For companies born in the last few years, using the cloud to store data and host applications is more or less second nature. Many pre-cloud IT departments, however, still have reservations about migrating over—usually because they’re reluctant to give up full control over the data they’re accountable for or worried about data security.
For sure, control and security are key considerations for any IT manager, but the reality is both are well addressed by today’s cloud solutions.
One of the best ways for cautious organizations to make the switch to the cloud is by taking it for a test drive—proving to themselves that it’s going to meet their needs and expectations. Here are a few easy ways of doing so:
1. Start small
Migrate a low-priority application to acquaint yourself with the process and see how it performs in the cloud. Choose something that, if it were to get laggy or unavailable, might be annoying but nobody will get in trouble over. Another option is to have your dev team use a cloud solution as part of a project or testing phase.
2. Shore up against data loss
Many disaster recovery solutions store system images in the cloud. In addition to your existing backups, you might consider trying out one of these cloud-based backup services to see how they work.
3. Study other applications
It’s likely that some of the applications you use already have cloud-based features built in. Playing around with those features to get sense of how they work and what they’re capable of is another way of building experience with the cloud.
Any of these will give you a good initial idea of what the cloud can do for your organization. Something else to consider is contacting experts who can help identify the best ways for your teams to start using the cloud. Giving this sort of advice is what we do at Pythian, and we have experience helping clients at every stage on the road to cloud adoption.
For more about the topics I’ve discussed here, check out our cloud migration Q&A video series.
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