Managed cloud services have become a key component of digital transformations in Australia, with companies increasingly shifting workloads to cloud environments. Consequently, this shift has added to the complexity of cloud operations. Even though cloud adoption promises flexibility, scalability and cost efficiency, getting there is often a major headache requiring specialist expertise and constant monitoring. Recent Australian cloud research points out that a majority of businesses aren’t getting the return on investment they’re after from their cloud projects, despite cloud adoption being pretty widespread. Instead of thinking of cloud deployment as a one-time job, organisations are more and more looking to outsourced managed IT services provider partnerships to keep an eye on things in the long term.
Cloud Migration Brings Success but Also Brings Pain
Cloud migration is still driving the push for managed cloud services. It’s estimated that over 70% of companies globally are moving big workloads to cloud environments in a bid for more agility and business flexibility. But migration projects turn up a whole bunch of technical challenges, things like migrating legacy applications, dealing with data transfer issues, integrating with new systems and the risk of downtime. There are serious financial implications if migration planning isn’t done right. For instance, you might need to redesign apps, modernise infrastructure and do lots of testing before workloads can run smoothly in the cloud. But unfortunately for Aussie businesses, a lot of cloud investments just aren’t paying off like they were expecting because they’re focusing so much on just getting workloads moved into the cloud, and not enough on how to actually manage them.
Cloud Security Still a Major Headache
Even though cloud tech is getting better all the time, security remains a massive worry for organisations. Industry analysis shows that misconfigurations are one of the main reasons for cloud security incidents, and Gartner reckons 99% of cloud security mishaps are caused by the customer making a mistake, not anything to do with the cloud provider. The cost of getting it wrong can be huge. A recent IBM report found the average cost of a data breach was US$4.88 million, which is a 10% jump from last year. The study also found that 40% of breaches involved data spread across multiple environments, including cloud, on-premises and private systems. These multi-environment breaches cost an average of 5 million or more, and took even longer to recover from. These create vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit.
The Financial Benefits of Proper Cloud Management
A lot of organisations first think they can save money by switching to cloud services. But the reality is, that’s only true if you know what you’re doing. Unmanaged cloud environments can generate all sorts of unexpected expenses. Specifically, things like resource overprovisioning, virtual machines that just sit idle, duplicate storage, and poor workload allocation can drive up monthly cloud bills. Cloud optimisation has become a critical part of managed cloud services, in fact, according to a report from Flexera, 51% of organisations now have their own dedicated team focused on keeping cloud costs under control.
Ongoing Management is Key to Keeping Cloud Performance Up and Reliability High
Cloud computing’s a constantly changing beast that needs constant care and feeding. Applications keep evolving, users have changing demands, and security threats are always morphing. As a result, all of this means that just setting up a cloud system in the first place is only the start of the journey. Research involving over 900 IT decision makers revealed that 63% picked out poor cloud governance and strategy as one of the biggest obstacles to getting cloud management right. And it’s not just the organisations that think they’re doing well in the cloud. Likewise, more mature operations are still running into issues with visibility, application performance, and keeping all their infrastructure in line.
Practical Tips for Actually Making Your Managed Cloud Operations Succeed
The organisations that really thrive in the cloud tend to have a clear picture of what they’re trying to achieve and stick to it. They don’t just leave it all to the tech, instead, they have a structured system for managing their cloud that keeps security at the heart of everything instead of just tacking it on afterwards. In essence, migration of the applications should be accompanied by a well-thought-out strategy which outlines the most suitable location of these applications, possible risks, as well as the gains expected from the whole exercise. On the other hand, security is also an important aspect that needs to be considered at all stages. This involves the use of two-factor authentication, the implementation of access control, regular identification of security weaknesses, and monitoring cloud configuration.
