Embark on cloud transformation
Accelerate your digital transformation journey with our cloud expertise
What are the different types of cloud models, and which one is right for my business needs?

Private cloud provides computing resources exclusively to a single organisation. This offers greater control, security, and customisation than other cloud models — making it ideal for businesses with sensitive data, compliance requirements or specific performance needs.
The infrastructure can be owned, managed and operated either by the organisation or by a third party.
Public cloud is a cloud computing model in which a third-party provider offers computing resources – such as servers, storage, and applications – over the internet. Public cloud services are generally available to all types of customers, and these customers pay only for the resources they consume.
Public cloud is ideal for businesses that have fluctuating demands for their computing resources, as they can easily scale up or down as needed. It is also a good option for businesses that do not want to invest in their own IT infrastructures.
Hybrid cloud combines public cloud and private cloud resources. Allowing businesses to take advantage of the benefits of both public and private cloud, hybrid cloud makes it possible to move workloads between these clouds models as needed.
For example, a business might use public cloud for non-sensitive workloads, whilst choosing private cloud for sensitive workloads that require greater security and control.
To determine which cloud model is right for your business needs, consider factors such as data sensitivity, compliance requirements, performance needs and budget. Contact us if you need expert assistance identifying your organisation’s requirements.
Hover over the symbols to find out more information on the types of hybrid cloud models
Leverage expertise for a smooth journey
Enable flexible solutions
Adapt your infrastructure to changing business requirements by harnessing scalability and pay-per-use cost models
Automate standard (manual) processes
Streamline workflows and improve operational efficiency with automation tools offered by cloud providers
Prioritise modernisation
Take advantage of advanced capabilities within the cloud to drive innovation and improve customer experience
Leverage predictable and robust solutions
Rely on the cloud’s high availability and built-in business continuity measures to reduce your risk of downtime
A hybrid cloud approach to cloud transformation
Embarking on your cloud transformation is a crucial step towards modernising your IT infrastructure and gaining a competitive edge. With a hybrid cloud approach – which combines on-premises infrastructure, public cloud and/or private cloud environments – you can improve scalability, flexibility and cost-effectiveness faster and more securely.
By leveraging a hybrid cloud strategy, your organisation can optimise workload placement, ensure data compliance and enable seamless integration between on-premises and cloud-based resources.
At Proact, we can help you evaluate your business needs, assess the risks and challenges, and choose the right hybrid cloud solution to achieve a successful cloud transformation.
Why embark on a cloud transformation journey?
Most organisations already use at least one cloud service. But only a small portion of them leverage cloud as a major component of their infrastructure to enable them to stay competitive and agile in the market.
If done right, your cloud transformation has the potential to become much more than a typical IT project. Instead, it can have positive effects throughout the organisation — enabling you to:
Increase your cybersecurity defences throughout the organisation
Improve customer service by better responding to shifts in demand
Meet the needs of all users
Improve collaboration and communication throughout the organisation
Decrease IT overall costs
Eliminate expensive excess capacity
Ensure IT costs are predictable
Provide a future-proof, secure solution
If you’re looking to stay competitive and innovative in today’s digital age, then cloud transformation can be a game-changer for your business. By migrating your applications, data and infrastructure to the cloud, you can leverage its benefits such as scalability, cost savings, improved collaboration and increased security.
With careful planning, evaluation and execution, embarking on a cloud transformation journey can help you accelerate your digital transformation and drive growth, innovation and agility — ultimately enabling you to stay ahead of the competition.
How we help you start or continue
your cloud transformation journey
As a first step, we’ll help you identify and outline your organisation’s goals and develop a high-level plan outlining solutions that will enable you to reach them.
Next, we’ll evaluate your existing infrastructure, workloads and processes to identify opportunities for improvement in the cloud. We’ll also evaluate your security, compliance and governance requirements.
In the planning phase, we’ll work closely with you to determine a cloud migration plan, including timelines, resources and budgets.
Upon completion of the previous steps, we’ll help ensure your IT environment is ready for a cloud migration. While doing so, we’ll help with →
by maintaining your cloud environment to ensure it remains secure, available and scalable.
your applications and infrastructure by leveraging cloud-native technologies to improve agility and reduce costs.
by exploring and implementing new technologies to enable quicker innovation and release cycles.
Why choose Proact as your partner?
