Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
Cloud remains one of the most powerful ways for an organisation to unlock its digital potential, and the past 18 months are proof.
The momentum gained since 2020 is driving companies towards deeper integration, transformation and comprehensive cloud adoption.
For many companies, the goal is to ensure infrastructure remains relevant, capable and sustainable in the wake of the pandemic. A goal emphasised by LogicMonitor’s “Cloud 2025: The future of workloads in a cloud first, post-COVID-19 world” survey that found at least 95% of global IT decision-makers believe workloads will be in the cloud over the next five years, with 87% citing the pandemic as the fuel that’s ignited the cloud fire.
But cloud is failing customers. Spiralling costs, limited gains, poor visibility, weak deliverables and minimal return on investment have left a bad taste in the proverbial business mouth.
This is a view shared by Gartner, with the research giant pointing out that even though companies are planning to increase their cloud adoption over the next few years, there are challenges around cost and implementation that have to be managed more effectively.
The question is why? Gartner highlights six common mistakes that include: the wrong team, rushed app assessments, the wrong emphasis, poor landing zone design, mistimed work effort and hidden costs. Every one of these factors can drive costs up and expectations down.
However, there is another issue at play here. The misconception is that cloud is easy. That it’s a simple lift and shift, plug and play, point and click exercise that requires only that the business point at a problem in order for cloud to make it go away.
The reality is that cloud is complicated, and it should be. To deliver what it promises, cloud has to be carefully and strategically implemented to ensure it actually meets business goals, has a long-term sustainable impact, and can be rapidly deployed to deliver immediate results – speed is always going to be a critical factor when making any cloud decision.
