By Scott Dodds, CEO, Ultima www.Ultima.com   

Whether it’s the perceived high upfront investment, technical skills required or lack of understanding of which systems can and can’t be migrated, over 40% of workloads still aren’t yet in the cloud. However, the reality today is that with the latest cloud technology available, the opportunity for organisations running legacy infrastructure only stand to make the benefits greater.

This article will take you through some of the common issues you may be facing when running your business on legacy infrastructure and how a move to the cloud could make your network more resilient and cost effective.

 

1. Your IT spending has hit a peak 

Over the last year IT budgets have had a change in focus with a huge amount being spent on security and end user computing. There is an upward trend on IT spending that is set to continue with Gartner predicting that worldwide spending on IT is set to hit $4.1 trillion in 2021, an increase of 8.4% since 2020. But for many organisations post pandemic, finding the cash to keep up with IT needs will be hard. It’s important, therefore, to focus any spend on areas that are going to generate long-term growth.

Using Microsoft Azure’s open and flexible cloud computing platform, for example, combined with automated migration, you no longer need to look after and buy hardware, or pay for your own data centre requirements like power and cooling. Your IT infrastructure can be run on a pay-as-you-go basis taking away any Capex hardware costs, and you can even buy employee devices on the same pay-as-you-go basis. The short-term costs of moving to the cloud need to be weighed up carefully against the longer-term savings and increases in efficiency and productivity.

2. Most of your time and energy is focused on ‘keeping the lights on’  

 

60-70% of most IT budgets is spent on keeping the lights on and renewing support contracts. When you factor in the time spent by IT staff in maintaining existing infrastructure and business operations, it’s easy to see why this can cause a stumbling block for organisations.

Given the world of hybrid working we have been launched into, any business today that isn’t spending on development and innovation in business operating efficiencies will struggle.

Outsourcing your IT to a cloud services provider who can manage it for you and who uses the latest automated services can save hundreds of man hours, freeing up your IT staff to focus on more strategic projects.

3. You lack visibility over what is happening in your network environment

This is a common issue, particularly from a security perspective. For example, do you know what data is coming in and going out of your business, top destinations and any malicious activity detected? Having applications and users offsite increases your business’s threat landscape. Legacy servers may be costly to maintain and secure, plus understanding how data is being handled and how users are behaving outside the confines of the office is a concern.

In a recent survey of over 200 prospective customers, Ultima asked about the challenges they were facing due to current requirements for remote working. Nearly half (41%) cited security concerns as an issue and 17% cited application access. It’s this concern that is set to drive the largest spend in security the industry has seen in over a decade.

Automated cloud services give customers a dashboard that centralises information to show what is happening in a simplified format across your infrastructure. Patching services can be automated and monitoring happens on a 24/7 basis. Not only will this save organisations hundreds of IT hours, businesses who are using automated cloud services have a 66% reduction in security incidents.

4. Disaster recovery plans remain untested 

80% of businesses affected by a major incident either never re-open or close within 18 months. So, preparing for a disaster and planning how to recover if disaster does strike is important for every business. However, often other priorities mean businesses struggle for the required investment, skills and required testing capabilities to prepare should the worst happen.

We also know 41% of businesses haven’t tested their IT disaster recovery solution in the last six months or don’t know if it has ever been tested, leaving them open to disastrous consequences. From an IT perspective, having your operations in the cloud negates some of the risk. Your cloud provider or managed service provider will have plans in place to mitigate any disaster and will regularly test the disaster recovery solution – which can be fraught with danger and complexity when doing a full test.

The latest automated disaster recovery solutions will test your disaster recovery autonomously and include security protection and non-disruptive testing of virtual machines. As the disaster recovery solutions are built in the cloud, costs are significantly reduced compared to on-premises disaster recovery solutions as you simply pay for the services you use.

5. You’re facing bottlenecks due to poor network performance  

Every minute that your network isn’t performing to its fullest is costing your company revenue and profit. It also costs the morale of your workers when they can’t do their jobs properly. If you are dealing with an underperforming network, staff performance and collaboration, data gathering, and customer engagement will all be impacted negatively.

By moving to the cloud, you can benefit from automation technologies which mean that your network can be monitored and managed far more effectively, creating efficiencies throughout the organisation as well as reducing costs.

There are a multitude of benefits of moving networks over to the cloud, but if your organisation is experiencing any of the above challenges, those benefits could be even greater. By switching to a cloud-based infrastructure, the focus can be switched to innovation and integration; which is the most valuable currency for any business.

About Author: 

Scott Dodds has been in the European IT industry for 33 years and has held senior positions in EMEA and the UK with VMware, Microsoft, Acer and Compaq, before joining Ultima Business Solutions in October 2015. He has had full P&L responsibility for multi-billion dollar sales and marketing teams as well as running business operations and planning functions. His breadth of experience spans all customer segments from the largest global enterprises to mid-market and SMBs.