What’s Your Cloud Strategy?

When IT executives get together and discuss business, the question most asked was, "What's your virtualization strategy?" You can ask any chief information officer that question and they'll tell you more about your environment than you thought possible. That was as little as three years ago. Now, one of the most popular topics of discussion is, "What's your cloud strategy?"

Today, companies large and small are concerned with leveraging cloud computing and technology to grow their business. They're asking themselves questions like,

• What do we need to put in the cloud?
• What do we need to keep local?
• Who do we trust to do this for us?

There are plenty of companies out there that will want to virtualize everything, put all their resources in the cloud. However, this may not be the best model for their business – immediately or in the future. Smart companies will be looking to develop comprehensive, flexible ERP (enterprise resource planning) to manage their IT infrastructures not only efficiently but cost-effectively, while at the same time keeping business-nimble, with an eye toward supporting profitability.

Align IT Support with Business Priorities

What's really going to help you understand what needs to be in the cloud? The old adage remains true: align your IT support with your business model in terms of driving revenue. Focus on where you make the most revenue, and create a cloud strategy that connects that business with the technology, to protect and enhance your revenue stream.

Then, you can prioritize data location based on what's most important for your business to grow and thrive. Perhaps you want to track business resources such as cash, raw materials or production capacity through a data center located in your offices, while tracking of your business commitments and sharing data in the cloud. In the cloud, you could have a private cloud that you own, manage and run on your own. A private cloud becomes a fixed asset of your business, and it's your job to keep the hardware –and software- up to date and running efficiently. However you decide to manage your IT infrastructure, the main cloud strategy supports revenue-generating business functions first, and the rest fall in line.

Let's say 80 percent of your revenue is driven off of web sales. The technology that drives your web is located on a local server – in fact, it's sitting on a desktop in your office. You realize that if your server goes down, at least 50 percent of your revenue will go down with it. What will you do then?

Ask yourself these questions:

• Are the critical services you provide your client that generate revenue protected?
• Do you have a balanced cloud strategy that will keep services open for consumers across your sales territory?
• If you do have major incident, do you know what services will be interrupted?

If you are interested in learning more about customized cloud solutions, and how they can benefit your entire infrastructure, call Bell Techlogix as 888-612-8261.