A recent JP Morgan report, “CIO Survey Foreshadows Changing of the Guard” revealed that enterprise IT is shifting their workloads to the public cloud in rising numbers with a whopping 41% of enterprise applications projected to be in the public cloud by 2020. The IT department and data centers as we know it are changing. Hybrid IT and hybrid cloud are the reality for companies of all sizes and as such, there are a few things you must consider as you incorporate public cloud into your IT mix:

1. Security – The public cloud has come incredibly far since its start, but security of information stored in the public cloud is still a top concern. All public clouds have shared infrastructure and as such, IT pros need to ensure they have firewalls in place and lock down their API request permissions. Additionally, there will be information and applications that just do not make sense to store in the public cloud. Finding the right mix for optimal security is key to any public cloud deployment.
2. Backups and Disaster Recovery – The big name public clouds offer backups, storage, and the like on their platform to allow for instant recovery, but what happens if that service is hacked, offline or an admin accidentally deletes it? While not common, these things can happen and your business is at risk. Diversification in your disaster recovery plan (be it virtual or physical) is an excellent complement to your public cloud deployment.
3. Latency Between Environments – So, you’re using the public cloud for marketing and project management applications, but finance applications and some internal sensitive data still must be hosted in a private cloud and even on your owned servers. Latency is a huge factor for user dissatisfaction and the more hops it takes to get between applications, the worse the experience. Reduce latency by hosting your collocated servers or private cloud in data centers that are directly connected to your public cloud.

The cloud can be a very valuable addition to your IT mix, allowing you to increase your IT department’s flexibility and ability to scale at a greatly reduced cost. Moving forward into the public cloud is an inevitability for many companies, but it must be done in a strategic way, partnered with other data center services such as private cloud and colocation deployments. Want to speak to an expert in architecting your IT environment? Contact us  or sign up to start a free hybrid assessment today.