How to manage cloud services

Get the best value of cloud services and manage them effectively

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Are you just starting your cloud migration or already operating in a multi-vendor cloud environment? This article gives you versatile insight and best practices of your cloud transformation and managing modern cloud services. 

Content:

Cloud benefits – value to to your business

Cloud services, or cloud computing services, such as cloud hosting, cloud infrastructure and different cloud platforms or cloud softwares are managed and used over the internet. Companies are increasingly moving their services to the cloud. Cloud platforms provide flexibility, cost-effectiveness and scalability to meet rapidly changing business needs.

Key cloud benefits for business:

  1. Cost-effectiveness: With cloud architecture, you can minimize capital expenses. You pay for capacity, no need to invest in devices or on-premise data centers.
  2. Scalability: You can easily meet the demand and scale operations according to your business and customer needs, without complex and expensive changes to your IT infrastructure. Scalability means increased flexibility and for example, ability to react to new customer needs, and significant improvement to the overall efficiency of your organisation. Scalability of cloud vs on-premises can provide a new competitive edge.
  3. Business continuity: Cloud services provide better resiliency to incidents and changes, less downtime and loss of productivity
  4. Shorter time-to-market: Flexible and cost-effective cloud services speed up innovation and creating new services
  5. Better transparency and collaboration: Easier and faster access to data and services for your personnel, partners and customers.

Cloud benefits have significant impact on business and competitiveness: both as enabling more effective operations and innovations, faster time-to-market and ability to meet changing needs, as well as helping to reduce costs. Learn more why, what and how to move to cloud and watch our webinar recording: Why cloud? or read our ultimate cloud buyer’s guide to utilise modern cloud solutions.

How to migrate to cloud – and avoid the most common pitfalls

How to migrate to cloud and how to get started? When to choose cloud vs on premises solutions? Cloud migration – moving your data and services to cloud – need careful planning to ensure ROI and to achieve the intended benefits.

Always start with a business case, focusing with business benefits and value, not with technology.

Think about the big picture:

  • Are you moving your existing resources to the cloud as they are?
  • Or should you make new cloud-native applications and systems?
  • Or both?

Cloud migration is a comprehensive transformation that also requires changes in the way your organisation works, in processes and competencies. You need a strategy and structures, such as a roadmap and governance and operating models to be able manage cloud environments and control the costs effectively. Read more about cloud migration in our experts’ interview: Migrating to the cloud isn’t difficult, but how to do it right?

More about cloud migration also in these blog posts:

Cloud Migration webinar

Three steps to good start for your cloud journey:

  1. Start with cloud strategy and a cloud governance model
  2. Choose a good partner or get the needed competence about modern cloud operation yourself
  3. Don’t try to save in migration! Make the implementation project gradual

1. Start with cloud strategy and a cloud governance model

To succeed in cloud migration, start with creating a cloud strategy and governance model. Take a very close look at things and realise that you are moving things to a new environment that functions differently from traditional data centers.

Plan how to manage, monitor and operate the cloud and what things should be considered when working with third party developers – you need to make decisions, for example, about cloud accounts, data security and access management. What kinds of guidelines and operating models should be determined in order to keep everything under control?

2. Get the needed competence – choose a suitable partner

Successful cloud transformation requires the right kind of expertise. However, traditional cloud service providers rarely have the required skills. New kinds of cloud service providers have emerged to solve this issue with a mission to help customers manage cloud transformation.

  • When you are looking for a cloud service provider demand a strong DevOps culture. It forms a good foundation for automation and development of services.
  • Check that your cloud service provider has skills in multiple platforms: AWS, Microsoft Azure and GCP are all good alternatives
  • Ask if your cloud service provider masters automatic operation and predictive analytics. These skills reduce variable costs and contribute to quick recovery from incidents.
  • Demand agile operating methods, as well as transparency and continuous development of cloud services.

3. Don’t try to save in migration! Make the implementation project gradual.

Lift & shift type transfers, i.e. moving old environments as they are, don’t necessarily generate the cost savings you are expecting. The best benefits are achieved by looking at operating models and the environment as a whole. This requires a comprehensive study of the things that should work in the cloud and how the application is integrated in other systems.

The whole environment and its dependencies should be analysed, and all services should be checked one by one. After that you plan migration, and it is time to think what things can be automated, and thus recude operational costs and improve the quality of service.

For more information, watch our webinars:

Also read a case story Case Lowell: Changing the business throug cloud migration

If adopting the public cloud raises concerns, learn how to overcome possible pitfalls and take a unique piece-by-piece approach to the cloud journey. Download the white paper: Five building blocks of modern managed cloud services

Learn more about cloud migration

Cloud platforms

Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services are the world-leading cloud services, providing versatile platforms and advanced tools to cloud-based solutions.

Our certified experts help you to choose and run the best cloud technologies and platforms. In addition to planning and implementing cloud solutions and infrastructure and operating your cloud environment, we also resell Azure, AWS and GCP cloud capacity, enabling you to focus on running your business.

We are a double certified Managed Services Provider (MSP) by Microsoft Azure and AWS. We have also been named as a Nordic Leader in Public Cloud Solutions and Services in ISG Provider Lens study.

Working with world-leading cloud platforms

Read more customer cases

How to manage cloud services

To manage cloud services can be challenging, especially when many companies already operate in multi-cloud environments. How to manage for example cloud capacity costs, cloud security, operations and development in the public cloud effectively?

If you are moving to cloud or already there, download our white paper and take a look at managed cloud services from five different angles and ensure your successful cloud journey:

  1. Proceed step-by-step
  2. Make sure software development is in your control
  3. Ensure 24/7 reliability and security
  4. Keep variable and running costs in check
  5. Select your cloud partner carefully

Solita CloudBlox® is a modular Managed Services (MSP) offering for public clouds such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

Read more about Solita CloudBlox and how Tamro, the leading service provider and distributor of pharmaceuticals and health products in Finland, and Savings Bank, Finland’s oldest banking group, improved their cloud service management with Solita CloudBlox.

Read more Five building blocks of modern managed cloud services

Read more customer cases

Cloud solutions enable utilising data and modern technology like AI and ML to value-adding services

Cloud solutions provide huge potential for creating value and utilising data and modern technology like artificial intelligence and marching learning, IoT and DevOps, in developing your business and services. Public cloud services provide flexibility and enable you to embrace the full potential of technology cost-effectively. We help you to design and implement cloud-based solutions for, for example,

  • predictive maintenance
  • optimising supply chain or
  • improving customer service and marketing effectiveness.

We help on every step of your cloud journey, read more about our services:

 

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