Now that you have a strong understanding of business mobility, Week 3 of Citrix’s Business Bootcamp looks up to the cloud
You’ve decided to move your business to the cloud – many of you I’m sure have taken some tentative steps – but what next?
If IT isn’t your area of expertise, Citrix understands that re-thinking the way you operate can be a daunting process. What data should you host, what market offerings are the best, and how can you be sure that your corporate information will be safe in this new environment?
For all businesses these concerns are normal, but it’s important to remember the value is not about where the workloads are located. Rather, to run your business effectively, applications, data and mobility need to just work.
It’s therefore critical you address any up-front concerns you might have, which is why your first port of call on your cloud journey should be to one of your trusted IT partners or providers. Experts in managing and building IT platforms, your chosen channel partner or vendor can advise on the best cloud solution to help grow your business, as well as the types of data and applications you should move online.
Unify your Cloud Workspace
So, you’ve selected and rolled-out the cloud services you need to run your business. You’ve deployed Office 365 from Microsoft, some finance software from MYOB, and Citrix XenDesktop. You’re good to go in the cloud, right?
While it’s great to see SMBs assembling cloud platforms with the services they need, what use are the systems if they’re working in isolation from one another? It creates a clunky and complex IT environment – the exact opposite of what cloud is meant to be. It’s no surprise that – according to Telstra – three-quarters of businesses would rather procure all cloud services from a single provider due to the complexities created by using multiple vendors.
To overcome this, you should look to deploy cloud based platforms able to integrate various business applications running online, such as Citrix Workspace Cloud, so that they can be managed from one central control centre.
Additionally, as cloud services become more specialised there is much value to be had from selecting platforms built for specific needs. For instance, ‘Workspace-as-a-Service’ is designed to support business mobility strategies by delivering secure remote access to corporate applications, data and IT tools from any device or location.
This unified and specialised approach to cloud management helps accelerate the design, building, and delivery of all cloud services so that benefits can be rapidly realised. Likewise, the reduced complexity of the IT environment helps lower costs, increases business agility and ability to respond to market changes, and gives more control so that you can implement on your terms and at your pace.
Similarly, you should look to implement a gateway technology which provides access to all of your services from a single interface. This means you won’t have to run multiple systems simultaneously, which can have a negative impact on application speed and performance.
Make the Most of it
With aspects of your business residing online, you will benefit greatly from technology enabling you to optimise, secure and control the delivery of cloud services. Application visibility solutions, like Citrix NetScaler, are ideal for this. They allow you to monitor the performance of your applications running in the cloud, and to act accordingly upon any issues that occur. This ensures cloud offerings are optimised for success, delivering a positive user experience and maintaining the highest levels of employee productivity and customer satisfaction.
To give an example, if you’re a retailer set to launch a new campaign online, chances are you can expect sudden traffic spikes to your site. This places increased demand on your IT network, slowing it down and impacting the overall experience. With technology such as NetScaler, you can better monitor the performance of the applications responsible for your online site, maintain performances through any pressure points.
Fine-Tuned for Success
While the cloud has many benefits, Citrix acknowledges that you might want to keep some of your IT assets on-premises – or perhaps regularly transfer it between the two. As such, the final step of moving your business to the cloud should be to deploy solutions allowing you to securely bridge your on-premises network with your cloud services. This allows you to make the public cloud an extension of the internal network so that you can seamlessly work across both. For instance, some applications might perform better in an on-premises environment, but if you’re working remotely and need to use this tool you can still do so with a bridging solution.
Get Cloud Right
If done right, cloud has the potential to provide your business with agility helping it reach new heights. If done wrong, it’s likely to result in poor use of resources, a complex IT environment that is difficult to control, and which offers limited performance. Be sure to get it right by making the most of solutions helping you better control and optimise each aspect of your new business environment.
About the Author:
David Manu, Sales Manager, Citrix Cloud Platforms ANZ.
Citrix Bootcamp:
