Overcoming the Cloud Chaos
Cloud computing has rapidly emerged as an essential technology for achieving economies of scale, reducing spending, globalizing work forces, improving accessibility, and streamlining processes. When implemented and managed correctly, cloud technology has the power to make organizations more competitive in their industries. In recent years, enterprises across verticals have realized the benefits of the cloud, but the challenge today lies in monitoring and controlling the associated expenses.
Cloud Confusion
The exponential increase in cloud computing in the global market has some enterprises scrambling to determine their current level of cloud computing utilization and their specific needs. These can be daunting tasks, and enterprises can find themselves mired down with bloated infrastructures, too little bandwidth, and a lack of control of their existing cloud resources. Conversely, companies could invest heavily in cloud computing technology far behind their needs and resources.
As organizations evolve and grow, employees turn to hundreds of cloud computing services without expressed permission from the enterprise. The combination of various business units deploying cloud technology separately from other departments and the misconception that it’s not necessary to involve an enterprise’s IT department in the cloud application adoption process has resulted in misallocated expenses, lost efficiency and poor policy enforcement for enterprises. In addition, more and more companies are embracing Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies, allowing employees to use their device of choice to perform work tasks. Consequently, many employees are taking advantage of the “personal cloud” for their work-related tasks, such as saving company files on a personal Dropbox or Google drive account for easy access outside of the office.
While many enterprises initially turned to the cloud for cost savings and increased efficiencies, the reality is that the cloud atmosphere has become chaotic. Employees in need of solutions fail to adhere to IT policies or, in many cases, are acting in absence of an IT policy. A failure to identify and reign in cloud-related services being used by employees could lead to potential liabilities, security issues and costs.
The cloud management challenge is compounded by the fact that many organizations lack the necessary expertise and industry knowledge required to run a cloud program, and managing elements such as infrastructure costs, technical capabilities, and government regulations can be simply too much for internal resources.
Creating a Cloud Strategy
The key to successfully harnessing the power of the cloud is to gain visibility into cloud usage across the organization. This can be difficult to achieve, as many businesses operate in siloes. For example, IT will often have minimal visibility into cloud usage in the sales or marketing departments. For this reason, many enterprises are beginning to turn to third-party providers to help gain an objective assessment of their cloud usage and future needs.
By taking a holistic view of cloud usage across the organization, a comprehensive cloud strategy can be designed. This allows the organization to increase customer satisfaction and improve workforce collaboration and productivity – therefore taking advantage of the cloud, while maintaining cost savings and control.
Disclaimer: This article was written by a guest contributor in his/her personal capacity. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of CloudWedge.com
