? EDITOR ’ S QUESTION //
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A CLOUD STRATEGY IS CRITICAL FOR EVERY
ORGANISATION AND SHOULD BE A CONCISE POINT OF VIEW ON CLOUD AND ITS ROLE IN THE ORGANISATION .
Every month , we pose industry experts a question pertinent to the issues of the day . This month . . . .
gGartner highlights seven elements for creating an enterprise cloud strategy
As the use of cloud services continues to grow , enterprise architects and infrastructure & operations ( I & O ) leaders should use seven key elements to create a pragmatic cloud strategy for their organisations , according to Gartner , Inc .
“ A cloud strategy is critical for every organisation and should be a concise point of view on cloud and its role in the organisation ,” said Raj Bala , Senior Research Director at Gartner . “ Moving to cloud without a cloud strategy results in ad hoc adoption patterns , resulting in higher costs , disjointed management , security vulnerabilities and overall dissatisfaction with cloud outcomes .”
Gartner analysts shared the seven key elements for formulating a pragmatic cloud strategy during the Gartner IT Infrastructure Operations & Cloud Strategies Conference 2020 .
1 . Ensure cloud strategy follows business strategy . Business strategies vary significantly by organisations . “ It is crucial for enterprise architects and I & O leaders ensure their cloud strategy aligns with and actively supports their organisation ’ s business strategy regardless of whether their organisation provides consumer services , business services or other products ,” said Bala .
2 . Assess five types of cloud risk to address security , compliance and other cloud concerns . When setting a cloud strategy , enterprise architects and I & O leaders must assess cloud-related risks for the following five types of risk : agility risk ; availability risk ; security risk ; supplier risk ; compliance risk .
3 . Question cost reduction as a main driver for cloud adoption . One of the most frequently asked cloud questions by Gartner clients is : ‘ Is the cloud really cheaper ?’. Answering this requires a nuanced approach , as total cost depends on the type of cloud service and the characteristics of workloads , and on the specific circumstances of the organisation .
4 . Plan potential routes to the cloud . For many organisations , a cloud strategy should plan for various possible routes to the cloud , such as :
WHAT DOES A GOOD CLOUD MANAGEMENT STRATEGY ( FOR SMES ) LOOK LIKE ?
• Rehosting is used to move an application with minimal effort . This also means minimal change and therefore minimal benefits , as most of the application aspects stay the same .
• Refactoring is used to take advantage of services such as cloud-managed databases rather than migrating existing databases to the cloud and continuing to internally manage them , but in another place .
• Rebuilding is used to recreate a strategic application with a cloud native architecture that enables the use of elastic scalability and pay-peruse cloud pricing models .
5 . Understand the shared responsibility model of the cloud . A fundamental change that cloud computing introduces is the concept of a shared responsibility model .
In cloud , the responsibilities of the provider are defined by the features and capabilities of the cloud service that is being offered . The customer organisation ’ s responsibility is to leverage the capabilities of the cloud service within the organsation ’ s own processes to get the desirable result .
6 . Differentiate the approach for the three typical areas of enterprise cloud adoption . Gartner has observed three distinct areas of cloud adoption : adoption of Software-as-a-Service ( SaaS ) for rapid access to modern standard functionality ; adoption of cloud infrastructure platforms ( CIPS ) for building unique new functions ; and the migration of current and legacy applications .
7 . Embrace the changing role of the it department . “ No matter what cloud strategy enterprise architects and I & O leaders decide on , the strategy will involve a changing role for their internal IT organisation ,” said Bala . “ Typically , this leads to appointing a cloud architect , establishing a cloud centre of excellence and setting up a cloud service broker group that liaises between business stakeholders and cloud service providers .”
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