There are a number of good reasons to consider a hybrid cloud environment, including flexibility, scalability and, yes, cost savings. It is, however, important to have a plan in place to make the transition as smooth and painless as the technology promises. As you begin the process, keep in mind these five tips to ensure that this transition is safe, secure, and in the best interest of your company.
- Know your ROI
Like any business looking to watch their bottom line, one of the most important factors when considering moving into a hybrid cloud system is cost. While hybrid cloud systems may have come at a much higher costs when they were first deployed, they have become much more affordable over the years. Even still, no two hyrid cloud providers are created equal and may vary greatly in terms of costs. Be sure to partner with a provider with proven history of successful hybrid cloud implementations – a partner that can show the benefits and ROI from the get go. - Evaluate performance
As you transition to a hybrid cloud system, you will want to ensure that downtimes are reduced or eliminated altogether. On public systems that are prone to downtimes for maintenance and for other reasons (often somewhat nebulous), performance is often jeopardized. With hybrid cloud environments, performance and uptimes may be more reliable than public systems and it’s important to know and understand your hybrid cloud solutions partners’ service level guarantees. - Security
The security of data on any cloud system is vitally important to any business, big or small. Unlike public cloud services that are prone to security breaches, hybrid cloud offers several advantages. That said, no environment is completely immune to attacks and breaches. However, as hybrid cloud technology has matured and particular attention paid to security, we have seen considerable advancements in security measures to protect hybrid cloud environments from breaches that could compromise data. Nevertheless, SME IT professionals should do their homework to make sure that their provider is up to date on the latest security trends and have taken all the measures currently available to protect your data. - Compliance
Another consideration related to security that often gets overlooked in adopting a hybrid cloud environment for an SME is data sovereignty. In recent years, many countries have adopted new laws to regulate what kinds of data can be stored and in what forms. Data sovereignty considers if information which has been converted and stored in digital form is in full compliance of the laws of a given country in which it is stored. While it might save costs to store data in a foreign country, it may not, in the long run, be worth it to cover other costs to ensure that your data is compliant in the country in which it is stored. It’s therefore important to partner with a provider that understands the costs and ramifications of compliance – or more importantly – non-compliance. - Customer Service
Last but not least, SME’s must put a high premium on customer service from their hybrid cloud provider. While the advances in hybrid cloud technologies and the associated cost savings are appealing, no hybrid solution is worth its salt without strong upfront customer consulting and ongoing service and support. IT professionals at SMEs understand this all too well. Ongoing maintenance and monitoring, fluid trouble ticketing and network performance metrics are paramount to understanding your hybrid cloud network health, and ultimately, your ROI. At 365, we want nothing more than to serve our customers so that their needs are being met efficiently and without compromise. Our promise is to stay on the cutting edge of these trends so that we can better serve our current and future SME customers. We are Technology Humanized.
