Ten common mistakes in cloud strategy

With the increasing use of cloud computing, system administrators face new challenges. Clouds rise and fall depending on the efficiency and reliability of the IT infrastructure. This means that IT managers must establish during the planning phase which capacities are required by the respective applications to calculate the resources accordingly. Performance must be extensively monitored. At the same time, it is essential to ensure that all systems and connections function in harmony. 

But that’s not all. According to Gartner, business and IT leaders continue to make ten prevalent mistakes when crafting their cloud strategy. 

1. Assume it is an IT-only strategy – Business and IT leadership must avoid devising an IT-centric strategy and trying to “sell” it to the rest of the business. Business and IT should be equal partners in defining cloud strategy.

2. Not having an exit strategy – Many organizations believe they do not need an exit strategy because they do not expect to bring anything back from the cloud. However, an exit strategy is vital to the success of an organization’s cloud strategy. It’s like having an insurance policy in your drawer. We hope we never use it. But if you have to, it’s there.

3. Combine or confuse a cloud strategy with a cloud implementation plan – A cloud strategy differs from an implementation plan and should come first. It is the decision phase in which business and IT leaders decide the role cloud computing will play in the organization. A cloud implementation plan follows, putting the cloud strategy into practice.

4. Believing that it is too late to devise a cloud strategy – It never is. If organizations drive cloud adoption without a plan, it will eventually cause resistance from users, which will slow cloud adoption and potentially compromise the entire cloud project.

5. Equate a cloud strategy by moving everything to it – A cloud strategy does not involve simultaneously moving all workloads to the cloud. This approach stops many businesses and IT leaders from crafting a plan because they think it means they will be forced to start using cloud computing for everything. “Organisations should keep an open mind and partner with technology experts outside the cloud, such as an enterprise architect, to define their cloud strategy broadly.

6. Saying “Our cloud strategy is our datacenter strategy” – Many organizations confuse their cloud strategy with their datacenter strategy. While organizations need to keep them separate, they need to ensure they are aligned with each other because it affects the role cloud computing will play in their organization.

7. Believing an executive mandate is a strategy – Another standard mistake organizations make adopting cloud computing is because the CEO, CIO, or head of a business unit believes it will result in cost savings. Cloud strategy should maintain a connection to the business, ensuring organizations know why workloads are moving and the purpose for moving them.

8. Believing that being a <Fill in Vendor> shop means that this is the cloud strategy – organizations will likely use many different cloud services over time. As the use of cloud services may become increasingly broad and diverse, business and IT leadership must craft a general strategy that accommodates multiple types of scenarios, cloud service providers and complete IT infrastructure monitoring.

9. Delegate the development of your cloud strategy to a third party – Outsourcing an organization’s cloud strategy may sound appealing, but it should not be done. Instead, Gartner analysts recommend that leadership use a third party – even the cloud provider – for implementation. This can be a cost-effective way to acquire the scarce cloud skills that the organization needs.

10. Say our strategy is cloud-first – An approach that prioritises the cloud means that if someone requests an investment, the default place to build or place the new asset is in the public cloud. But cloud-first doesn’t just mean cloud.

Why is this bad?

Because as business functions are increasingly adopting digital technologies, effective teams are adapting their operating models to balance enabling business autonomy and ensuring production readiness. The future is clear: in 2022 and beyond, traditional business functions will be critical stakeholders in the strategy and execution of IT technologies and processes.

Innovative teams are expanding their cloud operations and ITSM governance beyond infrastructure and enabling developers to leverage advanced cloud services to deliver more value with less time and effort and greater reliability.

And “trust” in this context means keeping a close eye on the functioning of modern applications and the IT infrastructure, which spans multiple cloud providers. One of the best ways to minimize blind spots in your infrastructure is to consolidate all of your data