Key Planning Behaviors that Maximize Cloud Benefits

By now, you have heard of, if not already taken on, to move your mission critical applications in the Cloud. At IT Authorities, not only do we recognize the benefits of Cloud Services, but also how to best cater them to your specific business goals, whether that being more cost efficient, scalability to meet customer demand, or your holistic disaster recovery model.

Unfortunately, you may be under the assumption (as most are) that Cloud Services are a “set it and forget it” solution. Instead, the Cloud is an “elastic” environment; it should be customized for the best performance and cost-effective use for your business. However, maximizing the elastic and scalable benefits of Cloud Services requires the upfront planning and experience of a Cloud consulting & management provider.

So, what are the elements we feel you should know about the Cloud, and how can IT Authorities assist your business through cloud consulting & management services?

Financial Benefits of Cloud Services

The first and most well-known benefit of cloud migration is the reduction or elimination of upgrading and expanding your physical infrastructure. For example, instead of purchasing more servers and infrastructure when you need additional computing power for your mission critical applications, you can quickly spin one up virtually.

Spinning up additional compute power is an incredible asset in times of need, but that move is only cost effective if it is properly managed. When we look at benchmarks from companies that have moved to the Cloud, 93.2% of them have not seen the cost or time reduction benefits.

The quick addition of a new server during busy or seasonal times is convenient, but can be a financial black hole if these workloads are not closely managed with adjusting workload compute consumption. This often occurs with businesses who have peak seasonality, and who’s needs tapper off at different times in the year.

Partnering with IT Authorities keeps that elasticity alive. We keep a pulse on your Cloud spend, monitor your Cloud resource needs, and look out for your well-being. Our Cloud providers of choice are Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure; our sole job is to get you to the cloud platform, and maintain your status once there. We don’t want you to spend unnecessary dollars on space, speed, or personnel whose time could be better spent innovating for your business. Instead, we are here to ensure that your Cloud solution makes financial sense for you.

What if My Business Has Not Performed a Cloud Migration?

The Cloud might seem like an all-encompassing solution for your business, and, you might be reassured, now, about the cost of cloud hosting and computing. But what about that initial migration? Even more important than the cost reduction over time, is uncovering the unforeseen implications that you could see upon initial cloud migration. These are potential issues that will affect your business now and in the long run, and require a well thought out plan. Enter IT Authorities: here to bring you peace of mind while migrating to Cloud Services, no matter your industry or business vertical.

Of course, we monitor Cloud workload activity and ensure you have all the compute resources you need on an ongoing basis. But what’s much more essential than just migrating your applications to a Cloud platform is your mission critical applications, and their Cloud performance. Working with the Cloud Consulting team at IT Authorities means a seamless transition of your workloads and apps during a migration to the cloud. We conduct an audit of those core applications to determine if they are written and configured to be Cloud functional before the migration process even begins.

IT Authorities Cloud Consultants architect a comprehensive Cloud solution based on your business’ goals, trends and demand through a series of key activities:

• Identify the correct Cloud provider(s) based on your business’ security and redundancy requirements
• Map each business mission critical application to Cloud resources (compute, storage and network)
• Collaborate with your dev/ops teams to ensure your applications are Cloud ready
• Design the most efficient Cloud elasticity demand model that aligns with your specific business needs
• Develop the Cloud workload automation and monitoring specifications
• Construct the comprehensive Cloud migration strategy tailored to your business
• Develop a comprehensive, predictive Cloud cost model

IT Authorities has the Cloud expertise and experience to ensure Cloud and business goals are realized.

What’s Next for my Business and the Cloud?

It’s important to understand that scalability and computing power are no longer about your infrastructure; they are about utilizing a platform that lets you realize the maximum benefit of your mission critical systems. Whether you have already made the migration and are not seeing the benefits, or want to make the shift but are unsure how your business will respond, IT Authorities is the right partner.

For any additional questions regarding the Cloud, or to start a conversation about migrating your business to Amazon or Azure, contact IT Authorities today!