Cloud computing has been one of the biggest trends of 2016 and with trends comes a lot of hype – whether that be good or bad. Rumors and myths are bound to pop up, especially with cloud computing since it’s such a new concept to the general public.
But when it comes to excelling in business, myths can easily slow us down and prevent us from moving business forward, thus scaring us and distracting us from real progress and outcomes. For this reason, it’s important that CIO’s steer clear of myths that could cloud their judgement, especially when it comes to the cloud.
Gartner came out with a list of cloud myths that all CIO’s should look out for. Three of them are explained below:
Myth #1: “The CEO Said So” Is a Cloud Strategy
When organizations adopt a cloud platform, many state that they don’t have a specific strategy behind it because they only implemented it due to orders from their CEO. Quite often the CEO claims the cloud as the strategy without it being connected to an actual business goal.
The cloud is never the strategy. A cloud strategy starts with specifying business goals and figuring out specific ways your organization can benefit from the cloud. The cloud should be thought of as a means to an end and the end result should be distinguished before the cloud platform is even implemented.
Myth #2: The Cloud Is Less Secure Than On-Premises Capabilities
This rumor was created due to a trust issue rather than justifiable facts. The truth is, there have been very few security breaches in the public cloud, but many in on-premise data centers. To learn more about cloud solutions for disaster recovery, check out our solution summary.
Don’t assume cloud providers aren’t secure, but also don’t assume they are. When cloud providers demonstrate their capabilities, there’s no reason to assume they’re wrong. It’s important to assess both your capabilities and the capabilities of your cloud provider and hold both accountable. Assuming on-premises capabilities are more secure can lead to a false sense of security.
Myth #3: The Cloud Should Completely Replace Data Centers
Most cloud decisions are not (and should not be) about completely shutting down data centers and moving everything to the cloud. Sometimes, some data is just better off outside of the cloud, and you need to have a data center for those things. In general, data center outsourcing, data center modernization and data center strategies are not synonymous with the cloud.
Don’t take the “all or nothing” approach. Instead, make cloud decisions on a workload-by-workload basis and link the cloud and data center strategies together.
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