Working from home becoming the new normal as the pandemic, many organization leaders are finding their office buildings to be somewhat unnecessary, at least until the vaccination against the virus is widely distributed. And in these times the cloud is playing an essential role in IT importance. It became crucial for many companies to provide IT infrastructure as there was a substantial increase in the number of the businesses operating from their employees’ home. Cloud migration had to happen quickly and at a large scale so that the companies could cope up with the increased pressure on IT infrastructure. So it was very important for the businesses to ensure they have correct IT operations.
From building large private clouds to moving everything to the cloud can be called as cloud projects, moving applications to the cloud can be called the start of the cloud journey.
Giuseppe Paterio , an IT infrastructure Architect and Security expert shares some strong points which might help in delivering successful cloud projects. By following these , the companies can produce right solution to the projects.
As most open source products can be automated it makes them portable and easy to use. So using open source and open standards as much as possible in the applications is the first point. While choosing a data base as a service , making sure it runs on protocols such as MySQL or Postgres as this helps to export the data and Import somewhere else. It also provides more security , less vendor lock-ins and a better profitability across the systems.
To ensure high security standards moving the collaborations such as mail, documents , VoIP, drive sync to the cloud services is a good step as it also reduces the overall cost of ownership. Only use SaaS products if they are helping you reduce cost. Checking the prices and fine printing before buying providers which will allow to export the data in an open format. Whereas the applications with rigid hardware integrations or with high confidential data will remain off line.
It is a common misinterpretation that the complicated things will have more benefits and might give better solutions. Many applications are complex but they fail in giving better solutions instead make things more complex as over engineering will always create solutions that also difficult to manage. So its better not to fall into the temptation of making things more complicated.
To have the freedom of choice , using the open source and open standards for data is the next step as it will also help in avoiding lock-ins too. To create a process for quick transfer of the applications , using containers to distribute and run the applications along with automation systems makes it easier to move applications across the cloud systems or back on premises. If the application cannot be re-engineered , the lifting and shifting the virtual machines ( VMs ) with legacy workloads to an infrastructure as a software should help. Understanding the uptime requirement of an application can help save money to the companies- Not paying for services that are not needed. Many basic SLAs services work for most of the internal applications.
The networks which are crossed public or semipublic should not be trusted. As there is no clear divides nowadays , between an internal office network and the internet. In many companies the office network is just a transit network which can be said a slightly more secure than a home network. Applying protection walls as closely as possible to the applications is the next crucial step , since the traditional firewalls are no longer effective.
Keep multiple back ups or replicas off the cloud data in an open format which will allow to rebuild the infrastructure easily. Following these steps can help the companies have successful projects and payoffs.
