Weekly CloudNews: Cloud Adoption Grows in 2021

Welcome to this week’s edition of CloudBolt’s Weekly CloudNews!

Here are the blogs we’ve posted this week:

• Why CI/CD is Critical to the Modern Enterprise

With that, onto this week’s news:

Report: Cloud adoption grew 25% in the past year

Editorial Staff, VentureBeat, Jan. 24, 2022

“A new report from Palo Alto Networks found that the COVID-19 pandemic affected cloud adoption strategies for nearly every organization over the past year. Data from the report showed that businesses moved quickly to respond to increased cloud demands: nearly 70% of organizations are now hosting more than half of their workloads in the cloud, and overall cloud adoption has grown by 25% in the past year. That said, the struggle to automate security was palpable, and no matter the reason an organization moves workloads to the cloud, security remains consistently challenging. Respondents noted that the top three challenges in moving to the cloud were maintaining comprehensive security, managing technical complexity, and meeting compliance requirements.

Case in point: 80% of organizations with strong cloud security posture reported increased workforce productivity, and 85% of those with low ‘friction’ between security and development (DevOps) teams report the same. More specifically, organizations that tightly integrate DevSecOps principles are over seven times more likely to have a very strong security posture. This is independent of industry, budget, country, or other demographic categories.”

How to Plan a Pain-Free Cloud Migration

John Edwards, Information Week, Jan. 25, 2022

“When it comes to IT project challenges, few are more intimidating than a full-fledged cloud migration. Fortunately, with the help of some careful planning, a cloud transition can be successfully accomplished with minimal effort and disruption. The way organizations approach mass migrations to the cloud are rapidly changing. ‘Methodical and strategic modernizations have replaced the expedited ‘lift and shift’ approach,’ says Alicia Johnson, consulting principal, technology transformation, at professional services firm EY. The ability to compete at today’s locally and globally required speeds continues to be a driving force for companies heading into the cloud. For enterprises looking to the cloud for agility gains, an operating model transformation is more often than not required to optimize cloud benefits, Johnson observes. ‘Organizations that implement product operating model optimization, and change the way they work and operate, often reap the most benefits,’ she adds.

Before planning begins, it’s important to resolve several key questions, says Lee Voigt, a principal with audit, tax, and consulting services provider RSM US. ‘Why are you migrating to the cloud? What is your ultimate cloud play? What are your core expectations for the cloud? How have you solved the cloud technical competency gap? What is the plan for your business applications? How will you manage your cloud assets once they are in place?’ Finding the answers to these questions, and other issues that may arise during the planning process, will help ensure a pain-free cloud migration, he notes.”

CLOUD COST MANAGEMENT: PURPOSE, ADVANTAGES, AND BEST PRACTICES

Sukesh Mudrakola, TechGenix, Jan. 24, 2022 

“Traditional on-premises setup allows companies to know what they’re spending on infrastructure and resources. The more flexible cloud computing paradigm allows access to a wide range of services and resources, but it can sometimes be difficult to understand in terms of pricing. The pay-per-usage cloud model often makes it difficult to estimate overall cloud costs and to break down the charges for individual items as they are consumed. With more than 70% (Gartner) of all major enterprises and small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) having migrated at least some portion of their workloads to the cloud, there is an upsurge in the usage of associated cloud services. This trend creates numerous challenges in controlling cloud costs at an enterprise scale. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is further surging cloud adoption. Many industry experts believe that this will continue being an upward trend in the coming years.

Establishing visibility on cloud costs is crucial for any business. Companies can rely on their experienced IT staff, outsource to external consultants, or rely on cloud usage monitoring services to find the usage patterns. These cloud services and applications usage patterns can be then analyzed to calculate and perform consolidated cost analysis. These projections can be used to predict future cloud costs based on scalability, increased usage, and additional cloud services. The data generated can also be used by the companies in establishing performance, operational, and usage metrics.  The main reasons for cloud cost management is to save money, control the spending on cloud resources, and maximize usage. Cloud cost optimization can help businesses focus on other essential aspects of business without having to worry about the cost overheads.”

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