By Varoon Rajani, Co-Founder and CEO, Blazeclan
The chaos created by the novel COVID-19 has grown unprecedented and organisations are compelled to rely on the remote workforce for continued business decorum. Challenges related to security have grown paramount, as organizations go frenzy in the management of their surface area. They are rethinking their operational strategies to serve their customers continuously while adhering to the work-from-home mandate. All this has dramatically driven cloud adoption.
We can see that the data center and cloud community are responding to the pandemic by introducing modifications to their terms of service or product offerings. While economists estimate impacts of COVID-19 on the global economy, business leaders and technologists analyze and review their decisions in this volatile time period. I believe this is a crucial time for organisations and they have been prompted to leverage the potential of the cloud immediately.
More Opportunities Emerge for the Cloud
Organisations have implemented and executed their work-from-home policies and are using online collaboration services. I think that this not only stresses the limits of services, but also significantly increases traffic in networks that connect users to the services. The cloud providers are prepared to deliver services in tandem with their SLAs and uninterrupted customer experience. According to IDC, 90% of enterprises worldwide will depend on the cloud for catering their infrastructure requirements.
Key Opportunities Presented by the COVID-19 to the CSPs
Providing conferencing and collaboration capabilities that offer organisations with convenience and help them save cost. Many organisations are now looking for software capabilities to aid their remote workforce. Spreading awareness about the way remote working must be done.
Demonstrating the potential of new technologies as organisations look to create new, rich digital experiences.
Leveraging the need for managing workloads, particularly those that create significant networking traffic. The demand for such solutions rises with the need for balancing immediate requirements of the remote workforce. Several organisations are moving their critical business applications to the cloud. This is to enable anytime, anywhere and remote access for the employees, provided that they have internet access. The value of the cloud is underlined by its ability to spin up applications and scale IT resources for accommodating the remote workforce effectively. Any remaining resistance to cloud adoption will be shunned by growing prevalence of positive user experiences.
Even though this time of crisis is challenging, it is interesting to see the rate of cloud adoption change such remarkably. While the cloud has been witnessed as a good technology hitherto, it is now being revered as a ‘must-have’ for navigating the repercussions of the novel pandemic. Organisations that have already made their move in cloud transformation are transitioning more rapidly at present.
Security is A Top Priority
As organisations look to cloud adoption for relieving the stress of managing their spectrum of cloud infrastructure and devices, security remains one of the leading concerns. Organizations better understand the need for reinforcing their security posture while moving to the cloud. This further leads them to lean on incumbent CSPs, especially during such a time of crisis, as cyberattacks grow more sophisticated.
However, the providers are already offering services with robust security in mind, so that organisations approaching them don’t feel the risk of inflicting any damage to their infrastructure. Beyond what CSPs provide, organisations need to have their own security perimeter checks to ensure proper identity and access management. Deploying PIM and DLP tools among other security software is a must to ensure that only authorised users have access to services they require.
The Bottom Line
Organisations will continue to invest in the cloud to support their remote workforce effectively and cost-efficiently. Prospects of cloud adoption in the near future is promising, as organizations find themselves at risk to fall behind the competition. Investing in long-term, resilient, cloud-based infrastructure is a must to propel risk-free into the increasingly competitive future of the business landscape. Cloud is the new normal, changing the way of data management, digital innovation strategies and customer experience.
