Common challenges in a cloud journey

by Shivani Dave / March 2, 2021 / Cloud

A large percentage of small-to-medium businesses struggle with unique technical and operational challenges. According to a survey by DigitalOcean, an increasing number of SMBs are migrating applications and data to the cloud. Especially with the onset of the pandemic, the need for increased flexibility, agility to scale, enhanced storage and cost-effective solutions has risen drastically. The pandemic has accelerated investment into multi-cloud disaster recovery, security audit and advanced data solutions.  

A seamless, well-thought-out migration plan is key to ensuring challenges are at a minimum. Most often, this determines your experience after the migration. Let’s take a look at some of the common challenges faced by businesses:  

IT infrastructure cost – many businesses, especially startups, are very often limited in their budgets. With few resources available, this is often a barrier to entry and can delay the migration. A transparent cloud service is thus critical to success. A survey showed startups with fewer than 100 employees spend an average of 52% on infrastructure. The cost of maintaining an IT infrastructure is a challenge for businesses.  

Increased knowledge and learning – a gap in information and knowledge tends to generate a fear of the cloud. Regular updates, new trends, an understanding of the platform makes business nervous about what’s involved. The common notion is that a lot of technical skills will be needed to maintain and manage the cloud systems. For this reason, businesses, especially startups, have started leaning towards simple, easy to use, cost-effective cloud service providers.  

Security is key – security will be the ultimate reason for migration to the cloud. With remote work here to stay, the importance of security has risen multi-fold. A large part of investment focus has been towards security measures and tighter protocols. However, security with open-source software is a critical concern. Operating system updates and firewalls has been a key focus area to ramp up security measures. 

As businesses continue to adapt to the new normal, concerns about hardware, adequate security systems and regular maintenance costs means businesses have to continue to manage IT infrastructure costs effectively. The increased awareness and popularity of cloud technology means continuous protection against future threats while also newer and effective ways to overcome the above challenges.