Digital transformation is no longer a technical consideration. This is a business priority. Whether it’s financial services, the public sector or healthcare, organizations of all types must now embrace modern technology to drive growth and innovation.
One of the key principles of digital transformation is harnessing the power and flexibility of cloud technology to improve operational efficiency, increase innovation, and more. The cloud can help build resiliency, optimize data usage, and create more secure computing systems—all at infinite scale and distribution.Despite the investment in cloud infrastructure up 2.3% In 2022, a potential recession could affect the transition to the cloud. However, the right investment in the cloud can reduce costs and increase revenue opportunities.
Build resilient systems
Cloud technology provides organizations with abundant resources to build resilient systems. However, cloud-based resiliency options will depend on the services the workload is currently using. For traditional VM-based workloads, the options depend on the hypervisor and the VM’s performance criteria – shared versus dedicated tenant resources. In the case of vSphere-based virtual environments, tenants deployed using the vSphere platform on hyperscale servers can provide flexibility in addition to operational simplicity because the same tools, processes, and management knowledge can be used.
If you plan to use a different hypervisor as your virtual machine host – vSphere to Amazon Web Services’ EC2 – there will be more considerations because the hypervisors will behave differently (CPU co-scheduling, Transparent memory sharing and DMA are both important considerations). For a cloud-native approach, the serverless option uses a 12-factor approach that supports concurrency through fast instantiation capabilities that coordinate provisioning using policies. Service allocation across computing and storage resources is handled by cloud service providers, allowing users to focus on feature development.
Whatever your system needs, the cloud can help you build a resilient platform designed to provide the right services your business needs.
data-driven decisions
Cloud technology is an important part of our hybrid work environment because it makes it easier to distribute data across application services, making it actionable. Gaining vital insights and automating decision-making requires processing exponentially large amounts of data – in general.
When applying analytics techniques, including modern artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, cloud resources and storage scale are required to process the required amount of data to improve the accuracy of predictions, anomaly detection, or any other reasoning needed to automate decision-making. Legacy data structures cannot meet the demands of modern analytical processes, and for the same reason, most data modernization efforts are transitioning to cloud services.
The final step to better use of data assets is to modernize the visualizations of the information insights gained from the data, then accessed using front-end dashboards and portals and user interface wireframes often created using cloud services.
Enhanced Zero Trust
Ransomware attacks are on the rise, so organizations are investing in top security practices to protect themselves. At the top of this list is Zero Trust. Zero trust is a framework that can improve an organization’s security posture, but it has its limitations. Moving to a zero-trust network architecture in the cloud can strengthen this approach and provide an additional layer of protection. Migrating to a zero-trust network architecture in the cloud starts with shifting prevention strategies.
This requires a fundamental shift from ensuring a 100% prevention strategy around the “internal network” to a strategy that prioritizes rapid detection and isolation, optimal response and 100% recoverability guarantees – all to protect the ongoing Changing border users.
It also needs to be able to handle all forms of telemetry across all IT services, including the cloud—infrastructure-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service, and software-as-a-service. This requires integrating cloud application service brokers and cloud security posture management for comprehensive risk management.
Bringing all of this together through a cybersecurity service mesh that allows management of telemetry data related to the specific needs of the service is the best option. A secure service edge and integration platform that supports endpoint detection and response policies is also key.
To compete in today’s IT environment, the cloud needs to be an essential part of your business. Cloud technology improves your existing platform, making it easier to navigate potential market downturns and continue to improve business outcomes for your organization.
As companies brace for a potential market downturn, now is not the time to cut back on cloud computing. In fact, it’s time to double down.
Robert Kim is the Chief Technology Officer of Presidio Inc., a provider of digital services and solutions. He wrote this article for SiliconANGLE.