What is Cloud Adoption?
The concept of ‘cloud computing’ stretches back to the 1960s, but the term wasn’t officially coined until 1996. By the mid-2000s it was mainstream, with the arrival of Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) from AWS, Google Docs, Apple iCloud and every binge watcher's favourite, Netflix.
This booming business became supersonic following the COVID-19 crisis, with more than 90% of organisations adopting the cloud*, and the global cloud computing market is set to surpass $1 trillion by 2028.^
But what does adopting cloud computing mean in practical terms, and how does it work?
Put simply, cloud adoption is the move away from on-premise servers to a cloud-first approach operating via the Internet. But the reality of it is anything but simple.
Adopting cloud technology to modernise infrastructure, processes, and work environments is a strategic decision by organisations to reduce costs, mitigate risk, and gain access to advanced IT capabilities. It represents one of the most significant and complex initiatives an organisation can pursue.
Only 3 out of 10 organisations know exactly where their cloud costs are going** and a cloud bill can comprise hundreds of billions of rows of data.^^
So, getting your adoption strategy right is crucial.
How does cloud adoption work?
Many companies embark on their cloud journey without proper planning. To experience the full value of the cloud, businesses need to foster a culture of cloud transformation and adoption. In most cases, that means combining business and technology goals into a single strategy.
There are a few critical steps businesses need to keep in mind when transitioning to the cloud.
Assessment – Understand the opportunities and challenges of adopting cloud based on a thorough evaluation of your industry, business goals, and existing infrastructure.
Planning – To paraphrase a well-known quote, “Failure to plan, is planning to fail.” Organisations should review well-known platforms and services and consider the cloud environment they are going to adopt, whether that’s public, private, hybrid, or multi-cloud.
Adoption – Mitigating risks during the adoption phase is important and IT decision-makers should develop appropriate strategies to support this. An expert understanding of your organisation’s infrastructure is vital. If this knowledge is lacking, consider partnering with a trusted service provider to ensure the longevity of your strategy.
Optimisation – After following the first three steps of initial adoption, organisations will need to continue to optimise their cloud environment to realise the true value of their investment.
What are the benefits and challenges of cloud adoption?
Benefits
Reduced costs: Reducing the need for the expensive maintenance of on-premise servers is one of the biggest factors influencing the adoption of cloud computing.
Improved productivity: Cloud-based workflows and automation help reduce manual processes and human error.
Flexibility & Scalability: Organisations can choose resources, storage, and environments based on the needs of their business at any given time, increasing or decreasing compute to cope with customer demands.
Challenges
Security: This is one of the biggest concerns organisations have when transitioning to the cloud. However, best practice, policies, procedures, and tools can mitigate risks.
Compliance: Some organisations, such as government and financial, operate under strict regulatory and compliance frameworks, making it more challenging to migrate to the cloud.
Resistance to adoption: Resistance to change is almost inevitable, and organisation-wide acceptance is critical. Leadership buy-in from the start is likely to get more acceptance from users. Having a well-rounded adoption and change management strategy is crucial.
What is a cloud adoption framework?
Cloud services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure appeal to many businesses. These highly scalable, usage-based, pay-per-use services deliver benefits such as reduced costs, faster time-to-market and better service quality when compared with traditional IT.
Each cloud service provider has its own Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF), documentation, guidance for implementation, best practices, and tools designed to accelerate your business outcomes for a successful cloud transformation.
What are the stages of cloud adoption?
Microsoft Azure
- Strategy: Identify your motivations by considering your business goals and expected cloud adoption outcomes. Engage with stakeholders to document deliverables and evaluate any financial and technical considerations.
- Plan: This will guide your team’s technical efforts. Look at your digital estate and create a skills readiness plan to address any gaps.
- Ready: Prepare your IT environment for planned changes. Explore guidance on finding the right operating model to support your cloud adoption. Learn about the Azure landing zone and explore the process and guidance for designing yours.
- Migrate: Microsoft’s migration guide will help you understand the best practices for using Azure-native tools so you can optimise and improve processes along the way.
- Innovate: Take advantage of cloud-native technologies to modernise, unlock new technical skills, and expand business capabilities.
- Secure: Azure’s Secure methodology guides the processes, best practices, and models you need to ensure your organisation can keep up with the continuous evolution of the cloud.
AWS
- Envision: Transformation opportunities are identified and prioritised in line with your strategic objectives. Engage key stakeholders and assign the most appropriate adoption initiatives and business outcomes to each of them.
- Align: To help you create strategies for improving your cloud readiness, ensure stakeholder alignment and facilitate relevant organisational change management activities. This phase identifies capability gaps across the six AWS CAF perspectives.
- Launch: Demonstrate incremental business value through pilots to influence future direction. This phase will help you adjust your approach before scaling to full production.
- Scale: Scaling the pilots ensures that the business benefits associated with your cloud investments are realised and maintained.
Nasstar cloud adoption solutions
Whether you are looking to migrate to Microsoft Azure or AWS, Nasstar’s cloud adoption services combine extensive industry knowledge with deep technical capabilities. With a holistic assessment of your IT environment and business objectives, our consultants create a bespoke plan to maximise value while minimising time, effort, cost, and risk.
*O-Reilley
^Precedence Research
** CloudZero, The State of Cloud Cost Intelligence 2022 Report
^^ FinOps Certification