The ability to move between cloud providers can be key to harnessing the cloud’s power for your organization. As a provider’s offerings and your business needs evolve, there may be compelling reasons which could cause you to consider moving your hosted applications. Envision a merger or takeover where your goal is to get all of the cloud services consolidated with a single provider. It’s a worthy objective, but is it realistic to believe that cloud instances can be truly portable?

The cloud has made advanced computing capabilities available to businesses of any size. Companies no longer need to supply their own computing platforms as they can employ the extensive resources of their chosen cloud provider. The range of cloud offerings allows small organizations to compete with their larger rivals on a more evenly constructed playing field. The cloud enables any enterprise to take advantage of techniques that may have previously been beyond the scope of their capabilities or budgets.

Microsoft is a great example of a company that has committed to green practices and being eco-friendly. They have reduced their carbon emissions by 10 metric tons and purchased new wind and solar energy. In addition to these initiatives, they have also successfully deployed environmentally friendly underwater data centers. More recently, they have announced plans to expand their cloud computing operations in Sweden.

It is easy for an enterprise to become a victim of cloud sprawl over time despite their best intentions, negating some of the cloud’s benefits. Your enterprise can be subjected to this problem gradually without anyone even noticing. We will investigate the concept of cloud sprawl and offer some remedies to combat this ailment.