6 Things Stopping Organizations from Maximizing Their Public Cloud ROI
Last year changed a lot of things, including the way many organizations view the public cloud. Once seen as an interesting alternative to onsite technologies, 2020, specifically the coronavirus, made the cloud mission critical. However, the public cloud’s value isn’t tied strictly to the pandemic, whose days are mercifully numbered. There’s long-term, fundamental value to be drawn from a growing and continued embrace of the cloud. That said, there are obstacles standing between organizations and the realization of that value.
The cloud’s ascension to mission critical status was documented in “Cloud Trends 2021,” a study released earlier this year by IDC and Cloudreach. According to researchers, more than a quarter (27.5%) of IT decision makers labeled the cloud as “essential” for the survival of their organizations. In that study, the same number of leaders also believed large public cloud migrations are strategic business decisions as opposed to simply an IT concern. These findings are encouraging, although, admittedly there is still work to be done.
The study reinforced that fact elsewhere as 23.5% of surveyed leaders claimed public cloud moves were “purely technology decisions.” And it’s not just perception standing between organizations and fully realized cloud ROI. More troubling: In a separate report, the “2020 Cloud Computing Study” conducted by IDC parent company IDG, 94% of survey participants said they found it “challenging” to fully optimize their public cloud usage. The list of reasons why included five more, let’s call them usual suspects:
- Cost/sprawl control (40%)
- Data privacy and security (38%)
- Protecting cloud resources (31%)
- Governance/compliance (30%)
- Lack of security skills/expertise (30%)
The concern is organizations that have embraced the public cloud out of COVID-19-inspired necessity will seek to repatriate workloads once the coast clears due to one (or more) of the above challenges. While bringing workloads back onsite isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it can be expensive and complex for organizations that choose to pursue it. Workloads that were re-architected for the cloud may need to be reworked again before they can come back on prem. Additional infrastructure may need to be added to in-house data centers to accommodate data and compute growth over the last year plus.
Furthermore, as we pointed out in a past blog post on the subject, repatriation may not even solve the problem. In the case of concerns around security, the cloud isn’t inherently any less secure than on prem. Public cloud providers like Microsoft and AWS have deep pockets (and deep benches) as far cyber security goes. It’s doubtful that many organizations would be able to go toe-to-toe with them in that regard.
Next Steps: Position your organization for lasting success in the cloud
So what needs to be done to help organizations?
1) Advocate for the cloud as an organization-wide topic
2) Get the most out of their cloud investments despite their ever-changing needs
Both take time, expertise and an ability to work with all departments and organization levels. This where a partner like Arraya Solutions can help.
In many cases, optimization makes more sense than repatriation. We can partner with organizations to regularly review and manage their cloud commitments, preventing cost or scope creep and ensuring they stay in alignment with established targets. Additionally, Arraya has the in-house security and cloud expertise needed to keep cloud resources secure, private and in compliance with any and all applicable industry regulations.
Additionally, we can serve as an advocate for the cloud, working with the executive level on down and across departmental barriers to raise awareness about how the cloud impacts them in their various roles and how they can utilize it to succeed.
If you’d like to learn more about cloud optimization, reach out to our team today to get the conversation started.
Visit https://www.arrayasolutions.com//contact-us/ to connect with our team now.
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