Posted on August 7, 2020
Cloud
Private cloud computing is one of the latest IT buzzwords in circulation. However, if you overlook key points in planning migration to one – your shiny, new rollout can turn into a digital disaster.
Today, nearly every organization uses some form of cloud service. The technology offers benefits to all kinds of organizations, both small and large.
However, what if you make private cloud mistakes?
• What if you’re running an application that isn’t ready for cloud deployment?
• What if you have too many resources tied up in managing your data center and not enough available for the deployment?
• Is the cloud secure?
• Can the service provider guarantee uptime?
These concerns and others prevent many decision-makers from making a move to the cloud, and for a good reason.
A disastrous move to the cloud can hurt your company and your brand. In a worst-case scenario, it can result in your organization shuttering their doors.
Learn about private cloud mistakes for IT managers to avoid by continuing to read.
Transformations in cloud computing are moving at a breakneck pace. They’re difficult to follow and impossible to predict.
Currently, the cloud computing vertical is entering a phase of standardization. Cloud-based solutions are now compatible with nearly every major technology.
On-premise, private and public cloud infrastructure has escaped the bubbles of siloed business units. What’s more, workflows are on the move. Today, employees can take data streams and workloads on the road using mobile devices.
Thanks to this standardization, IT professionals can focus on new opportunities, such as application processes, AI deployment and performance computing.
An NCC Group study reveals that 83% of enterprises have experienced the negative consequences of a third-party cloud service provider failure. These failures include incidents such as downtime to providers going out of business completely.
These incidents resulted in poor customer satisfaction, monetary losses, brand damage – and in some cases – even regulatory breaches.
For example, a UK mobile network crashed in 2018. During that event, 30 million subscribers lost mobile service. For more than two days, subscribers could not make calls or access the internet.
Resultantly, the company lost customers and face. The incident was more than an inconvenience – it was catastrophic.
Another firm – a large travel agency – suffered a network outage. As a result, the company could not gather and disseminate critical load weight information for flights. This missing information placed the crew and passengers in grave danger.
The following ten tips may help you to avoid these kinds of catastrophic failures.
Not all applications are ready for the cloud. It’s not a good idea to move your entire infrastructure off-site at the same time. Nevertheless, that’s just what many organizations do.
This risky practice is a huge mistake. Some applications are complex and require a moderately paced, well thought out migration.
Others run on legacy systems that may not work on a cloud platform. These problems create common IT issues that make them unsuitable candidates for cloud deployment.
You must have a well thought out and documented use case for your migration. Developing a well thought out plan is the only way to enjoy the full benefits of private clouds.
This point applies to whether you’re going to build a new custom cloud application or move your existing apps to the cloud. Either way, you must conduct a comprehensive analysis and streamline the migration process.
Cloud services offer enhanced security. However, security is only as strong as its weakest link.
Hackers will take advantage of any opportunity to compromise your network. If you don’t plan the migration from a security-first perspective, you can get caught with your digital pants down. Any breach, no matter how minor, can do a lot of damage.
This point is especially relevant when handling sensitive information. For example, if your enterprise is in the financial or medical verticals, a cyber breach can result in heavy fines and other problems.
A failure to understand security is a grievous oversight. Before the deployment, for example, you should know and sign off on the security provisions outlined in the service level agreement.
Things go wrong. As with any other aspect in life, IT architecture and cloud servers can fail. Accordingly, you must plan for failure.
Designing for failure encompasses establishing safety nets that will help you recover from outages with as little damage as possible. By planning for failure, you can create an ideal fault-tolerant architecture for your cloud-based services.
The cloud will not magically solve all of your organization’s technology issues. Firstly, not every application will migrate to the cloud effectively. For example, an app that you set up one time and have seldom changed most likely will not migrate well.
Alternatively, some applications are ideal for cloud migration. For example, your organization may have applications that run for short periods.
These applications create occasional traffic spikes. They also generate very little data that you’ll need to migrate.
You know about the greatness of the cloud, but does everyone else? Just because you understand the potential of cloud services, that doesn’t mean that everyone else gets it.
Alternatively, you may find yourself up against key staff members or decision-makers who’ve already decided that they don’t like the cloud. No matter what, you must prepare yourself for pushback against the migration. At worst, you may have to go up against active opposition to the move.
Never fall victim to the idea that the cloud will provide quantum leaps in productivity and connectivity while you barely lift a finger. Like anything else worth doing, it takes work – real work.
For example, you must ensure that the migration aligns with the needs of all department heads. Department heads need tools that will help their teams flourish – and it’s your job to show them that cloud services are up to the task. If you fail to deliver in this area, you could face the risk of a catastrophic rollout.
Furthermore, your IT team needs to understand the needs of various business units. Ultimately, they must serve as internal partners to ensure that everyone gets just what they need.
Do you know what your cloud service provider is doing? If not, you have a problem.
Also, even though you’re migrating to a private cloud, you can still establish access controls. Limiting access to information is essential for safeguarding the security of proprietary data.
Private doesn’t always mean private when it comes to private clouds. For example, a service provider may use a single VM instance for multiple customers. By sharing resources in this way, the service provider is co-mingling data.
Of course, your data will remain inaccessible to the public. However, a truly private cloud will ensure the full control and security of your enterprise information.
Now, you’re ready to deploy. You’ve made your plans, and everything is ready to go.
All that’s left is to figure out what to do with those old virtual machines. All you have to do is decommission them, right? Not so fast.
If you don’t know who owns a virtual machine, you may want to think twice before taking one down. In practice, most admins will not deprovision a VM if they don’t know who owns it, and with good reason.
For instance, sunsetting a VIPs data – no matter how infrequently they access it – can result in career suicide. Accordingly, you’ll need the right tools to identify zombies and other virtual machines that no one has accessed for a specified period.
Bad things can happen when companies move their full operating environment to the cloud too fast. In some cases, for instance, they forget about the consumer-facing side of the network.
Resource intensive enterprise applications don’t always work well over the internet. As you well know, customers have limited patience.
If your consumer applications lag, most of them will move on to your competitor. Accordingly, you need to make sure to put performance monitoring and management solutions in place for your entire network – both private and public – before making a move to the cloud.
If you’re not 100% sure about what you’re doing when moving to the cloud, you could end up making private cloud mistakes that will cause your deployment to fail miserably. Why take the chance?
Instead, it makes sense to partner with an IT solutions provider that can help you do the job right the first time. By partnering with a skilled and experienced cloud service provider, you can avoid making a catastrophic mistake while transitioning services to the cloud.
You can find a great cloud service provider by asking peers in the IT industry for references and reviews. Their opinions will help you narrow down your options for clouds.
A failed cloud deployment can kill mission-critical IT services such as application development, data security and CRM services. Today, it’s hard to hold on to loyal customers and even harder to find new ones. Accordingly, you need every advantage available when incorporating new technology.
Net Depot knows how important it is to protect your proprietary information. We have helped enterprises develop strategic infrastructure solutions for more than two decades. Our solutions help businesses maximize productivity and enhance security.
You can sleep better at night when you know that you’ve trusted your cloud migration to accompany with a track record like Net Depot. Contact us today to learn how to execute a successful deployment that will help your organization meet its needs now – and in the future.