Top 10 Cloud Computing Best Practices Need to Know in 2025

Do you use Gmail or Outlook for email services? Did you ever think about how those online email services store and process tons of your emails without using many resources from your device? You log on to the email applications through a web browser and do all sorts of operations as if those applications are on your device, right? Your accessing application over the internet is cloud computing. Cloud computing delivers computing resources like hardware, software, networks, databases, specialized services like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and quantum computing, etc., on-demand over the Internet (“The Cloud”). 

Cloud computing provides numerous advantages, including scalability, adaptability, cost efficiency, and enhanced teamwork, to name a few. While eliminating the need for large upfront investments in hardware and software, organizations can easily scale up or down their resources based on their needs, paying only for what they use. Organizations must adopt the cloud model and follow cloud computing best practices to ensure agility, mitigate cloud security threats, and quickly adapt to today's fast-changing market conditions and business opportunities.

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What Are Cloud Best Practices?

Business models that follow cloud computing practices have many benefits we discussed previously. Organizations must adhere to cloud computing best practices for optimal integration to the cloud and ensure smooth cloud adoption. Cloud computing best practices are the set of industry-standard rules, guidelines, and recommendations for effectively utilizing cloud computing resources. These practices help organizations maximize the benefits of cloud computing while ensuring security, reliability, and cost optimization. 

Why Should I Follow Cloud Best Practices?

With so many benefits of the cloud computing model, organizations look to adopt it as quickly as possible. While adopting a cloud model is a good move (possibly, a game-changer), its implementation and maintenance are complex. I have seen organizations exposing many security vulnerabilities, incurring high costs, and facing many other challenges while undergoing cloud adoption. Organizations must religiously follow the best practices of cloud computing religiously to ensure the following aspects for smooth cloud adoption and build a sustainable cloud model.

1. Security

Cloud computing security best practices help organizations ensure the security of their systems and data in the cloud. By following these best practices, organizations can protect sensitive information from unauthorized access or security breaches by implementing robust security measures such as encryption and strong authentication mechanisms.

2. Performance and Scalability

Performance and scalability best practices help organizations ensure that their cloud applications and services run smoothly, and scale as required. A robust cloud implementation adjusts the computing resources dynamically based on demand and optimizes application performance by distributing workloads across multiple cloud instances or regions. For more information on regions in cloud computing, see the multi-cloud blog that provides informative resources on three major cloud computing players—Amazon (AWS), Microsoft (Azure), and Google (GCP).

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3. Reliability

By following the best practices of cloud computing, organizations can build cloud-based applications that scale automatically and thus avoid application downtime to provide a reliable user experience.

4. Cost Optimization

Implementing cost optimization best practices helps organizations to manage their cloud resources effectively and minimize unnecessary expenses. Regular resource usage and cost-monitoring tools like Amazon CloudWatch and Microsoft Cost Management can optimize cloud spending and avoid unnecessary costs.

5. Backup and Disaster Recovery

Backups and disaster recovery best practices help organizations ensure business continuity when their primary systems face unexpected outages. Disaster recovery (DR) strategies ensure data protection and efficient recovery. Regularly backing up data, replicating across multiple regions, and testing recovery procedures minimizes downtime and helps to maintain business continuity.

6. Vendor Management

Good business relationships with cloud service providers (CSP) help organizations stay informed about competitive cloud offerings in the market. This approach helps organizations make informed and appropriate decisions on which services to use and how to optimize costs. Regularly evaluating cloud models and service level agreements (SLA) ensures that organizations get the best value from the cloud.

7. Compliances and Governance

Following the governance and compliance best practices help organizations meet industry regulations and standards. Organizations can ensure compliance with regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS by defining clear procedures and policies for accessing control and using resources.

8. Skill Development

Skill development programs for employees ensure they get expertized in effectively managing and optimizing cloud resources. Staying updated with industry trends and emerging technologies related to cloud computing helps your organization to be competitive, and the percentage of taking advantage of new opportunities increases.

9. Efficiency and Automation

Best practices of automation and orchestration help organizations streamline their cloud operations and improve efficiency. By leveraging automation tools and infrastructure as code practices, organizations can configure and manage cloud resources more efficiently in less time and can reduce manual errors.

10. Data Governance

Establishing data governance best practices help organizations to define data ownership, access control, and data lifecycle management in the cloud. These best practices also help implement data classification, loss prevention, and encryption mechanisms to protect sensitive information.

11. Monitoring and Logging

Implementing these best practices help develop comprehensive monitoring and logging solutions to track performance and detect real-time anomalies. Use cloud-native monitoring tools or third-party solutions to gain visibility into resource utilization, application performance, and security events. Some of the best Cloud Monitoring tools are well articulated by Netapp. 

Top 10 Cloud Computing Best Practices

There are many cloud computing practices that organizations can avail for successful cloud adoption and reap the long-term benefits of cloud computing. However, the following ten best practices of cloud computing reinforce your cloud strategy to use the cloud resources effectively and align with the evolving business needs and emerging cloud technologies.

1. Start With an End-to-End Assessment

End-to-end assessment is a comprehensive evaluation of a process or system from beginning to end. It involves examining all the steps, components, and interactions involved in a process or a system to identify any areas of improvement. In the context of the cloud, an end-to-end assessment involves evaluating all the aspects of the implementation process, from goal setting and stakeholder involvement to training and ongoing monitoring.

