Why Do You Want To Be Cloud Native?
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“Why do you want to be cloud-native” may sound like a silly question to ask in 2020, but it’s something all modern digital businesses need to think about.
At no point do we suggest that you shouldn’t be thinking about a shift to the cloud. You may already be well on your way, so you’ll already have the answer to this question. But, if you are still considering making the shift, you need to consider the reason to go cloud-native, otherwise known as the “why”. The “why” will help your organization anticipate any costs, problems, and challenges that you are going to meet along the way.
The place to start is to ask your organization why they are looking to make the shift to the cloud in the first place. There has to be a business benefit to go cloud; and it’s not just so your IT team can play with the latest tools. Maybe you have a system that works perfectly that can benefit from cost savings by “lifting and shifting” to the cloud, or maybe you no longer want the pain of maintaining bespoke systems when specialty SaaS platforms will support the business much better into the future.
The place to start is to ask your organization why they are looking to make the shift to the cloud in the first place. There has to be a business benefit to go cloud. Click To Tweet
The “why” will also determine the course you take to achieve cloud nirvana. Achievable, pragmatic plans are far more likely to succeed than jumping headfirst into the latest technology to stay ahead of the curve. That said, be prepared to justify and answer the “why” for the solution that you choose. And certainly, consider if you want to be a business that uses IT or an IT shop along the way.
So now that you know your “why”, you need to determine the “what”, “where”, and “how”. Your “what” could be that shiny new SaaS system or it could be taking advantage of the years of investment that deliver your competitive advantage. “Where” could be anywhere from private cloud to hybrid cloud that’s deployed across multiple regions and cloud providers. The “how” will hugely depend on where you are today and what of your existing investments you want to preserve. Can the functionality you have today be repurposed, wrapped in APIs, or just rehosted? But whatever you do, you will most likely want to unleash the value of your data assets. Moving the processing and collation of that data to near real-time, and making it available across all of your new cloud applications opens up a number of future opportunities.
More than anything else, remember your overall business goals and objectives. Evaluate what it needs the most to succeed today—and tomorrow.
We have recently published a paper that talks about some of the aspects you should consider and plan for if you want to reap the rewards of truly being cloud-native. Download a copy to ensure that you embark on an achievable cloud-native journey that delivers business benefits and adds value to your customers or services.