We have over 30 years of experience and successful completion of over 4,000 projects, making us ideally prepared to help your organisation ensure a smooth transition. Our consultants will work closely with you to understand how your business works to ensure successful adoption, minimise disruption and maximise the benefits of your cloud transformation.
Learn how our customers have leveraged cloud solutions for their infrastructure, workspace and backup needs. Contact us today to book your cloud readiness assessment and let us help you see what the cloud can do for your business.
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Here’s a collection of key characteristics we think you should contemplate before letting a cloud partner become part of your future.
FAQs about beginning your cloud journey
Choosing the right cloud service provider is a critical decision for any business. The right provider can help your business achieve its goals, while the wrong provider can lead to security breaches, downtime and other issues. Here are some factors to consider when choosing a cloud service provider:
- Security: Ensure that the provider has robust security measures in place, such as encryption, access controls and threat detection.
- Reliability: Any cloud service provider you choose to work with should have a track record of reliability and uptime. This is critical, because downtime can have a significant impact on your business operations.
- Scalability: Your cloud service provider should be able to scale its services to meet your business needs. This is important because your business requirements may change over time, and you need a provider that help you adjust accordingly.
- Cost: The provider’s pricing must be transparent, with no hidden fees.
- Support: Does the cloud service provider offer reliable, responsive support?
- Compliance: If your business operates in a regulated industry, you need to ensure that the cloud service provider is compliant with the relevant regulations.
- Vendor lock-in: Make sure the cloud service provider doesn’t lock you into their platform or technology. This is important because you may want to switch providers in the future, and you don’t want to be locked into a particular vendor.
The main costs associated with moving to or operating within the cloud can be broken down into four main categories:
- Migration: The cost of moving your applications, workloads and data to the cloud. This includes the cost of re-architecting your applications and testing them in the cloud environment.
- Training: The cost of training your IT staff and end users in the new cloud environment.
- Integration: The cost of integrating your cloud environment with your existing on-premises systems and applications.
- Support: The ongoing cost of maintaining and supporting your cloud environment, including monitoring, troubleshooting and security.
- Start small: Start with a pilot project or a smaller workload to test the waters and assess the costs and benefits of cloud transformation.
- Plan carefully: Develop a detailed plan for cloud transformation, including timelines, budgets and resource requirements. This can help you avoid unexpected costs and delays.
- Choose the right cloud service provider: Choose a cloud service provider that offers transparent pricing and cost management tools to help you optimise your costs.
- Reuse existing resources: Reuse existing resources, such as licenses, hardware and software, if you can. This helps you avoid unnecessary costs and reduce waste.
- Automate where possible: Use automation tools to streamline your cloud operations and reduce the need for manual intervention. This can help you save on IT staff costs.
- Monitor and optimise: Use cost management tools to monitor your usage and identify cost optimisation opportunities. Regularly review and optimise your cloud environment to ensure that you’re getting the most out of your investment.
Migrating existing applications and data to the cloud can be a complex process, which must be done with careful planning and execution. This is why we recommend working with a partner from the very start, as they will have performed many migrations before and know through experience which best practices to follow. Contact us for migration support if you think your organisation might not be able to manage all the below steps on your own:
- Assess your current environment before starting the migration process to determine which applications and data should be migrated to the cloud. Consider the current usage, security, performance and compliance requirements.
- Design your cloud architecture to meet your business requirements and take advantage of your cloud service provider’s capabilities. This includes determining which cloud services to use, how to configure your virtual machines and how to secure your environment.
- Prepare your applications and data to make sure they are ready for the cloud environment. This includes ensuring that they are compatible with the cloud platform, optimising their performance and addressing any security concerns.
- Perform the migration. Depending on your requirements and the cloud service provider, this can be done through several methods, such as lift and shift, re-platforming or refactoring.
- Test and validate your applications and data after the migration is complete to ensure they are working as expected in the cloud environment. This includes load testing, security testing and user acceptance testing.
- Optimise and refine your cloud environment to ensure that it meets your ongoing requirements. This includes configuring auto-scaling, monitoring your usage and performance and optimising your costs.
This is best left to an expert, as they will have the insights and experience to set up the necessary steps outlined below.
- Design for high availability: This can include using load balancing, redundant servers and automatic failover mechanisms.
- Optimise for performance by using best practices such as caching, compression and content delivery networks (CDNs). Use cloud provider-specific services, such as Amazon CloudFront, Azure CDN or Google Cloud CDN, to improve performance and latency.
