If you don’t know how to migrate your infrastructure to the cloud, follow these 10 crucial steps for cloud computing implementation.
If you don’t follow these steps, the implementation can lead to failure. So, if you don’t want your cloud computing implementation strategy to go wrong, stick to these steps.
10 Steps for Successful Cloud Computing Implementation
Without wasting any time, let’s discuss the best practices for the successful implementation of cloud computing.
1. Determine the Goals
For successful adoption, you need to perform a detailed assessment. Understand your current status and be clear about your goals after implementing cloud computing.
Evaluate your existing environment and see whether they can accept the change or not. Before starting implementation, identify risks, organizational preparedness, opportunities, and the associated costs. When you’re clear about your goals, you can achieve better results.
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For example, the purpose of moving to cloud computing can be to reduce the cost, beat competitors, increase agility, or increase the security level. Clear objectives can help you understand the benefits and opportunities you can get after successful implementation.
2. Assess the Current Situation
You might have to make crucial decisions for successful cloud computing implementation. Therefore, it’s essential to assess your current situation. For example, you need to understand the level of existing resources you have, the applications you want to migrate, and the cost required for making a move.
You can’t migrate all the applications because some software is not the best fit for the cloud. For example, the old CRM platform might not be portable for migrating to the cloud. Identify the applications that will support the cloud system.
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Audit your current infrastructure to see how much storage you currently have and what you need? This analysis can help you understand why you need to migrate to the cloud. Finally, it would help if you determined how much money is required to move from your current setup to the cloud.
3. Look Beyond the Technology
If you think getting IaaS from a service provider is enough for successful cloud implementation, you’re wrong. The cloud computing ecosystem should include disaster recovery solutions, cloud management platforms, and compliance monitoring tools.
When companies and agencies look beyond the technology, they can add artificial and machine intelligence to the system. Moreover, they can use SaaS options as well.
4. Start Slowly
As mentioned earlier, cloud computing implementation poses some challenges, so you need to consider them. If you want to migrate to the cloud, you need to avoid risks, start with simple use cases, educate your employees about the move, and don’t start with a big-bang implementation of multiple applications simultaneously. It’s sensible to start small and then pick up the pace.
5. Choose the Cloud Migration Partner Wisely
It would help if you looked for a cloud migration partner at some point, so be prepared for it. You might realize that you don’t have the resources to complete a cloud system’s assessment and implementation. A trusted migration partner can help you implement cloud computing successfully.
The right partner can help you perform SWOT analysis; build a strategy, save money and stress. When selecting a migration partner, you need to consider different factors, such as:
- Their past cloud migration experience
- Types of projects they have done
- Certifications
It will ensure that you choose the cloud partner that is experienced, certified, and has performed similar tasks in the past. You’ll not waste your money.
6. Don’t Put All Eggs in One Basket
Cloud computing is advancing rapidly, and new advancements are made daily. So, if you want to minimize risks and increase flexibility, don’t move all your applications to the cloud.
If you’re doing that, ensure that you have a proper security system. Otherwise, the data breaches can cause significant damage to your business.
7. Choose the Cloud Environment
7. Choose the Cloud EnvironmentIn the first six steps, you have to build a team, hire a partner, and now it’s time to migrate your business to the cloud. The first thing you need to do to achieve your goals is choosing the cloud environment. Cloud environments can be hybrid, private, or public.
The assessment you performed in the second step can help you choose the best environment. Understand the pros and cons of each environment before you choose one for your company.
Pros and Cons of Private Clouds
Only a single client or company can access this cloud service. These clouds are either maintained at a third-party data center or onsite. This type of cloud service offers a high level of security and control. Organizations like banks and health care companies can use this service to get peace of mind.
The drawbacks of private clouds are the difficulty of accessing data from remote locations, high upfront costs, and expertise needed for the complete setup of private clouds.
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Pros and Cons of Public Clouds
As the name indicates, this infrastructure is shared, and many big giants like Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) offer these services. They provide flexible environments for easy customization, and they’re flexible, cost-effective, and reliable.
Some drawbacks of public clouds are the lack of control over servers and data. Security will not be as high as you can get in private clouds.
Pros and Cons of Hybrid Clouds
It’s a mixture of both private and public cloud solutions. Companies can use it to take advantage of scalability, cost-effectiveness, control, and convenience.
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For example, if companies want to secure customers’ sensitive data, they can use private cloud solutions, and for marketing materials, they can use public cloud solutions. It’s the best solution for agencies because of the flexibility it offers.
If you want to use this option, your staff must have advanced skills to maintain this complex environment. Moreover, there can be computability issues as well.
8. Determine the necessary Cloud Components
For migrating to cloud infrastructure, you need some components to maintain and improve the infrastructure. Understand the load balancing and computing power needs for reliability and performance. Seek the developer’s help for maintenance and setup.
9. Automate as much as you can
It’s essential to save time and money, so you must automate the complex processes. It might be expensive upfront, but it can help you save lots of time and money in the future. Automate your cloud-based infrastructure to improve performance, security, and reliability.
10. Make Continuous Improvements
Once you successfully implement cloud computing, the next step is to monitor and make changes in the cloud infrastructure to enjoy long-term benefits.
It’s better to invest some money in security compliance, and it will help your business grow and compete with the competitors. If you don’t switch to the cloud and make continuous changes, you’ll be left behind.
Next Steps
Cloud computing implementation can be a high-risk endeavor. But if you follow the practices mentioned above, you can make it successful and cost-effective.
Technology will keep changing, so you will have to explore the best possible options to stay in the competition. So, follow these steps and migrate to cloud infrastructure.