2. Adopt a Cloud-Based Service Business Model

Adopt cloud computing as a service model to deliver software, infrastructure, or platform solutions. This model allows organizations to access and use these resources on demand without the physical infrastructure or upfront investment. This model enables organizations to capitalize on the expertise and infrastructure of cloud service providers responsible for managing and maintaining the underlying technology. This approach frees up internal resources and allows organizations to focus on their core business objectives.

3. Devise an All-Encompassing Adoption Strategy

Define objectives and articulate the goals of adopting a cloud-based service. Evaluate your existing IT infrastructure and identify areas to capitalize on. Choose the right service delivery model (software as a service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), or Platform as a service (PaaS)) according to the demand. Stay informed about the CSPs' new features and capabilities and explore opportunities for further optimization and innovation. Consider the overall impact the cloud adoption would render on your business, governance, security, and daily operations.

4. Educate and Train Resources as Early as Possible

Educating and training employees about cloud based as a service in the adoption process is important. This approach helps them to understand the benefits, proper usage, and potential challenges of using cloud-based services. It also helps foster a culture of continuous learning and innovation, as employees are more likely to explore new technologies and opportunities enabled by the cloud.

5. Choose the Right Model.

Organizations must carefully evaluate their business goals, IT infrastructure, and budget constraints to determine the best cloud model that would suit them. When adopting a cloud-based service model, choosing the right model that aligns with the organization’s specific needs and requirements is crucial. For example, the SaaS model suits organizations looking for ready-to-use software applications. At the same time, the PaaS model is preferred by those needing a platform to develop and deploy their applications.

6. Plan and Follow a Cloud Governance Framework

A cloud governance framework is essential to ensure the effective and secure use of cloud services. It involves establishing policies, procedures, and controls to guide an organization's adoption, implementation, and management of cloud-based services.

7. Select a Single Workload

Moving all your workloads to the Cloud outright can be tempting because the risks and costs of moving otherwise are high. However, it is wise to start small by moving a single business function that could benefit the most to the cloud. When the effectiveness is visible, gradually move the other business functions to expand the cloud. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are good examples of a single workload managed within a cloud governance framework. A CRM system helps manage organization’s interactions and customer relationships. By managing the CRM system within a cloud governance framework, organizations can ensure customer data is securely stored and managed, meet compliance requirements, and train employees for proper usage. This approach will enable them to use the CRM system effectively to improve customer relationships and drive business growth.

8. Automate As Much as Possible

Organizations can automate various processes and tasks to enhance the management of their cloud infrastructure within a cloud governance framework. By automating every possible process, organizations can reduce manual work and effort. Automation can free up their resources, helping them to focus more on minimizing disruption and driving innovations.

9. Leverage the Services of an Experienced Partner

Organizations can benefit from partnering with a cloud service provider or a managed service provider (MSP) with expertise in cloud computing. These partners can provide support, guidance, and specialized tools to automate processes and tasks effectively. They can also assist in implementing best practices and ensuring compliance with industry standards. Working with an experienced partner can help organizations optimize their cloud infrastructure and achieve better results.

10. Monitor and Optimize

Monitor the performance of cloud-based services regularly and continuously to ensure they meet the organization’s requirements. Regularly review the usage patterns, cost, and service level agreements to identify optimization and cost-saving opportunities.

 What are the Key Security Considerations for Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing poses many challenges—security being the major challenge. The entire cloud implementation and maintenance process is complex and therefore demands meticulous planning at each stage. Before implementing a cloud strategy, you must contemplate the following key security considerations for cloud computing.

• Data Protection: Ensure that sensitive data is properly encrypted both in transit and at rest and implement strong access controls to prevent unauthorized access.
• Identity and Access Management: Implement strong authentication mechanisms such as multi-factor authentication and closely managing user access rights to prevent unauthorized access to the cloud.
• Data Separation: Ensure that data from different customers is properly segregated within the cloud environment to prevent unauthorized access or data leakage.
• Service Level Agreements (SLAs): Review and understand the security provisions outlined in service-level agreements with cloud service providers, including data availability, integrity, and confidentiality guarantees.
• Data Backup and Recovery: Implement regular data backups and test the restore process to ensure the data is recoverable during a disaster or data loss.
• Vendor Security: Evaluate the security practices and certificates of the cloud service providers, including their physical security measures, data backup and recovery processes, and incident response capabilities.
• Compliance and Legal Issues: Understand and comply with relevant regulations and industry standards such as GDPR or HIPPA and ensure that data stored in the cloud meets legal requirements.

 Epilogue

Cloud computing has revolutionized the way of businesses and how individuals store access, and process data. It offers numerous benefits, including scalability, cost-effectiveness, flexibility, and improved collaboration. With cloud computing, organizations can focus on their core competencies while leaving the infrastructure management to the cloud service providers. However, it also comes with potential challenges, such as security risks, data privacy concerns, and dependency on internet connectivity. Overall, cloud computing is a powerful technology that has transformed the IT landscape and continues to drive innovation and efficiency in various industries. With KnowledgeHut’s Best Cloud Computing Courses, learn how to grow your cloud computing skills and professional career effectively.