Capturing the Cloud: Making this IT Environment Work for You

July 21, 2021

Colocation and connectivity are two essential pillars of a successful digital business strategy. Both are instrumental in establishing advantages of agility, seamless data management, ease of digital transformation, speed and reliability. Still, true stability and competitiveness in our global digital economy can’t stand on these two legs alone. Enter cloud — the third ‘C’ in the innovative enterprise’s trifecta of IT tools.

The cloud is an asset that has become invaluable to organizations of all shapes, sizes and specialities for its ability to deliver scalability, flexibility and beyond — but not all businesses truly understand what the cloud is. Most know that the cloud has become a force for digital transformation, but knowing how to build and execute the right adoption strategy can be a major hurdle.

While becoming increasingly essential for forward-thinking organizations, it’s important to note that these IT environments are not fool-proof. To get started on the right foot, having the necessary insight is crucial.

Defining and Demystifying

When one hears the term ‘cloud’, it can be easy to conjure up an image of an amorphous, intangible idea rather than a concrete, equipment-based strategy like any other IT solution. This misconception can be where lackluster results get their start. Without bringing the idea of the cloud back down to earth, enterprises can get waylaid by uncertainty or become spread too thin without a targeted game plan.

Here’s the truth: Cloud computing is simply an array of services and software applications that are accessed over the internet, all of which offer some major benefits. Despite the huge value at hand, the data stored or replicated in the cloud isn’t floating out there in the atmosphere — it’s in servers and data centers.

Cloud adoption can take several forms: private, public and hybrid. Each is slightly different and offers unique advantages depending on the business requirement. With a private environment (which utilizes on-premises infrastructure), enterprises can maximize security, for instance, by leveraging their own computing resources. This also adds flexibility — the organization can create a fully customized environment that works best for them. However, managing this infrastructure internally adds a lot of strain, and the cost of scaling that solution can quickly get out of hand. Public clouds — which use servers and infrastructure procured from a third-party provider — lower costs and avoid in-house maintenance while offering an expanding set of tools and near unlimited scalability.

Here’s where it gets complex. As workloads diversify and new capabilities are added to an organization’s IT portfolio, more and more enterprises are creating multi-cloud frameworks that allow them to pick and choose environments across public and private spheres for their data according to need. This helps capture diverse advantages, but it also creates complexity that can sink the cloud adoption plan if not managed correctly.

The key to leveraging the ideal solution comes down to taking stock of business priorities and goals, understanding what individual workloads require and navigating the transitions accordingly. In essence, adoption becomes a two-pronged challenge — deciding on the right framework is one half, building those environments (and the access to and from them) is the other. This process will be executed differently for each unique business, but as cloud computing grows more complex, there is one consideration that is becoming standard: The need for a digital transformation partner.

What Does A Great Cloud Adoption Strategy Need?

Enterprises looking to adopt or enhance their cloud strategy need a partner that can deliver the right insight and the right infrastructure — and not just any provider or data center will do. End-to-end capabilities from a single source provider are what today’s business requires. Access to colocation, connectivity, cloud and extensive expertise (all in one place) streamlines consumption, making it easier than ever to reap the benefits of a full-fledged IT strategy in both the planning and utilization phases.

This is why TELEHOUSE America delivers the robust data centers organizations need as their gateway to the cloud with the unique added connectivity benefits of easy access to its NYIIX peering exchange — one of the largest neutral exchanges in the world. That’s not all, though. We also offer easy access to the technical expertise, implementation services and ongoing support organizations need to begin or accelerate their cloud journey with major providers like Microsoft and Amazon. As the enterprise’s strategic gateway to digital transformation, this is simplicity and power, all wrapped up into one.

Great news — to help you get started, we’re currently offering new tenants two free months of colocation at our Staten Island data center. Contact us here to learn more.

To learn more about our cloud adoption solutions, please visit kddiacloud.