The advent of the technological age heralded a brand new and exciting era across all areas of life. We have reached the age, which was a dream or fairy tale over a century ago. Communication is much faster, instantaneous, and cheaper, and it gears all aspects of life.

In the latest phase, cloud computing technology has gained traction as the ultimate solution to the speedily changing technological sector. Cloud is an extensive term and covers a comprehensive range of services, but those considering cloud as their core technology, link it with “Cloud-first” strategy.

What is ‘Cloud-First’ strategy?

The cloud-first strategy allows businesses to save money on software, platforms, and infrastructure. In the case of cloud strategy, instead of building their stack, people subscribe to a cloud service provider that renders best-in-class services at a low cost.

What is the way to develop a cloud-first strategy?

To go for the organizational commitment as a cloud-first strategy, it is required to evaluate cloud-based solutions before considering other alternatives. Below listed are some points that will help you go forward with your cloud plan:

Start with a business aim

Consider the business objective first and things that you will gain from cloud migration. Later, determine what key stakeholders need to be involved, which is the best cloud strategy, and the method of measuring the outcome.

The TechTarget survey of 600 IT professionals revealed the significance of pursuing digital or cloud transformation. According to 47% of the professionals, the primary reason was to streamline operations and improve internal efficiency. Also, it will improve employee performance and productivity.
Once the employee performance, productivity, and processes improve, it will automatically show uprise in customer experience.

Hold on to cloud security

Who said moving to the cloud means compromising on security? It is the way to keep safety intact in the best possible way. As compared to previous years, 2020 witnessed 60% fewer security incidents than traditional data centers. And the coming years will also see the number of security incidents declining indeed.

Though 100% of security in cloud technology isn’t ensured, the IT leaders still need to make regular efforts to safeguard data.

Upskill individuals on cloud technology

Cloud technology is making a big difference to the tech industry and the individuals who are serving the industry. With the changes coming now and then, it is significant to acquire a new set of cloud technology-based skills. For adapting the cloud-first strategy, one should stress on acquiring:

  • Knowledge of cloud architecture and deployment
  • Expertise in cloud security
  • Experience in IoT applications, including sensors
  • Experience with SaaS deployments

Apart from the technical skills, the candidate should have the required soft skills to collaborate with the leaders across the company. The right candidate implements his/her knowledge while listening to valuable inputs and delivers nothing less than the correct solution.

What is the step-by-step process of implementing cloud-first strategy?

1. Create cloud teams and decide what features are required

2. Choose the type of layer and evaluate providers

3. Select the cloud design and select an exit strategy to avoid confusion

4. Get the estimate of the cost of the services and their governance

5. Find out more service from the provider that will be helpful

What are the advantages of cloud-first strategy?

Once the cloud-first strategy plan looks relevant from all angles, the next step is to consider the benefits.

Some organizations already brought this strategy into practice and talked about its after-sale benefits for one or the other platform.

We had a little sneak-peek there and got you the gist in the below points:

It is cost-effective

Building its own data center or hardware for hosting applications can cost the company time, money, and resources. The post-production thing again costs more due to updating, replacing, or repairing, involving more money in terms of employee salary and equipment. When the cloud-first strategy is implemented, the cost reduces labor costs, hosting costs, equipment, and license expenses.

It is flexible and scalable

When the system is pushed toward an upgrade, the hardware needs to align with the scaling solutions. And if the hardware becomes the bottleneck, there is no way for the solution to be effective.

However, with the cloud, no significant change in the infrastructure is required. The cloud infrastructure automatically creates a backup and ensures secure storage for any created or updated files.

It ensures recovery

When the data is stored and backed up in the cloud, recovery is possible. While the physical storage might fail due to hardware crash, natural disaster, hacking, etc., the cloud-first strategy enables the business to make data recovery in almost no time.

After selecting the cloud-first approach, the next step is to opt for a specific cloud-decision framework.

Conclusion

When the world sees any latest technology taking wings, it will move ahead, detecting its pros and cons. In the cloud-first strategy, there are several reasons why enterprises should consider cloud-first over other alternatives. Some of them are already mentioned above.

The cloud’s first strategy and its solutions allow enterprises to transition from traditional on-premises infrastructure to the cloud and modern device management at its own speed, making the company more agile and resilient to the risks they encounter today.

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