Five Tips You Should Know Before Starting Your Cloud Journey

There’s rarely a perfect way to start your journey to the cloud. Every organisation’s situation is unique, and every journey different. But by applying learnings from others, you can give your organisation’s cloud journey the best possible chance of succeeding. In this blog our Public Cloud Product Manager Reece Gohil takes us through five tips you should know before starting your cloud journey.

Adopting cloud-based technologies has been at the centre of many organisations’ wider IT strategies for a number of years, as more and more organisations look to leverage the capabilities of public cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure. However, unlocking the cloud’s true potential has been challenging for many – adopting and managing cloud environments can be complex and very different to what IT leaders have been used to.

In this blog I will talk you through several recommendations I believe business leaders should consider when they are embarking on their own cloud journeys.

Tip One: Define a Clear Cloud Strategy

Before diving into cloud adoption, your organisation should clearly define its cloud strategy. I appreciate the term ‘cloud strategy’ is used quite loosely in the industry; however, this is critical when organisations are measuring the success of adopting cloud.

Your cloud strategy should include identifying your business objectives and motivations, assessing your existing infrastructure, and aligning your cloud adoption to your wider business goals. This will serve you well in building your roadmap to adopting cloud and finding the best way to leverage cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure.

Microsoft has built a full lifecycle framework called the Cloud Adoption Framework which is designed to support organisations adopting their Microsoft Azure platform, providing guidance on best practice, implementation, and tools.

Tip Two: Drive Efficiencies Through Automation

Investing time into driving automation not only reduces the strain on your operational team by relieving the need to focus on break fix activities, but it will also drive consistency and reliability in cloud operations due to reduction of reliance on human intervention. So, whether it is automating deployments, scaling, or monitoring, the use of automation is paramount to organisations starting to release the full potential of cloud computing and focus on more strategic tasks.

Tip Three: Optimise Your Spend

Cost is a consistent blocker to organisations looking to progress their cloud adoptions. All organisations face the risk of their cloud costs spiralling greater than forecasted, due to a lack of governance and awareness of price efficiencies. Driving effective cost governance is essential for managing costs with cloud technologies, whether it is investing in tooling such as monitoring, setting up cloud controls such as budgetary limits and alerts, or engaging cloud experts to review usage and spend regularly. As public cloud spend is based on usage and consumption, balancing performance and costs becomes even more critical.

Tip Four: Invest in Cloud Expertise and Talent

Before looking to start your cloud journey, your organisation should firstly understand the importance of investing in cloud expertise and talent, whether this is upskilling your existing team, hiring new employees, or alternatively working with a cloud managed service provider (MSP) like Six Degrees and leaning on their pool of talent.

Throughout my career I have often seen organisations invest in expertise to help drive their migrations to cloud either through an MSP or hiring consultants, but not invest in the team running the day-to-day operations once migrated. So, even if the organisation has had a successful migration, they are unable to support the environment moving forward. Investing in day-to-day operations is just as important, especially with the evergreen nature of managing cloud.

Tip Five: Innovation is Key

My previous comment leads me nicely onto tip five, which is the importance of continual innovation and embracing a culture of innovation to drive continuous improvement. Public cloud technologies are continually evolving and having the ability to adapt is hugely important, whether it is capitalising on new features or optimising the performance and management of your cloud environment. Therefore, embracing a culture of becoming more agile and allowing IT departments the time to focus on innovation is key to success.

Where Are You on Your Cloud Journey?

Wherever you are on your cloud journey, Six Degrees has the expertise, resources, and vendor relationships to enable you to gain cloud control and maximise your investment in cloud, always ensuring your cloud aligns to your wider business goals.

Speak to our experts about how we can support you on your cloud journey today.