Deciding the right IT strategy for business success is no easy task.
Especially as many businesses are migrating their data and programs to cloud storage environments, it can be difficult to determine the most efficient and effective approach to doing this. How can your business leverage the cloud to balance scalability, privacy, speed, customizability, reliability, and control?
It’s important to understand the function of the cloud and the advantages and pain points that come with using cloud infrastructure as part of your IT business strategy.
While many businesses have begun to rely on public or private cloud environments for their needs, each has its own drawbacks when used by itself, increasing the chance of a “single point of failure.” These cloud failures can be costly and time consuming to resolve.
A hybrid cloud IT strategy combines the advantages of public and private clouds.
Using a hybrid cloud strategy offers more flexibility and a dynamic approach that helps minimize the risk of putting all your eggs into one basket—or, in this case, putting all your data in a single cloud environment.
Here’s why you need a hybrid cloud IT strategy for your business.
1. What Is a Cloud Strategy?
2. What Makes a Hybrid Cloud IT Strategy Right for Your Business?
3. IT Consultants Can Help Make Your Strategy a Success
Your business’s cloud strategy is essentially a roadmap of how you plan to build success within the cloud. In other words: What role does the cloud play in your organization? How should it be used to grow your profitability and scalability, and how does it impact your day-to-day workflows?
Your cloud strategy may differ depending on many factors, such as your internal business strategy and the nature of your business. However, there are some ways every business can get the most out of their cloud IT strategy.
There are a few main ways to use the cloud:
Public cloud – This is an internet-based cloud infrastructure that is shared among multiple organizations. A public cloud approach is good for cost savings, scalability, and agility, but with less security and a higher chance of losing availability from an outage or other issue.
Private cloud – Only your business can access your private cloud network. The private cloud is costlier and more limiting in some ways, but more secure and also provides good scalability—though on-premise computing may be more limited and thus less capable of handling certain unexpected demands.
To reiterate, a hybrid cloud IT strategy combines both public and private cloud environments for maximum efficiency, reduced impact from potential failures, and cost savings.
When businesses host all their data on a single cloud network, there’s more risk of an outage having a negative impact on these organizations and, ultimately, leading to a massive revenue loss.
As an example, Amazon Web Services suffered several significant outages at the end of last year. Major enterprises such as Disney+, Netflix, GrubHub, and Ticketmaster were impacted. Though the issue was resolved, the damage had been done.
Industry surveys by Gartner estimate that network downtime can cost a business roughly $300,000 per hour on average—costing some organizations upwards of $540,000 per hour at the higher end.
That said, if you can minimize the risk of these types of losses, doing so is a no brainer, right?
Ultimately, that’s the exact purpose of using a hybrid approach to your IT strategy.
An effective hybrid cloud strategy will allocate data and programs to these multiple storage environments, as well as how these will be accessed and optimized through their respective channels. This should be based on the specific needs of your organization, including:
- The level of demand your workloads will place on each type of environment
- How specific tools and programs will interface with different cloud servers
- The most effective way to automate and manage workflows using the cloud
- Unique IT security risks for sensitive company data
- Cost management expectations
- What specifically the cloud will be used to achieve for a business to achieve its goals
- How to best utilize your technology team for your hybrid cloud strategy
The advantages of using both public and on-premises cloud environments are myriad. Yet there are also risks that come with adopting a hybrid solution without the right plan in place. The wrong strategy could lead to increased spending, inefficient use of resources, and staff who’re unprepared to handle the complexities of a hybrid approach.
Bringing the advantages of hybrid cloud computing to full effect depends on the size, nature, and goals of your organization. Having the right IT leadership in place can help put the right plan in place in a way that enhances your overall business strategy and helps you reach your goals.
Building the right hybrid cloud IT strategy for business success is complex. It takes knowledge and planning from technology leaders with the experience to help C-level executives bring their business goals to fruition in the digital age.
Leadership-minded IT consultants continue to prove invaluable to businesses who must evolve in how they leverage their technology.
At Vudu, our team will work with your business’s leadership to achieve the perfect marriage of technology and business strategies. We have the business acumen, technical expertise, and operational excellence that many IT partners simply lack.
Nobody is better than Vudu at turning data into insights, insights into knowledge, and knowledge into wisdom. When managed correctly, data can allow you to make better decisions exponentially faster, revolutionize your workflow, and drastically lower the price of your work product.
At Vudu, we are technology wizards who want to bring IT magic to your business and achieve supernatural results. Achieve the perfect hybrid cloud IT strategy with the help of our experienced technology leaders. Tell us more about your goals.
