If you have woken up to the possibilities and potential of a cloud-based storage and processing environment, you need to start now. The sooner you start your journey, the sooner you can start reaping the benefits. However, while starting a cloud transformation journey, you must know that you cannot achieve it with a flick of a switch or the swipe of a touch screen. It is a gradual process that slowly builds up the cloud capability of an organization and helps the organization wean off its employees from the habits of in-premises application, software, and storage. It must be carried out in such a way that it does not cause any hindrance in the day to day operations of a business and yet achieves the transformation in a defined span of time.
This begets a critical question – where to start? The answer is pretty straightforward and simple – Start with Low Hanging Fruits.
Cloud Is Good, But Implementation Is The Key
A cloud-based solution brings with it a number of benefits for businesses. Cost-saving is a very big factor in the implementation of the cloud. In fact, about 38.8% of respondents in a survey pointed to savings as the biggest factor. However, scalability is not a less important factor either. In fact, cost savings and scalability are two of the most significant promoters of the cloud.
However, you must note that achieving cost savings and scalability is possible only when the IT infrastructure of the organization has completely shifted to the cloud. While trying to achieve this, the organization has to travel through ups and downs in the implementation of the solution.
It is often difficult for organizations to keep up with the cost of implementation. This is why one needs to do the job piecemeal in a pay-as-you-go model.
It is always a good idea to start with your email server and then move on to the webserver and so on. It is the email server and the webserver that are often referred to as low hanging fruits, since more often than not, it is easy to start the migration with these services.
Start With The Email Services
A lot of organizations still use on-premise email solutions. They are dependent on the IT staff to ensure that the email server itself as well as related services are up and running 24*7. Email is a lifeline of any organization and even a slight disruption can have an organization level effect.
So, once email is shifted to a cloud based solution, your IT staff will be completely free from that and no hardware would be required on-premises. More importantly, cloud hosted email services are normally more reliable and stable than the on-premise solutions.
This transition would not only get you started towards the Cloud transformation journey, but more importantly, it would also create positive vibes in the company about this transformation. You will get quick stakeholder buy-in.
As the email service continues uninterrupted in the cloud, you can reach for the webserver.
Cloud-based Web Hosting
As the hosted email service starts to work seamlessly, you can turn your attention to another low hanging fruit – web hosting. In a cloud web hosting environment, the website of your organization will be hosted in the cloud. This can give various benefits like balancing of load, enhanced security, and scalability, etc.
This can be a very good option for organizations that are outgrowing the resources of local servers. If your website is causing a strain on resources, you need to consider moving to the cloud. Another benefit of this step is that even if there is a problem or a glitch with the migration, it will not cause havoc with your operations, unless, of course, you are an eCommerce company. Dedicated hosting is not just expensive, it also requires some technical know-how. With the help of cloud-based web hosting, you can get a scalable service at low cost and also test the resilience of your organization in adapting to the new cloud-based system.
So, these types of low-hanging fruits would be your first step in your journey towards cloud transformation.
