Today’s CIOs and IT professionals have a never-ending list of functions–keeping the company’s IT infrastructure up and running smoothly, ensuring data is secure and backed up, driving innovation and value into the business, and delivering on the constant drive to contain costs.

Now, with the emergence of cloud-based services, we can also add “the move to cloud” to this list of imperatives. The cloud is impacting every aspect of the business world and acting as a catalyst to drive transformative change on digital strategies. There are many reasons to move to the cloud, but this undertaking shouldn’t be viewed as a task to simply check off the list. Rather, organizations that are making the transition to cloud technology must have a solid strategy for delivering IT value that directly impacts business outcomes.

Before starting on their cloud journey, IT professionals are using cloud assessments as a critical tool to rationalize investments in cloud.  Cloud assessments have become efficient enablers of analytic decision making over the years and agents for accelerating value to enterprises and SMBs. For example, assessments allow the IT team to understand their existing environment as a whole and make educated choices to improve agility and resource utilization. They can also help chart a course to public, private or hybrid cloud models, creating scenarios based on each offering while also analyzing technology stacks, security gaps and total cost of ownership.

A successful cloud migration undoubtedly requires tremendous effort, and having a trusted partner is key. Organizations should look for partners that can provide them with information around various scenarios, case studies and even financing options for cloud assessments and infrastructure. Once a partner is selected, below are some factors to consider in the cloud enablement roadmap.

Ultimately, cloud assessments are helping CIOs and IT professionals build the correct tactical steps to identify the right workloads and applications to move to the cloud, while making the migration as smooth as possible. Channel partners that successfully integrate consultative services like cloud assessments into their overall suite of capabilities as trusted advisors can bring significant value to IT decision makers along this journey.

If you’re interested in learning more about how assessments can help end customers maximize cloud offerings, I encourage you to reach out to our Arrow ECS Cloud Services team at [email protected] or (877) 558-6677 for additional information. Cloud assessments are vital components of a successful cloud deployment, and we are committed to helping our VAR partners enable customers’ success.

When it comes to utilizing important tools such as cloud assessments to build successful cloud platforms, I am reminded of a quote from Brian Kelly, CEO of CloudGenera:

“Become a cloud catalyst, not a cloud road block.” 

Together, we can create the cloud ecosystem of tomorrow.

Steve Robinson is Global VP, Arrow Cloud.