3 Steps For Developing An Effective Cloud IT Strategy

By Brian Sallee, Channel Sales Director, Concerto Cloud Services

Even though you might not be aware of it, your organization most likely is using cloud technology in some capacity. It could be a Dropbox account used by an employee to share video files with a client, a virtual machine hosting an application, or employees using cell phones to send files or collaborate on shared documents.

While many cloud initiatives are led by the IT department, there are some that are not. A recent study by Cisco found the number of unauthorized cloud apps being used in the enterprise is 15 to 20 times higher than CIOs predicted, and even two years ago, surveys showed that as many as 61 percent of businesses were using Shadow IT, technology applications used without the oversight of the IT department.

Employees using cloud applications to complete projects without the knowledge of the IT department may seem harmless, but this activity opens an organization up to a number of possible issues including a service level agreement that is not in-line with contractual requirements, integration between platforms that won’t connect easily, and security vulnerabilities that could leave critical data exposed.

The risks associated with Shadow IT should be top of mind with IT departments and rules of engagement need to be communicated company-wide. Here are three steps your tech team should take to ensure understanding and establish an official cloud strategy:

1. Identify your company’s core application requirements. The goal is to identify the components of your business’ operations that matter the most, taking into consideration their impact on the company, the uptime SLA needed, and their demand from the organization. For example, does your business take orders primarily over the phone or through the web? How do they rank in importance against other services like file sharing, office software and web servers? Adjust your rankings accordingly for the services that keep your business functioning.
    
2. Consider your team’s strengths and weaknesses. Here’s where it is alright to be hard on yourself. The goal is to compare your current staff’s ability and availability to support and maintain a service, and the level of satisfaction with their performance. Perhaps your company has a mission-critical ERP solution your team is well-versed in managing. However, if the ERP system is not managed by staff after the end of the work day, your company may be lacking in its availability to maintain the solution. Remember, it is not just an issue of how skilled your team is at managing a certain task, but the number of staff members your company is able to allocate and whether or not they’re able to provide support for the duration of its use.
    
3. Determine the intersections between your organization’s capabilities and the importance of your systems. For many IT directors and staff, there is an inclination to manage basic systems internally because outsourcing them could be seen as a lack of competence or an embarrassment. Just because a member of your IT team can maintain a straightforward core system such as file management doesn’t mean the best use of their time is keeping up with file systems, permissions, and anti-virus. By moving core systems to the cloud, you can free up the time of a highly skilled IT worker to focus on tasks that cannot be outsourced.

On a related note, a company with a larger IT department may have the ability to manage all of its core systems. However, the full burden of managing your organization’s infrastructure could overload your team and spread them excessively thin, causing them to run the risk of making mistakes or allowing urgent tasks to cause them to neglect important processes. Disaster recovery and backup systems are often put on the backburner for this exact reason — they aren’t necessary until they’re needed. Unfortunately, by that time, it is often too late. By moving core applications to the cloud, companies can devote more time and energy to the tasks that drive their business without worrying that anything is falling by the wayside.

When developing a strategy for your IT and cloud deployment, it is crucial to take a step back from the daily activity of the company and identify what allows your business to run more effectively and what could cause it to fail. This understanding should act as the foundation that drives your cloud strategy. Moving to the cloud is not a one-size-fits-all process — determining what should be outsourced and what should be kept in-house varies from company to company.

Having a solid cloud strategy that’s understood throughout your organization can help your company identify the pieces that are important to prioritize in the cloud and align your choices appropriately. While a public cloud platform like Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure may deliver the most benefit with lower entry costs for some background systems, a managed virtual private cloud could work best to offload tasks from your IT team and eliminate down-time risks for mission-critical applications.

It is important to remember that an effective cloud strategy is not only a technical initiative, but a business initiative as well. A cloud platform should support and nurture your business strategy, not dictate it.