Cloud computing has matured significantly in 2020 than it was the case in the past decade. This has been true in different areas such as pricing, technology and availability of many cloud options. With the increased number of players, picking the best provider has become a challenge which is hard to address because the options you choose depends on the platform and the pricing. Although initial prices are what many people focus on, there is much more in running a cloud than the subscription costs and server capacity. If organizations fail to take charge, the cost of operating cloud can spiral fast and out of control.

Before moving any service to the cloud, there is need for a deeper understanding of some aspects such as the amount of data that flow between servers and between applications, dependencies, and security, access and authentication requirements. Also, understand the services that are offered by the cloud services and the pricing models of providers.

The public cloud is one of the options that you are likely to consider when migrating. One thing you should know is that before anything, a public cloud is like an empty house that you can live in, but you must buy some utilities and install some things if your life is to be good. Unlike private clouds or on-premise services, you share many things with other organizations in the public cloud. In such a shared environment, security is an area of major concern because it is provided just for the data centre. With this in mind, be aware of the cost of running cloud applications such as network costs, firewalls time that the application will be running. Also, take into consideration the cost of migration, disaster recovery plans and staff who are needed to operate the new systems. With all these aspects, what might have appeared as a low-cost system might become too expensive for your organization.

Understanding the characteristics of your service is also crucial. This is the first step before migrating to the cloud. Ensure that you know the features and requirements of the applications that you want to migrate and their design. Although some things might be straightforward, you must always try to understand how applications function before moving them to avoid unnecessary hassles along the way. The best way you can attain this is by ensuring that your internal IT personnel classify data and ask ever department the importance of data.

It would also help if you learned how to calculate charges. Doing this will reveal additional costs for miscellaneous requirements such as IP address, data transfer costs, domain resilience and other things and add to the cost of servers and storage. Always try as much as possible to understand the additional costs and calculate whatever you believe will make migration expensive. Include things such as resilience and service recovery, that are all needed for a safe and secure data migration strategy. For unnecessary cost to be avoided, look closely at the different types of services that are in the market and match your workload and requirements with these options. Consider keeping some applications in-house if migrating to the cloud cannot change things much.

Although everyone looks for services with low cost, it is also important to also compare the quality of service with the prices. A choice might appear less costly, but the services offered may be bad and may cost you in the long run. Never overlook essential elements, such as service delivery and proper risk management strategies. You can run some services in the public cloud, while you can decide to run others on private cloud and leave others in on-premise.

As the coronavirus pandemic continues biting, many industries have suffered untold losses while some businesses have been forced to close for good. The virus has affected almost every sector leaving a trail of destruction and losses that are hard to recover any time soon. Difficult as it is for many people and industries, the pandemic has become a source of profit for others. With the technology that was already there, cloud companies are reaping big from the COVID-19 pandemic, that has forced millions of people to work remotely. The pandemic came when companies were already moving their applications and their activities to the cloud.

The economic downturns caused by the coronavirus pandemic have affected many industries, and some of them might take months or even years before they can recover. This means the budgets will have to be cut going forward as companies re-strategize. While other industries have it rough, cloud infrastructure projects, collaboration tools, and communications equipment are going the opposite direction. According to Forbes, the average cloud spending has gone up 59% from 2018 to over $73 million in 2020. With the shifting workplace preferences, companies that had not made digital transformation a priority will face a hard time. They will be in a difficult position than those who have embraced technology.