LIFT YOUR BUSINESS INTO THE CLOUD

The cloud is at peak centralisation right now, as computing becomes embedded in everything and the physical and digital worlds converge, transforming how we interact with people, places, and objects.

In this summarised article, you can read more about why you should take your business to the cloud, what benefits it can bring, and what you should think about before starting your journey.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Your motivations

2. How cloud enables innovation

3. Avoid the pitfalls of cloud migration

4. The cloud in industry 4.0

5. Seven business outcomes of cloud migration

6. Selected cloud projects

Motivations for moving to the cloud

Cloud adoption is driven by various business motivations. It’s likely that several apply at the same time. We use these three categorizations as a starting point to help generate ideas about which motivations are relevant. From there, we can prioritize and assess the potential impacts of delivering on these motivations.

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1. Critical business events

Datacenter exit
Merger acquisition or divestiture
Reduction in capital expenses
End of support for mission-critical technologies
Response to regulatory compliance changes
New data sovereignty requirements
Reduction of disruptions and improvement of IT stability
Reduce carbon footprint

1. Critical business events

Datacenter exit
Merger acquisition or divestiture
Reduction in capital expenses
End of support for mission-critical technologies
Response to regulatory compliance changes
New data sovereignty requirements
Reduction of disruptions and improvement of IT stability
Reduce carbon footprint

2. Innovation

Preparation for new technical capabilities
Building new technical capabilities
Scaling to meet market demands
Scaling to meet geographic demands
Improved customer experience and engagements
Transformation of products or services
Market disruption with new products or services
Democratization and/or self-service evironments

2. Innovation

Preparation for new technical capabilities
Building new technical capabilities
Scaling to meet market demands
Scaling to meet geographic demands
Improved customer experience and engagements
Transformation of products or services
Market disruption with new products or services
Democratization and/or self-service evironments

3. Migration

Cost savings
Reduction in vendor or technical complexity
Optimization of internal operations
Increase in business agility
Preparation for new technical capabilities
Scaling to meet market demands
Scaling to meet geographic demands
Integration of complex IT portfolio

"Cloud technology is important for modern businesses because it can be used to create new commercial opportunities as it provides access to a broad spectrum of technical functionality, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and advanced data platforms."

Bjørnar Engebretsen

Director, Cloud and Application Services

Interview

Cloud technology – a requirement for innovation

Skyteknologi – en forutsetning for innovasjon

Interview

Avoid the pitfalls of cloud migration

Before you migrate your existing solution to the cloud or develop new cloud solutions, there are some things you should consider first.

Cloud is a journey, not a destination. Before you start, we recommend defining the most critical drivers for migrating to the cloud for your organisation by using this simple tool: Map your motivations. Whether it is about scaling to meet market needs, increasing profitability, reducing technical complexity, or reducing your carbon footprint – your analysis will help focus the efforts and prioritise what brings the wanted effects.

Bring together the stakeholders to make sure that the different perspectives are brought to the table. It is paramount that the tools you choose to use support the business’s requirements and are technically viable in a long-term perspective.

Organisations with rigid structures can find it challenging that introducing DevOps requires a new application platform layer that carries a new responsibility area between the application and infrastructure. It is essential to take this into account before starting the migrating process.

Cloud and DevOps bring comprehensive change throughout an organisation that can cause reallocation of power and influence, uprooting long-standing tools and retiring old processes. A lack of buy-in can drive a wrench through the entire operation. Be aware of tension and resistance. Ignoring it could cause problems.

One of the key benefits of moving to the cloud is saving costs while shifting the budget from CapEx to OpEx. However, without implementing proper controls, cloud services spending can quickly escalate.

Introducing cloud-native DevOps practices promotes rapid innovation and fuels transformation, but also introduces new potential points of failure.

Industry 4.0 – a data-driven transformation fueled by cloud technology

Industry 4.0 in short

The term ‘industry 4.0’ is used to refer to the fourth industrial revolution, which is happening at this very moment. Technology is developing at a fast pace, and the internet, manufacturing and products are merging. Physical products and processes are being connected to sensors and digitalised. Data volumes are increasing and data is being stored in the cloud, creating virtually limitless opportunities for analysis.

The sky's the limit

Cloud services have revolutionised how businesses, industry and society process and store data. Information stored in the cloud is always available everywhere, and the storage space available is virtually limitless. In a cloud-based and code-based world, work processes are far more flexible and offer much greater security via automated, encrypted and intelligent solutions. Going from being a local company to a global organisation is no longer a utopian dream, and processing power is no longer a limitation.

How the fourth industrial revolution will affect Norwegian business and industry in the years to come

Trend report: industry 4.0

How the fourth industrial revolution will affect Norwegian business and industry in the years to come

Download

7 business outcomes of cloud migration

There are many benefits when migrating to or innovating in the cloud. We have summarised the seven most important here.

New income streams, increased profitability and shift of cost (CAPEX to OPEX)

Reduced time to market, provisioning for new needs

Opportunities to quickly meet customer needs: the ability to quickly test, learn and improve.

Global, secure, high-performing infrastructure

Scalability to new markets, the cost of globalizing services is shifted to the cloud provider

Making data available and utilizing the latest tools for both storage, streaming, processing and sensemaking

Cloud processing can cut the company's climate footprint and use resources more efficiently

Selected cloud projects from Itera

Vincent van Goghs Langlois Bridge at Arles (1888) famous painting. Original from Wikimedia Commons

Project

From server to the cloud – without any downtime