Corona Pandemic as Cloud Adoption Driver

Digitalization enables new business models that would not be feasible without cloud computing. But cloud migration raises questions that affect almost all divisions of the company. The use of cloud technologies is essential for a digital enterprise transformation. The COVID-19 crisis has brought the pace at which companies are cloud significantly accelerated. Many of the companies are preferring projects that are about lifting workloads to the cloud and thereby modernizing them. However, the willingness to migrate to the cloud depends on the size of the company. While large companies showed great interest and acceptance in small and medium-sized enterprises is also increasing rapidly, small companies approached the issue rather cautiously.

If workloads are to be brought to the cloud, whether in a private, public or multi-cloud, there must be real added value. Just wanting to save costs in this way is the wrong way to go. A cloud strategy often goes hand in hand with a return to the essentials: companies want to focus primarily on their core business and their further development through a cloud transformation to ensure their competitiveness and future viability. A cloud-only strategy is not a realistic option for many companies at this time. As a rule, the entire company does not go into the cloud, but individual business units used cloud services as needed. Companies are looking for a quick entry into the cloud, especially to be able to act like a speedboat in the market. In part, companies set up their own start-ups to test cloud services and agile methods and/or the DevOps approach in order to use the acquired know-how later.

Cloud Migration Hurdles

Internal resistances often turn out to be a hurdle on the way to the cloud. One explanation might be that cloud migration is a rebuild that can confuse hierarchies and create new roles. While the IT department often already works agilely or with DevOps methods, the specialist departments often adhere to the classic waterfall method. But those who work with agile methods also need a new error culture. It must be possible to try things out and, if necessary, to reject them without having any negative consequences.

Those who use cloud computing need a new mindset in terms of innovation. Experience has shown that experiments are costly, but this barrier to innovation is reduced by the cloud. It offers the opportunity to try out ideas more often and, if necessary, to discard them again. The IT organization has to do educational work in cloud transformation. It must position itself even more than before as a partner of the business as well as as a source of ideas and initiator.