What is cloud enablement?

Cloud enablement is the process of analyzing an organization’s existing landscape, then architecting, deploying and operating a portion of or its entire in-house IT infrastructure, software and resources to either a public, private or hybrid cloud environment. A cloud enablement initiative can encompass migrating servers, operating system, databases, business applications and more to the cloud.

What are the business benefits of cloud enablement?

The business benefits of cloud enablement include:

• Cost-effectiveness. Reduced upfront costs of investing in facilities, utilities, hardware and licensing. Pay-as-you-go model allows an organization to pay for only the computing resources it uses.  
• Scalability. Complete control over infrastructure and the ability to scale IT resources up and down depending on business demands.
• Speed of innovation. The agility to respond swiftly to market needs by rolling out new products or services.
• Accessibility. Access to cloud-based applications and data from virtually any device by connecting to the internet.
• High availability. Most cloud providers provide highly reliable services, with up to 99.99% uptime.

What is a proven successful approach to cloud enablement in a post-pandemic world?

A 30-day cloud accelerator program to navigate the disruption should include the following considerations:

• Respond: Disruptions caused by the pandemic are forcing organizations across the globe to reexamine business continuity measures that minimize customer impact while keeping employees safe. Enterprises need to meet the expectations of an increasingly dispersed workforce and customer base.
• Recover: The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the shortcomings of on-premises infrastructure and legacy applications. Organizations have struggled with critical application failure and data center outages due to sudden spikes in demand. Cloud can help organizations build highly available, scalable, resilient IT infrastructure that can handle variable demand while reducing operating costs.
• Reimagine: The post-pandemic world will see accelerated adoption of digital technologies across all walks of life, changing the way businesses operate and redefining how companies engage with employees and customers. Cloud adoption will help organizations build new and flexible operating models to compete in this new normal by aligning modernization initiatives across platforms, applications and data.

Are there real-world examples of organizations that have derived business benefits from cloud enablement?

Here are just a couple:

• A U.S.-based sports retailer faced challenges in modernizing its ecommerce portal due to the age and rigidity of the underlying infrastructure. They transitioned their portal to a cloud-native architecture that delivers high availability and resiliency with a state-of-the-art hybrid cloud architecture. As a result, the retailer was able to handle a 33% increase in online traffic during peak seasons.
• A global mass media publishing and entertainment company wanted to consolidate its data center locations for 19 business units across North America and the U.K. to reduce costs and improve performance. First they assessed suitability and conducted a migration feasibility analysis for 1,800 applications across 19 business units and 25 locations in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. Then they migrated over 200 applications and 2,000 virtual machines to a cloud-based platform. It resulted in a 25% reduction in their data center footprint.