Hybrid ​​Cloud Strategy: Knock Down Complexity To Build A Better Approach

Innovation Hybrid ​​Cloud Strategy: Knock Down Complexity To Build A Better Approach Mike Fuhrman Forbes Councils Member Forbes Technology Council COUNCIL POST Expertise from Forbes Councils members, operated under license. Opinions expressed are those of the author. | Membership (fee-based) Jun 17, 2022, 08:15am EDT | Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Chief Operating Officer of Cloud and Managed Services at Flexential .

getty In the face of a global pandemic, the world abruptly shifted to a digital-first, remote-work setup that challenged organizations to rethink their longstanding business strategies in order to maintain continuity and momentum. Leaders found themselves thrust into making rapid, yet critical, business decisions around the cloud to support the now-highly dispersed workforce. In early 2020, time was of the essence and not a luxury.

Now, more than two years later, organizations have the ability to reflect on these haste technology moves and identify a more thoughtful, strategic approach to cloud and data management. With remote work persisting in 2022 and expected to increase in 2023, a hybrid cloud strategy will be paramount to success in the modern workforce. Exploring Hybrid Cloud Hybrid cloud connects both public and private cloud environments to provide orchestration, management and application portability—empowering organizations to create a flexible, customizable and controlled infrastructure.

Though hybrid IT solutions are becoming increasingly needed for overall IT infrastructure, we found that nearly half ( 43% ) of businesses have no formal plans or strategies in place. Historically, hybrid cloud strategies come with many complexities, but these hurdles can be overcome with careful planning and thoughtful execution. To be set up for success, leaders must take the time to understand their unique business requirements and then tailor their cloud approach to support the organization’s long-term business priorities.

Leaders looking to revamp their hybrid cloud strategy can follow these steps to achieve an optimal outcome. MORE FOR YOU Google Issues Warning For 2 Billion Chrome Users Forget The MacBook Pro, Apple Has Bigger Plans Google Discounts Pixel 6, Nest & Pixel Buds In Limited-Time Sale Event 1. Identify Proper Workload Placement Cloud strategies are not a one-size-fits-all approach, and to pinpoint the optimal hybrid cloud strategy, leaders must start by educating themselves on strategic workload placement.

Identifying where information should “live” starts with many technical, operational and business questions like: Do we have a precise view of where workloads reside today? If so, how are they used and what are their inter-relationships? Also, do all workloads currently live in locations that deliver the best performance, security, reliability and user experience? By digging into the individual workload needs, businesses can pinpoint the best mix of on-premises, public or private cloud, and colocation services. The leaders of an organization must have complete visibility into their current infrastructure and understand their unique issues, interdependencies and requirements in order to properly answer the above questions and identify a workload placement that suits their needs. Each workload within the organization requires data as an input and, in turn, generates data as an output.

Where this data lives—in the short- or long-term—will have rippling effects on the whole organization. Without a well-thought-out workplace strategy, data will be overwhelmingly expensive to store and hard to retrieve. Although perfecting the workload placement will take time, it can ultimately save money and provide users with the best possible experience when done right.

2. Prioritize Workload Visibility Managing a hybrid environment takes a substantial amount of time and an advanced skill set, requiring expertise in traditional network and OS technology to data security. Before remote work, IT often took a fragmented approach to overseeing the status of the workload, leaning on multiple tools and disjoined reports.

The rise of hybrid work is increasing the demand for more real-time remote support, making this fragmented approach increasingly inefficient. Today, CIOs need an easy way to gain visibility across their entire hybrid IT environment. To do this effectively, leaders should consider adopting a unified platform to support the control and upkeep of the virtual and physical environments.

By doing so, leaders can make the most out of their IT system performance, swiftly gaining insights and efficiently making informed decisions. Given the complexity of modern digital infrastructure, the investment in digital infrastructure management is growing with a keen focus on resiliency, security and scalability. 3.

Zero In On Resiliency, Security And Scalability Like any IT deployment, cloud adoption comes with several challenges like resiliency, security and scalability—this trifecta is critical to ensuring the right level of performance, compliance and costs. Out of necessity, organizations relaxed the rules of flexibility during Covid-19 and, therefore, relaxed concerns around these key factors. Now, it’s essential to refocus and remain vigilant in security and costs to reap the benefits of cloud deployments (and mitigate challenges along the way).

Building a strong resilience strategy reduces the organization’s vulnerability, minimizes downtime and impact, and reduces data loss. According to a Snow Software study, 72% of IT leaders say security is their most glaring business problem, fueled by technology that’s unaccounted for and unmanaged. As businesses’ IT infrastructure grows, leaders must look to develop defense-in-depth strategies, given perimeter security used to protect legacy networks ​​is not adequate enough for hybrid environments that exist across multiple platforms.

Cloud security should be top-of-mind for leaders, especially given ransomware attacks rose 105% in 2021 alone. A cyberattack can quickly devastate a business, so it’s pertinent to have defenses in place to keep intellectual property and customers’ data safe. Data is the lifeblood of every organization, and to keep it secure, it’s critical to stay one step ahead of threat actors.

As for scalability, cloud environments now allow for utility-based computing, leading to significant cost considerations for organizations with a low budget. This made the predictability of cloud costs an unknown variable, often leading to unpleasant surprises when the bill arrives. To mitigate this, leaders must have budget transparency and closely monitor cloud spend.

Infrastructures that scale automatically require substantial oversight, so there must be solutions in place to ensure this factor isn’t overlooked. It’s critical for data-intensive businesses to develop—and regularly test—strategies to achieve resiliency, security and scalability. As an organization’s IT landscape evolves, so should its approach to cloud computing.

With careful planning and thoughtful pivoting, adopting a cloud strategy can improve IT operations tremendously. Take the time to gather all of the information needed and map out an in-depth plan of action. Whether it takes an organization one week or one year, this is an important reminder for leaders to plan, strategize and always remain flexible when it comes to hybrid cloud adoption.

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