3 steps toward cloud adoption

Last week, David Linthicum wrote a column for InfoWorld where he laid out three changes enterprises adopting the cloud must make. According to Linthicum, companies moving into the cloud realm must change their skill sets and  development processes, as well as the technology they employ. Keeping those in mind, any company can be successful in the cloud. Unfortunately, it’s easy to get hung up on the common threads that run between them—time, money and effort.

It’s also on that point that I have to disagree with Linthicum. In fact, I think he has his steps backwards. If you start with the right technology, it’s really not that hard to start using the cloud, and there is no reason you can’t start reaping the benefits of the cloud now.

1.  Get the right technology

Any company looking at the cloud needs to first come up with a plan, and that plan starts with finding the right tools for the job. The problem is that there are just so many tools out there, and so many ways to implement a cloud strategy.

When it comes down to it, any server space that you can access over a network can be considered a “cloud.” But a bunch of files thrown on a hard drive is hardly a user-friendly system, and will do nothing to make your business more agile. That’s why IaaS, SaaS and PaaS offerings are so important to a proper implementation of the cloud. PaaS is of particular importance because it exists as a layer over the other two, providing an attractive, easy to use platform that lets everyone in the organization leverage the full power of your cloud.

2. Develop new processes

New processes are bound to emerge just as a result of adopting new technology, but that transition doesn’t need to be difficult. PaaS offerings like Progress® Pacific™ and Modulus tend to focus on providing a user-friendly experience. This means they immediately lend themselves to low-code and DevOps approaches to application development.

It is also possible for Pacific to be deployed not only on public clouds, but private and hybrid clouds as well. You can deploy on your own internal network at the start, and then gradually move into an off-premise solution as your organization acclimates to the cloud. Again, with the right tools for the job, cloud adoption is no problem at all.

3. Utilize existing skill sets with the new ones

Here’s where I really differ from Linthicum. He claims that an entirely new set of skills is required to be successful in the cloud—that a major cultural shift needs to happen. I’m under the impression that with a PaaS that implements a graphical rapid application development environment, you’re only making the skill set already present that much more valuable.

Products like Progress® Rollbase®, which is a part of Pacific, make it easy for everyone to get involved in the app development process, even if they have no prior coding experience. Rather than upending your whole business and bringing in new people who can work with the cloud, you’re just making the skills of departments like sales or marketing, which previously might have been siloed away from developers, available to the entire organization through the great apps they create and the expertise they have spent so long developing.

So it really isn't hard to get to the cloud, you just need to have the right tools for the job.