Cloud adoption is proliferating across the business world. 

It has redefined the possibilities of enterprise IT infrastructure and business processes, and is fast becoming a mainstay in enterprises.

This is happening because of the progressive nature and core capabilities of cloud IT systems defined by their flexibility, scalability and pay-per-usage model, which cannot be matched by enterprise IT systems. 

Cloud has given enterprises a simple and scalable platform that’s easy to manage. 

Cloud Adoption in Mid-sized Enterprises

Cloud has enabled mid-sized enterprises to concentrate on essential business events without bothering about IT infrastructure. Benefits also include unlimited computing power, easy access to data and applications, lower IT expenditure and competitive advantage. 

A 2019 survey by Flexera on cloud computing trends in enterprises shows enterprises leaning towards multi-cloud frameworks to run their IT programs. It also showed that 94% of respondents were using the cloud. 

Among that, 91% were using public cloud frameworks. Among the major public cloud service providers, Azure was seen to lead as the public cloud framework provider for enterprises, catching up quickly with leading AWS. 

Why are Mid-sized Enterprises Adopting Cloud?

There are several reasons for enterprises to adopt cloud. Broadly, they are:

Agility: Mid-sized enterprises move to the cloud because of simplicity and improved speed of processes. Cloud enables platforms for faster development that provide rapid elasticity and agility in processes.  

Cost: Enterprises have seen a huge reduction in license and service costs by adopting cloud services when compared with legacy systems.

Mobility: Cloud is self-configurable and ubiquitous, enabling employees to work at any place, at any time, and on any device.

Productivity: Being able to manage work from anywhere, faster executions made possible by the cloud has made employees and teams more productive. 

How Can Mid-sized Businesses Thrive in a Cloud-first Model

You’ve lifted your IT systems from the legacy architecture. Now you’re on the cloud. 

What’s next?

You’ll need to drive maximum value from the new system. So, how can you get started?

Focus on cost optimization: All legacy applications migrated to the public cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS) framework will need to be optimized for efficiency and delivery. This is done to ensure they are cost-effective with passing time. 

As cloud service providers continue to strengthen native optimization capacities, enterprises must identify the most cost-effective architecture on which they can deliver the required performance. 

Mid-sized enterprises must recognize the need for optimization as an integral part of cloud migration projects. They should develop skills and processes early on, develop tools to analyze operational data and identify cost optimization opportunities to make use of processes in the new environment. 

Build on IaaS skills: Building cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS) skills will decide whether or not your cloud migration project will face a delay. 

Train resources to focus on modernization and refactoring rather than lift and shift, so that your enterprise has trained and certified people in native-cloud skills for successfully completing migration projects and running your systems effectively on the new framework.

Multi-cloud strategies: Adopting multi-cloud strategies can enable enterprises to reduce vendor lock-in and mitigate service disruption risks. Enable a framework that adopts the best practices from multiple vendors and deliver your solutions in the best way to your customers. 

Building for the Future of Cloud

Mid-sized enterprises need to look at ways in which cloud and the trends around cloud can benefit them. By analyzing current trends from data, enterprises must grasp insights, work on identifying the best solutions and prepare their infrastructure for the future of cloud.