Many modern leaders in business now believe that the future of business is intrinsically linked with the cloud. What does it mean for a company to have a ‘cloud-first strategy’?
In the era of technology, businesses are always looking for ways to make their operations more efficient, more productive, or more valuable – and it invariably comes back to the types of technology they are using, and how they are leveraging said technology. One of the most significant forms of technology that businesses have been talking about over the last decade and a half is cloud computing. According to most IT companies nowadays, the cloud is a pre-requisite to business modernization. One company we spoke to, which specialises in small business IT support London companies use, stated that adopting a Cloud First strategy is one of the most important things a business can do nowadays.
What does Cloud First mean?
The cloud first strategy is exactly how it sounds. For all new applications, platforms, infrastructure and workflows, a business will first look to how they can build a function using cloud computing. According to a managed IT services company we spoke to, Cloud First doesn’t necessarily mean Cloud Only, it simply means that the cloud will form the underlying basis of an organisation’s infrastructure – non-cloud solutions may be integrated, but cloud is preferable.
Below are some of the benefits that businesses can get from a Cloud First strategy…
- Better Server Utilization
Businesses relying on data centres will find that they get much better server utilization with a cloud first infrastructure. For on-premises data centres, for example, the average server utilization level hovers around 20%. This is down to the low scalability factor of on-premise server solutions. Comparatively, the cloud, as a highly scalable solution, enables businesses to enjoy server utilization levels as high as 70%. Because the cloud is scalable, the issue of finite capacity is not an issue for businesses in the same way as it is with on-premise solutions with a limited array of servers.
- Streamlined Development Operations
The scalability factor of the cloud also has benefits for development operations. Businesses look to develop and manage their own applications will find it much easier to do so in the cloud. In fact, the Platform as a Service model is specifically designed for this purpose. This enables businesses to decrease time to deployment and manage the entire application lifecycle for less money. Developing in the cloud also opens businesses up to new approaches – such as containerization, which makes it easier to build apps for multiple platforms.
- Better Network Management
Unlike traditional network solutions, business networking resources at a cloud-first organisation are hosted in the cloud. There are many benefits to this over on-premise network management. For example, it facilitates faster rollout of software and services. According to one company we spoke with that provides IT support Croydon companies rely on for network management, a cloud network is also more cost and resource efficient from an IT perspective. The time to deployment for new services on the network is also much quicker and, as with most cloud-based solutions, cloud networks are also much more scalable.
- Accelerate Access to Emerging Tech
One of the reasons that cloud computing has been so successful is that it makes many processes that would take a lot of time using legacy systems much quicker – this includes things like application development, and the development of new technologies. Cloud environments give innovators access to near limitless resources for their work, and as a result, most emerging technologies are cloud native. This means that, if businesses want to be able to get access to emerging technology as quickly as possible, they need to be cloud-native themselves.
