How to navigate skills gaps when optimising your cloud environment

This approach added to an already huge tech skills gap, making it at an all-time high. Early adopters of the cloud will have undoubtedly noticed that it has become increasingly difficult to source the cloud expertise needed to modernise an IT estate. According to a recent report from Cloudreach, over 70% of IT leaders say the cloud skills gap is an urgent concern. What’s more, 46% say it has slowed down their operations, with 9% saying it has posed an existential crisis to their company. From speaking with Claranet customers, many early cloud adopters are now looking to re-architect their hybrid environments. However, most are noticing that they no longer have the internal talent to support legacy cloud apps. With global spending on cloud infrastructure services reaching over $76 billion in Q1 2024, the demand for cloud expertise will only increase further. If faced with network downtime, this scarcity of cloud skills will make it challenging for companies to maintain continuity and will start to impact their ability to meet project deadlines. What’s more, inadequate expertise increases the risk of data breaches and non-compliance with regulations like GDPR and ISO 27001.

Taking back control of your cloud environment

As your company evolves, so does the technology you need to stay competitive. A cloud implementation from a couple of years ago may no longer be suitable for your business needs today. Whether you need to optimise your infrastructure on the heels of a cloud migration, a new platform adoption, a handover or organic growth, it can seem like your cloud estate has developed a life of its own. And as we know, the longer a cloud environment is left under-optimised, the more challenging it becomes to control risks. It's this lack of ownership over cloud skills that hinders so many companies from being able to futureproof their businesses – from both a revenue and a security perspective. According to Flexera’s State of the Cloud 2024 report, 84% of all organisations say managing cloud spend is a top challenge, with 81% citing security as a major concern. Under-optimised infrastructures often mean outdated disaster recovery plans. In the event of a cyberattack or system failure, businesses without a functional disaster recovery plan are at a high risk of experiencing downtime, disrupting business continuity and losing critical data. When I speak with IT leaders about optimising their cloud environment, an increasing number of them no longer have the cloud skills they need to implement infrastructure changes internally. Of course, training and development are always high on the list of priorities for IT decision-makers and employees can be upskilled to fill gaps in cloud expertise. However, as IT leaders know all too well, workloads and budgets don’t always allow for upskilling. The 2023-2024 IT Skills and Salary Report from Skillsoft reveals that 47% of IT professionals say professional development is ‘‘extremely important’’ to their careers. However, only 37% report receiving training when new technology is introduced, citing workload (46%) and lack of a training budget (35%) as the top reasons.

The five principles of a Well-Architected Framework

A lack of internal cloud skills needn’t spell disaster for companies looking to optimise their cloud environment. A Well-Architected Framework provides public cloud consumers with a set of core tools, design principles and operational methodologies to achieve a high-performing environment. The approach is based on the following five pillars:

• Reliability: Is the platform resilient, available and recoverable?
• Cost Optimisation: How can a cloud investment be used to maximum effect?
• Operational Excellence: Are workloads run and managed effectively?
• Performance Efficiency: Does resource capacity meet demand without over or under-utilisation?
• Security: What safeguards are in place to protect the cloud platform?

We use this approach to help companies close their skills gaps by assessing the reliability, cost and security of the cloud environment, helping optimise quickly and efficiently without the overhead of hiring, training and onboarding employees. For example, we helped construction company Kier move to the public cloud and modernise its infrastructure. Back in 2018, the company’s IT estate was spread across ten data centres following a number of business acquisitions. A lack of internal cloud skills made the infrastructure difficult to manage and expensive to run. The company needed technical expertise and a more manageable estate from a governance, performance and cost perspective. Early discussions with Microsoft showed that Azure would be the best fit for Kier’s long-term vision in the public cloud. Microsoft introduced Kier to Claranet, and initial scoping made it clear that the skillset from three teams working together could achieve a brand new, rapid and collaborative migration path to the public cloud with Azure VMware Solution (AVS). The result is that 640 servers and 135 applications now run on the AVS platform, and the team at Kier are using Claranet’s cloud skills to create a roadmap to further modernise at speed and become an Azure native organisation. Tony Graveney, CIO at Kier, said: ‘‘I joined Kier halfway through the migration to AVS and have been impressed with the collaboration between Claranet and the Kier teams to ensure the AVS migrations have been a success. We now consider Claranet to be part of our trusted partner network, which gives our internal IT teams the ability to access a pool of skilled resources, ranging from architecture, operational or a development service, to help accelerate new technology.’’

Schedule a Cloud Optimisation Assessment

By analysing your organisation’s current cloud skills, you can map out your existing capabilities. A detailed assessment will identify gaps in your knowledge and expertise and help you understand what specific skills are needed to optimise your cloud environment. Our Cloud Optimisation Assessment uses the guiding principles of the Well-Architected Framework to help our customers identify and address risk, find value and establish control. As a specialist cloud partner to companies across wide spread industries, we have the experts, experience and skills to support you optimisation efforts. Through a remote workshop with your stakeholders, we learn about your cloud environment, strategy and priorities, then use our expertise to provide a detailed report, highlighting the key areas to focus on, combining industry-leading best practices, the Well-Architechted Framework, and our own experience to help you find the value and get the most out of your cloud technology. Find out more and book to speak to one of experts today.