Cloud deployment is in a critical period. The entire process must be highly agile and seamlessly integrated into the existing architecture to create a platform that allows users to access your services on demand.

Since technology is constantly developing, you also need to keep track of the latest innovations to make your cloud deployment strategy successful. To stay informed about recent developments, these are the top five cloud deployment best practices for IT enterprises in 2018 you should look out for.

1. Creating Agile Environments with DevOps

In 2018, an increasing number of enterprises are turning to DevOps as their go-to model for making their cloud operations more efficient from development to deployment. The consolidation of hybrid multi-cloud models with DevOps is from the growing need to create more agile infrastructures and processes.

The main advantage of DevOps is the ability it gives developers to minimize building time and release code updates faster, which is the result of the direct feedback loop. The immediate feedback loop enables a higher quality flow of data between the cloud’s data center and the cloud management architecture, which improves the performance of developers.

If an enterprise is set to deploy a genuinely agile cloud environment, DevOps can achieve it more efficiently. And ultimately, agile delivery during the operations stage and collaborative improvement during development will allow greater and continuous scalability.

2. Creating a Defined Deployment Process

A significant aspect of the latest digital transformation and networking models is the application of mechanisms that improve the success of the deployment.

A well-defined deployment process involves careful planning, running scripts, finding deployment targets, doing deployment tests, and monitoring analytics to evaluate progress. After the infrastructure is deployed, users need to remember to conduct deployment verification.

Defining the deployment process also involves tracking resources according to pre-determined factors, like cost centers or app IDs, which enables users to build them into the process and makes it easier to fit the required data all at once.

It’s difficult to automate a process that has not first been defined. 

With precisely a defined strategy in place, development teams can ensure maximum efficiency of both development and operations.

3. Adoption of Cloud Automation Processes and Tools

Cloud automation is fast-becoming the new norm when trying to enhance the performance and agility of development teams. One of the ways an IT enterprise can make the best use of extreme automation is by establishing Infrastructure as Code (IaC), which allows developers to have immutable infrastructures that are simply and easy to replicate.

Typically, cloud platforms would systematically uncover and arrange compute resources into a data pool, which allows users to deploy greater resources without the need to determine their physical location in data centers. Cloud automation processes then use these resources to configure container networking items, VMs, storage LUNs, and virtual private networks.

With cloud automation tools and processes in place, developers can quickly release updates when problems with security tools occur to resolve those different anomalies.

4. Security Built-Ins During Deployment

Protecting sensitive information has always been at the forefront of cloud infrastructure, and enterprises remain reliant on software-defined security services (S-DSS) to safeguard data flow. Moreover, It is clear for most companies that this model of security is becoming less sustainable. They see how it isn’t cost-efficient to add in security on top of existing models, once the cloud deploys.

However, over the past year, a high number of companies is turning to built-in security measures to improve data-protection on the cloud. It has allowed CIOs to create easy-to-follow security standards that developers can enforce during the deployment of multi-cloud infrastructure.

5. Applying Kaizen with SDI

Kaizen (meaning Continuous Improvement) is a methodology imported during the 1950s from Japan and has been successfully implemented in various industries (most notably manufacturing) as a way of Lean Thinking.

Kaizen’s four-step method (plan-do-check-act) has been challenging to implement in the IT sector for some companies. CIOs have realized an easy approach to incorporate sustainable improvement inside their organization is through software-defined infrastructure (SDI).

CIOs and team managers can automate standardized processes. These are then iteratively improved each time a new IT asset rolls out, and without the need for their direct supervision.

Although it has caused, a significant shift in company culture for many organizations, kaizen in IT has also made development teams more agile and efficient. It has drastically improved cloud deployment in 2018.

Want to Learn About Other Best Practices in 2018?

Find out more about the different digital transformations occurring in technology and the IT organizational skills required to manage those new transitions at the ONUG Fall 2018 Event in New York City. The event will cover tech innovations such as cybersecurity, hybrid-multi clouds, machine learning, AI, automated and software-driven infrastructure, and much more.

The stories you hear from tech experts from Verizon, Juniper Networks, Morgan Stanley, FedEx, and NYU will help you incorporate best practices into your enterprise this year. Register now and attend the most highly anticipated tech event of the season.