The question of whether cloud computing is an advantageous way for businesses to optimise costs and become more agile is no longer up for debate.

Yet leveraging the cloud to the greatest effect, and maximising return on investment, is more complicated than merely making the decision to opt into cloud computing. The cloud can take many forms – from public and private to hybrid and multi-cloud. Some clouds are delivered as managed services, while others offer infrastructure, often combined with services on top. Clouds can be constructed using a diverse range of technologies, including bare metal servers, virtual machines, application containers, system containers and more, whilst many organisations use multiple types of clouds and cloud services at the same time – known as a multi-cloud strategy.