- Monitor performance with cloud provider-specific monitoring tools, such as Amazon CloudWatch, Azure Monitor or Google Cloud Monitoring, to track the performance of your applications and data. Set up alerts for specific thresholds to be notified of potential performance issues.
- Manage your cloud resources efficiently to ensure optimal performance. This includes managing CPU, memory and disk utilisation and scaling resources up or down based on usage patterns.
- Test and optimise your applications and data regularly. Use tools like Apache JMeter, LoadRunneror Gatling to simulate high-traffic scenarios and test the scalability of your applications and data.
- Use distributed architectures, such as microservices, to reduce the impact of a single point of failure and improve availability and performance. This allows you to isolate components and scale them independently.
- Implement security best practices to ensure that your applications and data are protected from cyber threats. Use tools like AWS WAF, Azure Security Center or Google Cloud Armor to monitor and prevent security breaches.
The most common attacks associated with cloud computing are:
- Data breaches can occur when unauthorised users gain access to sensitive information stored in the cloud. This can happen due to weak passwords, unpatched software vulnerabilities or insider threats.
- Malware attacks can infect cloud infrastructure and compromise the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data. Malware can spread through phishing emails, unpatched software vulnerabilities or infected software.
- Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks overload cloud servers with traffic, making them inaccessible to legitimate users. This can happen due to vulnerabilities in the cloud infrastructure, unsecured APIs or compromised credentials.
The risk of these threats can vary depending on the type of cloud model. Still, there are some common best practices for mitigating the damage they are able to cause:
- Encrypting sensitive data before storing it in the cloud can help protect it from unauthorised access.
- Implementing strict access controls, such as multi-factor authentication, can help prevent unauthorised access to the cloud.
- Regularly patching software vulnerabilities and keeping software up to date can help prevent malware attacks.
- Monitoring cloud infrastructure for suspicious activity can help detect and prevent insider threats.
- Implementing DDoS protection measures, such as firewalls and intrusion prevention systems, can help prevent DDoS attacks.
- Regularly conducting security assessments can help identify vulnerabilities in cloud infrastructure and ensure that security measures are effective.
Implementing all of the elements above can be a lot to handle for a company whose core business isn’t IT security. Learn more about outsourcing your security to ensure you’re optimally defending against threats.
This is highly dependent on the industry and/or location of your business. Nevertheless, here are some useful guidelines to help your organisation remain compliant:
- Choose a cloud service provider that is compliant with the relevant regulations and standards for your industry.
- Understand the regulations that apply to your business and how they apply to cloud computing. Work with legal and compliance experts to ensure that you are meeting all of the requirements.
- Perform a risk assessment to identify potential compliance risks related to cloud computing. This includes identifying data protection, privacy and security risks.
- Develop a compliance plan that outlines the steps you will take to meet regulatory requirements. This should include security controls, data management policies and data breach notification procedures.
- Implement security controls to protect your data and ensure regulatory compliance. This includes encryption, access controls and monitoring/ logging user activity.
- Monitor compliance with regulatory requirements and audit your cloud service provider’s compliance regularly. Use tools like AWS Config, Azure Policy or Google Cloud Security Command Center to monitor compliance and identify potential compliance issues.
- Train your staff on compliance policies and procedures related to cloud computing. This includes training on data protection, privacy and security policies.
This depends on the service level agreement (SLA) your organisation has with your provider and which cloud services you are using. Here’s a general overview of the types of support available:
- Technical support: Cloud service providers offer technical support to help you troubleshoot and resolve technical issues related to their services. This may include online chat, phone support, email support or ticketing systems.
- Training materials: Many cloud service providers offer training materials, such as online courses, videos, documentation and tutorials, to help you learn how to use their services effectively. Some providers also offer certification programs for their cloud services.
- Professional Services: Cloud service providers may offer professional services to help you migrate to the cloud, optimise your cloud resources or provide customised solutions for your business needs.
- Community support: Some cloud service providers have active user communities where users can share best practices, ask questions and get support from other users and experts.
- Consulting services: Some cloud service providers offer consulting services to help you with specific cloud projects, such as migrating to the cloud, building a cloud-native application or managing cloud security.
- Account management: Cloud service providers typically offer account management services to help you manage your account and billing, as well as to provide guidance and advice on your cloud usage.
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