At this stage, cloud computing technology is becoming more and more important to enterprises, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, enterprises rely on cloud computing more than ever. After the outbreak of COVID-19, enterprises around the world quickly launched new scalable digital services to accelerate the transition to a “super-connected world”. Cloud computing technology can effectively assist enterprises in digital transformation, contactless economic development, and remote work during the epidemic, business process simplification.
According to research firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, 86% of chief executives in the UK believe that telecommuting will continue for a long time. During the pandemic, employees cannot return to the office, so many companies think that this stage is a good time for companies from all walks of life to formulate cloud computing strategies, and also prepare for possible future crises.
A survey by relevant agencies shows that enterprises’ IT budgets are gradually shrinking. In 2020, enterprises’ IT business spending fell by 7.3%. This downward trend is expected to continue until 2021, so enterprises should prioritize cloud computing strategies. Cloud computing transformation is a long-term process, not a one-time project, so it is important for enterprises to build the right infrastructure from the beginning. Industry experts believe that the perfect cloud computing strategy consists of three main pillars:
Combining multiple cloud deployment types
Multi-cloud is a combination of multiple cloud services provided by multiple cloud providers, either public or private. Multicloud itself refers to the same type of cloud solution (public or private) deployed by multiple vendors, while hybrid cloud refers to the combination of multiple cloud deployment types (public or private) through integration or orchestration.
Multi-cloud scenarios may involve multiple public cloud environments or multiple private cloud environments, while hybrid cloud scenarios involve only one public cloud environment and one private cloud environment, along with the infrastructure that facilitates workload portability.
The main reason for the adoption of multi-cloud is that multi-cloud can combine the advantages of different cloud platforms, while separating data flow and key functions into different parts of multiple cloud platforms, thereby enhancing data security, resiliency and productivity.
Hybrid and multi-cloud architectures are rapidly being adopted by enterprises. According to IDC, due to the high technical requirements of cloud migration, not all enterprises will deploy and implement cloud computing strategies. According to the survey, by 2022, more than 90% of enterprises worldwide will rely on a combination of on-premises private cloud, public cloud and legacy facilities for their infrastructure needs.
As more and more companies continue to profit from cloud computing, a well-thought-out multi-cloud strategy is critical to improving efficiency, controlling costs, and exploiting new technologies. Without these measures, businesses can quickly spiral out of control and end up in chaos.
Cloud-native
Cloud-native is an excellent way to increase your business agility and speed to market. Cloud-native applications are inherently built to run on cloud platforms. After an application is cloud-native, it can take full advantage of the advantages of cloud computing, including its elasticity, scalability, high availability, and self-healing capabilities. Legacy applications can also be rewritten using cloud-native technologies to avoid them being obsolete.
The best way to control the cost of moving to the cloud is to tie technology to business outcomes, like an “agile project.” More cost means more revenue, so from a financial operations perspective, cost and architecture can be considered the same “agility”.
Developers take advantage of new technologies and services to proactively inform finance teams about their financial health with predictive tools using “cost tagging” on every component that makes up the infrastructure, enabling ongoing cost compliance.
At this stage, controlling costs no longer needs to be done manually. Instead, it builds the full coding of orchestration and available tools into the architecture, while leveraging the integrator capabilities of operational expertise to enable cross-architecture processes from connections to applications.
In the culture of digital innovation, failure of any degree is quick, and businesses can quickly learn lessons and adjust immediately. Stakeholders believe that this is possible because the technology is built to allow for this way of thinking.
Going cloud-native requires not only prioritizing cloud-based applications but also exploring new delivery models. With an uncertain supplier environment, businesses need to rely on new partners and ecosystems. Therefore, the realization of cloud-native also requires new technical teams, and these technical teams need to be recruited externally or cultivated internally.
Cloud Security
Different cloud computing platforms need to adopt different security strategies, cloud-native as a more extreme method, accompanied by reliable security, in order to adapt to the development needs, this is due to the future enterprises will enter the full stack coding and GitOps world.
Typically, cloud security is the responsibility of the cloud computing infrastructure provider, but companies still need to understand how to mitigate risks. Xu believes that having security systems and policies in place is sufficient to protect their new infrastructure, often ignoring some of the errors in the operation of cloud platforms.
Although the components in the cloud provided by cloud computing infrastructure providers are designed to have certain security and reliability, when enterprises plan to integrate them to build digital platforms, they need sufficient security, reliability and reliability. Expertise to cover configuration for later management and centralized governance.
Human error is the leading cause of security breaches. Because corporate employees can store data in the cloud without encryption, making it easy to forget where the data is stored, “shadow IT” has to be used.
Cloud computing itself is not very secure, so proper controls are needed to keep data safe. Businesses need to know that it doesn’t matter to hackers whether they use on-premise or cloud storage, they only target applications and data.
Businesses need to understand that security must never be an “after the fact” idea. Due to the uniqueness of each business, organizations need to tailor their security plans from the start, building landing zones, continuous integration (CI), continuous delivery (CD) pipelines, and continuous compliance.
Cloud security is a “shared” responsibility, and it’s important for businesses to have a deep understanding of what’s the responsibility of the cloud infrastructure provider and what’s the responsibility of the business itself. Therefore, I recommend that businesses work with a hosting provider to help themselves identify responsibility or learn more about the impact.
Integrating a zero-trust security architecture into the cloud infrastructure is also key—best-practice security is built into the DevOps development and deployment process, and this model of trust is introduced into day-to-day monitoring and maintenance. But introducing this pattern requires avoiding the closed security process of its introduction, as this is likely to hinder future innovations in the overall architecture, which in turn slows the rollout of new features.
The future of cloud computing
The application of cloud computing technology in enterprise systems improves the infrastructure and overall productivity. Not only that, but through emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, automation, and the Internet of Things, cloud computing is expected to bring huge advancements to the market going forward.
Industry experts predict that cloud computing will be more widely used in the next few years, and even the global cloud computing market size is expected to reach a new high. According to research firm CloudTech, global public cloud spending is expected to grow from $229 billion in 2019 to $500 billion in 2023, with a projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.3%.
In 2021, cloud computing will be at the heart of the new normal after the epidemic, and people will continue to rely on cloud computing technology as well as streaming media, remote collaboration, smart sensors and other cloud-dependent digital technologies to eliminate the adverse effects of the epidemic. Enterprise technicians will focus on the development of the epidemic on the one hand, and their digital transformation plans on the other to adjust their cloud computing strategies.
The cloud computing providers that benefit the most are technology vendors such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, which offer complete cloud-to-edge ecosystems that enable a seamless new normal way of life.
