The business world has come off to a point, where cloud computing has taken the front seat when it comes to the usage of business technology. This can only mean that its management and detailed understanding of the same, is perhaps the most important task facing an organization today. Cloud platforms in today’s business scenario can be segregated into basically two categories, public and private domains.
Both the domains have their pros and cons, but mostly large organizations prefer using their private domain, for day to day business operations. While the much smaller organizations select a shared public cloud domain. Basically, public cloud domains are run by public servers and their allied networking cum data center functioning. Smaller organizations tend to purchase a cloud domain from the service provider and award them the annual maintenance contract.
The rationale behind public cloud domain
With each passing quarter, managing business functions seems to get more complex, for even relatively smaller organizations. As a matter of fact, today any organization fuels itself with the vision of growth, which can only come with the expansion of its operations. To meet the demands of performance and security not only large organizations but even the MSMEs, are opting for the leverage of private cloud domains.
However, one must be careful while designing an organization’s specific cloud domain. This is where an organization should opt for the services of an experienced technology partner, who would be able to steer the project, against the challenges successfully and smoothly.
The need of the hour is best in the class methodology of implementation, which will be both time and cost-effective in nature. A detailed study of the organizational processes and IT touchpoints are crucial, before the initiation of the final cloud integration process. It is extremely important for the technology partner to guide the organization to construct a cloud structure, which is based on virtualized servers and storage silos. These structures and storage silos are highly agile in nature, and hence can be accessed from remote locations, in the most authentic and secured manner.
Then again the ability to exchange top secret business information for top management, in a heterogeneous manner is extremely important for the organization. In today’s business ecosystem, more and more organizations are implementing cloud computing services because of its high return on investments on expensive IT assets.
Let us have a look at some benefits of cloud computing
- Reduced IT cost- Migrating to cloud-based systems, reduces the IT cost as it eliminates the need to possess expensive IT systems and allied pieces of equipment. Organizations save largely on the system up-gradation cost. Then again payment to high skilled workers as wages will not be required after migration to cloud-based systems.
- Reduced cost of energy consumption.
- Flexible scalability- With the introduction of cloud-based systems; organizations can scale up or down the business operations along with their storage needs, which was not possible previously. Business houses now, don’t need to purchase expensive upgrades or pieces of equipment, which are handled by its cloud service providers at a fraction of cost.
- The efficiency of collaboration- By collaborating with a cloud environment, an organization gets to boost its business, in terms of communication and file-sharing capabilities. For example, if project information needs to be accessed simultaneously from different geographic locations at any given time, cloud computing is the best and secure way to do it.
- Maintaining continuity is business activities- Many a time it is seen that supercritical business information is lost, due to unforeseen events like fire, flood, or earthquake. To prevent the loss of information and maintain continuity in business, cloud computing is the best solution. It helps in the elimination of downtime and increases the productivity of the business functions.
The requirement of a robust IT-related policy and data migration procedure
It is of extreme importance to have a sound policy framework, which will help smooth access to the domains and its effective usage pattern. Again policies are important to help organizations derive the maximum from the IT-based resources. It helps in effective budget allocation and expenditure tracking. When it comes to data migration procedures, organizations’ technology partners should be extra careful to map the flow channels. Each and every data should be accounted for and the entire process should be carried out under strict protocol.
The next step is a cautious ETL (extract, transform, and load), process, by virtue of which source data is pulled from the system and fed into data warehouses. After a successful ETL process, a detailed data inventory is carried out to check data consistency. Then stringent audit criteria are set, to make the system foolproof.
