Moving to the cloud is one of the most critical trends in digital transformation.
Gartner even predicts that by 2022, 90% of companies will be using cloud services. As cloud adoption becomes more prevalent, let’s take a look at why the cloud pairs so well with IT service management (ITSM).
1. Maintenance and upgrades
A
cloud-based ITSM solution (and, in particular, a multi-tenant solution) means the latest and greatest user experience is always available to users in the organization. There’s no longer a need to spend hours and extra dollars maintaining and upgrading your ITSM solution. Your vendor handles installation, testing, and rollout of new features and versions. A cutting-edge solution offers frequent enhancements throughout the year with no interruptions to the client.
2. Performance/time to value
Not only is the vendor responsible for maintaining upgrades for a cloud-based ITSM solution, but they also monitor the performance of it—reducing downtime and helping ensure applications are available to employees. It’s one less task for IT pros to worry about and gives you time back in your day to take care of more critical business needs.
3. Scalability and agility
Think of the cloud like a rubber band. If the business is small, the cloud can be shaped to fit its needs, and as the business grows, the cloud can be stretched without expensive changes to IT systems that already exist. Regardless of the size of your business, you can easily make the cloud-based ITSM solution fit its needs as it evolves.
4. Integration with on-premises technology
Legacy on-premises ITSM applications may require extensive and expensive custom-coding to integrate with other tools the business relies on. It’s also possible they won’t support the latest technology standards. But with a cloud-based service desk solution, integrating it with the rest of your IT systems and infrastructure can be more effective and efficient with its open, standard-based interfaces.
And as organizations continue to shift to
hybrid IT environments, having the flexibility to easily integrate your ITSM solution with other critical technologies can be invaluable, like on-premises
IT monitoring tools. With these two paired together, incidents can be
automated with alerts, which can speed up root-cause analysis and resolution times.
5. Collaboration with remote staff
After the rapid shift to remote work caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, employees working from home may become a new normal for
companies. This creates a great opportunity for a cloud-based ITSM solution to demonstrate its flexibility to support employees regardless of whether they’re in the office, at home, or on the go.
Service desk integrations with cloud-based
remote support tools can enable IT teams instant access to all support-related information from any internet-connected device. The user can continue working while IT pros work on incidents behind the scenes. Communication is fast, easy, and convenient—no matter where your support staff (or end users) are located.
6. Simplified IT asset tracking
Laptops, mobile devices, servers, switches, and the list goes on. Today’s IT teams are responsible for managing a seemingly never-ending list of technology assets. And with the continued shift to remote work mentioned above, those assets are no longer confined to the four walls of the business. A cloud-based solution that unifies ITSM and IT asset management can be a game-changer for IT teams.
Whether through agent-based or agentless automated discovery, IT asset lifecycles can be tracked from introduction to retirement. Provision user roles and their permission levels through cloud-based tools like
Microsoft Azure, easily
align assets with your service management processes, and view your
virtual and physical assets in a single cloud repository. Plus, when new capabilities for
discovery and relationship mapping are available, for example, IT teams can take advantage of these capabilities immediately rather than needing to install them manually. Over time, your sources for IT asset data may evolve. Choose an ITSM solution that can evolve with you.
7. Security
Security is top-of-mind for organizations of all shapes and sizes, especially if you’re considering a change in business technology. A modern, cloud-based ITSM tool can help teams
automate risk detection, easily integrate with
single sign-on applications to streamline password management, and more.
And although nothing is 100% risk-free, there are some considerations for minimizing security risk in the cloud:
- Cloud-based solutions have encrypted channels. There would be a series of protocols to follow if, for example, someone breaches an employee’s laptop.
- Cloud-based service desks have fewer access points. It's an unfortunate reality that more often than not, malware is introduced by employees who click a link on an email and unwittingly unleash a mess onto a system.
- Cloud-based systems are easier to isolate. There are more eyes looking for malicious code, more protections against it, and more at stake for everyone involved.
As with any major technology change, you should always weigh your options and evaluate your needs. IT pros should keep these
key considerations in mind when thinking about making a leap to the cloud. If you need more evidence to make the case to senior leadership about the benefits of a cloud-based service desk, read this whitepaper that outlines key questions you should consider when
evaluating service desk vendors.
