Enterprises pursue cloud investments because they are key to supporting and expediting broad business objectives such as improving customer experiences and productivity. In a rush to realize organization-wide benefits, there are common cloud technology mistakes that tend to surface. Here are six that can make for a rocky start to cloud migration:
Seeing Cloud as One-Option-Fits-All: “Moving to the cloud” is a general concept that has a lot of variations, from private to public and hybrid environments. Every different cloud setting and provider has a set of services that will also have corresponding performance and cost levels that need to be considered. The right cloud solution for your organization depends on your infrastructure, your budget, and what you want to achieve.
Ignoring Performance: Each cloud provider will offer different levels of performance for any application, and that same provider’s performance will vary across regions. This is dependent on how your enterprise utilizes the provider’s services and infrastructure. All of these factors impact performance, and it’s your responsibility to determine what performance level you require.
Play Mix-and-Match With Applications and Infrastructure: No cloud provider is operating system-agnostic. If your infrastructure is dependent on a particular platform, choose your public cloud accordingly. Some legacy systems are not supported by certain cloud providers, so do some serious research before you jump in with any provider.
Worry About Total Cost of Ownership Later: The amount of resources consumed with any provider differs based on the application stack. Data storage has different power and compute requirements than a graphics program. Make sure you thoroughly analyze your costs. Many enterprises sell their leadership on cloud investments largely based on cost savings, so make sure you know the true cost of your migration.
Not Researching SLAs: Service level agreements (SLAs) become more important as more of your workloads are placed in the cloud. Find out what level of performance and downtime standards the provider guarantees, as well as what the impact is if they don’t meet these requirements.
Not Prioritizing Security Concerns: It’s important to confirm that your provider takes a similar approach to security that your in-house security team embraces. It’s common for enterprises to see the security policy as a shared responsibility, but the enterprise owns the data and puts its network and systems at risk when they partner with a provider who doesn’t share their conservative approach. Talk with the provider about compliance, as well as what kinds of disaster recovery plans they have in place.
With most of these mistakes, there’s an underlying theme. Most missteps in cloud migration come down to a lack of planning. Contact us at Cloud Source for assistance in avoiding common cloud technology mistakes as you plan your migration. You’ll get all the benefits and minimize the headaches that come with a shift to the cloud.