Enterprises are no longer asking whether they will utilize cloud solutions to meet their goals. Instead, they’re asking more complex questions about the best cloud strategy for placing workloads in the right environments and supporting disaster recovery plans. Many are implementing hybrid cloud and multi-cloud solutions to optimize their cost and management structures and support security and compliance.

Public Versus Private: The first question many enterprises must wrestle with as they move through a cloud strategy is whether they prioritize the customizability and security of a private cloud solution or if they should opt for the speed and innovation – plus the low cost – of a public cloud environment.

Complicating the decision is the fact that enterprises often don’t have a full picture of the costs or difficulties that come with public cloud. While it may seem like an affordable option, there may be unexpected higher costs when it’s time to access cold data or if the enterprise has a requirement to know where data is being stored for compliance purposes. Likewise, private cloud introduces some risks such as the likelihood of losing data if there were a natural disaster that affected the company site.

Hybrid Cloud Strategy: Many enterprises are rounding out their cloud strategy with a hybrid cloud solution that allows them to strategically place workloads according to security, compliance, cost, and agility considerations. It may be beneficial to store your data backup in the cloud, though in some cases, the time lapsed in a recovery may cause an interruption in normal business processes. Cloud backup mitigates some of the risk of a natural disaster because businesses can generally restore data that would have been lost in an on-site backup solution.

Multi-Cloud Strategy: It’s often worth the added complication to introduce a multi-cloud strategy for better reliability and ensuring an optimized workload placement. Though it creates more advanced management concerns, it is more likely to guarantee that business operations continue uninterrupted. For instance, even the biggest public cloud providers experience downtime occasionally, and there’s nothing an in-house IT team can do.

When multiple layers of public and private cloud – as well as legacy solutions – are strategically utilized to optimize workloads, enterprises enjoy redundancy and data security.

The more-complex cloud strategy means that it may be ideal to recruit a team of decision-makers that can analyze both the financial and operational considerations related to workload placement and manage all aspects of technical and cost implications.

For more helpful information for creating your own cloud strategy, contact us at eXemplify. We can help you create a cloud environment that helps you meet your digital transformation goals within your budget.