Planning Your Cloud Strategy like an Olympic Athlete

An Olympic athlete is often a powerful combination of physical and mental prowess. They have an immense amount of skill, talent, drive, and focus.  

There are no barriers or limitations because they know how to train their body and mind to win. They visualize their endgame, picture the win, and act with intention. This is a great approach to use when planning your cloud strategy.

Here's how you can apply the Olympic athlete mindset to your cloud strategy game: 

#1: Know Your Endgame

You have to know what you want out of your cloud solution. What does your endgame look like? If you want to lower your IT costs, reduce your maintenance costs, optimize operational efficiency, reduce data silos, or overcome the challenge of disparate and outdated systems and applications, you will need to evaluate your existing infrastructure and get a good understanding about how your organization uses its data. Here are a few examples of questions you should ask:

• What types of storage do you use? What’s the current level of storage you are using?
• How much data do you create and store daily, monthly, and yearly?
• What is your data growth rate and throughput? 
• What kind of databases do you use? 
• What kind of analytics programs do you use? 
• What is your percentage of downtime? 

It is incredibly important to assess your current environment, including everything from workload demand to application types. During your infrastructure assessment, you can establish the needs and priorities of your business, and determine the optimal path to your cloud solution.

Related Reading: What is Cloud Integration

#2 Pace Yourself

An athlete usually isn’t "born that way.” Rather, an athlete spends years training and preparing for competitions. While you definitely won’t need to spend years getting ready to move to the cloud, preparing your move may take some time. Rome wasn’t built in a day! It is very important to pace yourself and create a plan. Collect your data. Get all of the information you need to drive change. Be sure that you have all of the proper stakeholders involved. 

“Cloud first,” does not mean, “cloud only.” Flexibility is one of the core benefits of the cloud, so you can make your move to the cloud in a way that best fits your business goals. You want to minimize your risks, and be sure you clearly identify your inefficiencies and pinpoint where you can improve. When you have all the information you need, you will be able to create a baseline for comparison.

#3 Choose the Right Tools

Depending on the sport or competition, most athletes have a wide array of tools that they use, from gym equipment to coaching. Similarly, your cloud strategy would benefit from a tool like managed file transfer (MFT), offered as a platform on-premises, in the cloud, and as a managed service. 

MFT is a technology that organizations or individuals can use to manage the secure, visible, and efficient exchange of data within a centralized management platform. It’s a powerful tool that goes beyond the standard ad hoc file transfer, empowering organizations to have greater control and accessibility over their data transfer activity, in the cloud and on-premises. 

Investing in the Win

Vetting a new solution is an investment of your time; however, a move to the cloud is well worth it. Taking the time to establish your goals and infrastructure requirements, audit your current technologies and systems, and assess your current resources and costs will help ensure the success of your cloud strategy and minimize any unnecessary problems. The long-term gains of a cloud platform will far exceed your initial investment. Every detail that you identify during your vetting process is crucial for your move to the cloud.

Contact your Globalscape professional today to learn more ways to optimize your move to the cloud.

Resources

Guide: How to Develop the Framework for Your Cloud Strategy

According to a Gartner report, “90% of organizations are looking into crafting a cloud strategy." 

Today, IT leaders are no longer asking, “Why should I move to the cloud?” but “How should I move to the cloud—and what’s the best way to get there?” They want to know how to make their move to the cloud as quick, cost-effective, secure, and seamless as possible.

Creating an effective cloud strategy will help simplify your cloud transition and identify the best place to start. 

In our cloud strategy guide, you will learn:

• What key elements your cloud strategy should define
• 4 steps to developing your cloud strategy
• Which tools to consider adding to your cloud arsenal

Download Cloud Strategy Guide