When moving their systems over to the cloud, many SMEs make important decisions about how they are and aren’t going to utilise their new technologies. It’s at this point that many slip up. While on the face of it some decisions may seem like a no-brainer, get down to the nitty-gritty and you’ll soon find that this is not the case at all.
We all make mistakes from time to time, especially when it comes to altering our business systems. After all, when work has been conducted in a particular way for a long period of time, it’s the least we can expect. However, some mistakes, no matter how well-founded they seem, can have dire consequences.
In order to help you avoid slipping up and making mistakes that could potentially be damaging to your organisation, we’ve collected some of the most common places where SMEs slip up when using the cloud.
Throwing all their eggs in the cloud-based-basket in one go
It’s all too common for medium sized enterprises to want to migrate to the cloud all in one go. It’s an understandable mistake to make; people want to avoid seeing their expenses rise and potentially losing money during the transition. However, immediately sacking off your traditional legacy systems when migrating can have some serious consequences.
It’s important to be realistic. In the case of cloud migrations, it’s not uncommon for these to last up to a year or more. In order to see your business run smoothly throughout this time, you are absolutely going to need to keep hold of your legacy systems, and the professionals who you pay to run them for the interim.
Throughout the migration process you will also see more clearly just how much you are going to be able to rely on cloud-based technology for your own applications. Bear in mind that there is likely to be one or two applications that you will need to retain on your traditional systems for a little longer, whether for economics sake or for limitations in those technologies.
Utilising the cloud for computing but avoiding putting your data on there
Utilising the cloud for compute and data center space but keeping your data on traditional systems often has a detrimental effect on your data as a whole. For one thing, this kind of process will often end up making your data even more vulnerable as you have to ensure security across the board yourself. It will also result in a large amount of latency and your processes will suffer.
Many cloud-based services are far more secure than you would first think. It has been shown that it’s not geographical location but ease of access that results in the biggest risks. For this reason, traditional systems are actually often more at risk than many cloud-services.
Expecting too much too soon from cloud based computing
As with anything, you’ve got to be realistic. If you overestimate just how beneficial migrating to the cloud will be in terms of ROI in the short-term, you are simply setting yourself up to fail. At Cyan Solutions, we ensure that we understand your exact needs before we suggest which services are right for you.