Big businesses everywhere are pegging their future on a cloud-first strategy, with the sudden and intense requirement for remote working and virtual platforms having played a significant role in the urgent digital transformation journey. However, reconsidering the cloud-led approach and implementing a data-first strategy instead, could fundamentally change business outcomes.
“There’s no question that data is the modern-day company’s most valuable asset; it is the very core of an organisation,” he explains. “Nevertheless, with the growth in remote working environments, data is no longer confined to the safety of on-premises infrastructure; it travels freely across many devices and between multiple locations, adding to the CIO’s pain points.
“However, for the data to deliver real business value, it needs to be mined, managed, and protected effectively.”It is important for CIOs to understand where their data lives, how it is secured, and how it is being delivered to where it is needed. According to Mahomed, it is here that organisations are finding that a purely cloud-led technology strategy is not delivering on these requirements.
“What the modern business needs is on-demand capacity that combines the flexibility and economics of the public cloud with the security and performance of on-premise IT,” he continues. “A hybrid IT model should incorporate the ideal hosting environment for data to reside within, whether on-premises, co-located or multi-cloud infrastructure. It will also consider the reliable transportation of and accessibility to data, as well as pervasive data security.