intelligent

Stephen Young , Director , AssureStor

A ROBUST CLOUD MANAGEMENT

FRAMEWORK SPANS NOT

JUST THE TECHNOLOGY ASPECT OF A BUSINESS , BUT ALSO FINANCE ,

OPERATIONS AND HR .

While complex , a cloud management strategy doesn ’ t have to be cumbersome or difficult to implement . Opting for third-party expertise and a high-quality management platform helps maintain a smooth journey to enjoying the countless benefits of cloud .

Stephen Young , Director , AssureStor

With 2020 remembered as the ‘ year of the pandemic ’, it could also be remembered as the year of technology shift / overhaul where cloud services , driven by the immediate need for remote working and flexibility , became mainstream and barriers to adoption were finally significantly lowered .

Many businesses , both large and small , have embraced cloud computing as part of this shift , either in a hybrid fashion or completely , and have structured their operations around this new way of delivering technology to the business . This has required senior management to adapt how they perceive and deliver IT services .

The first lockdown saw businesses urgently seeking solutions to allow them to work remotely , flexibly and affordably . This led to the acceleration of an already significant trend to the cloud and most businesses who took this route seem to have executed it quickly – and successfully .

However , noticeably , we ’ re seeing that appropriate cloud management practices , effective data resilience , staff skills , realigned security , cloud provider scrutiny and a review of business and IT strategy , have lagged behind this important shift . With a move to cloud computing now seen as a business strategy , rather than IT , it is time to take stock of where these new working practices have taken the business and could potentially lead them .

By adopting a cloud management strategy , many of these points will be addressed and allow smaller businesses to make wellinformed decisions about expanding their technology requirements .

A robust cloud management framework spans not just the technology aspect of a business , but also finance , operations and HR , all of which will help ensure :

1 . Costs are managed as these pivot from CAPEX to OPEX

2 . Software integration and interoperability are ensured across all platforms

3 . Chosen partners delivering cloud services are companies you trust and want to work with ; it could be long-term and should be mutually beneficial

4 . Data communications employed by onpremise and home workers is adequate and secure , facilitating increased remote working

5 . Security protects remote users and services hastily deployed – traditional ring-fenced security solutions may not scale well with a dispersed deployment of IT

6 . Data resilience and system downtime are considered and mitigated – many cloudbased solutions do not provide backups , data recovery and resilience 7 . Training is aligned to new requirements 8 . IT and Digital Transformation is aligned to a refocused business strategy 9 . The business culture adapts to accommodate workers no longer at their office desks �