Migrating to the Cloud: A Review of Value vs. Risk
By John DeWolfA study by McKinsey & Company found that in 2011 corporations spent $28 Billion on cloud services and by 2015 that number is estimated to exceed the $70 Billion mark. The question posed by businesses is no longer “should we migrate to the cloud?” but rather “how will we migrate to the cloud?” As your business makes the transition, it’s important to understand not only the different options available, but also weigh the risks and value of changing your IT strategy.
Migrating to the cloud
All companies are faced with different challenges. Some industries, such as healthcare, are heavily regulated, requiring strict standards around data storage, while the challenge for small companies may be infrastructure and additional staff costs. There are three high-level directions to choose from when migrating to cloud computing – private cloud, public, or a hybrid. The public cloud is the most cost-effective and agile, while the private cloud can be expensive to build and maintain but offers more control and regulation.
As you make the jump into the cloud, you should understand both the value and how to minimize the risks.
Cloud value:
- Decrease labor and infrastructure costs
- Eliminate the lag between business and IT, faster implementation
- Organizational agility
- Scalability as the organization grows/downsizes
- Less capacity constraints
Associated risks:
- Technology failures
- Security breaches
- “Acts of God”
These are similar to the risks faced by companies managing their own infrastructure. The risk aversion comes from determining who would be more capable of quickly reacting to these situations – your internal IT team or a third-party vendor.
An avoidable risk of the cloud is the storage and management of your data in SaaS applications. This data is rarely backed up in a way that protects against user error, malicious deletion, hackers, or application bugs. By using Backupify, you can securely backup your data and store it outside of the cloud application and easily restore information that is compromised.
Moving to the cloud has many challenges. Backupify can help you move to the cloud with confidence by giving you the peace of mind that your critical business data is backed up in a secure second location. As you develop your cloud strategy, consider your operational needs as well as the various compliance requirements for doing business. Weigh the value of the cloud and do a thorough risk assessment that your company and industry face. Then you can be sure your jump to the cloud is a huge success.