What is cloud?
"use other's resources on the internet"
Resources could be:
Application
Compute : CPU/Memory(storage)
Server : Virtual Machine
Network : Virtual Private Network
Database : MySQL, Oracle, Microsoft SQL
Three types of cloud computing services:
- Infrastructure as a service:
virtual servers, storage, networking resources are provide and manage by service provider
- Platform as a service :
service provider gives cloud environment where user can develop, manage and deliver their applications.
- Software as a service :
which provides applications to the end user.
Things to consider before migrating to the cloud
There are multiple items to be considered from a very high level, it should be asking three questions - WHY? WHAT? HOW? And WHO?
Why? - Why do we want to migrate ?
- Initial Phase to understand the Business model and Data
What? - What to Migrate?
- Application? Environment? Critical Workload? Infrastructure requirements.
How? - How to migrate?
Plan for migration
High level Planning is required.
Who? - Who will need to migrate
Team, governance,resource, partners,Tools
Why migrate?
Migrating to the cloud has numerous benefits:
It gives you the flexibility of scaling up(scalability) as your business grows and that too without much capital spends.
You can avoid large upfront investments in data backup and disaster recovery.
It allows you to work from anywhere, collaboration becomes easy.
Cloud gives access to enterprise-class technology for everyone and gives Small and Midium size Business a competitive advantage.
Things in consideration
- Cloud environments
you want to go for a public, private, or hybrid cloud environment.
Public cloud solutions are managed by third-party vendors and are better suitable for Small and Midium size Enterprice. for example: Netflix Cloud provider: AWS eBay Cloud provider: Google Cloud
Private cloud platforms give you more control over your environment and security but require you to maintain your own servers. for large scale and long term private cloud should be beneficial.
for example: Financial sectors,IBM
Hybrid cloud environment, you get the best of both worlds.
for example: Flipkart uses public Cloud to improve its overall customer service. Flipkart has their own servers. They use VPS servers to host their website. They have their own servers, which are spread out across 35 data centers in India. They use a combination of physical and virtual servers, depending on the needs of their business.
Community Cloud, which is use by a group of consumers from different organisations who shares same type of resources and information.
for example: Federal agencies
- Costs & Return
One of the most important points to consider before migrating to the cloud is the costs involved and the return from this migration.
capital expenditure should be calculated as per requirements ** For instance,** -if your migration cost follow the pay-as-you-go method the cost should be low. -if your migration costs include hardware, software, resources, support, disaster recovery, and fault tolerance the cost would be high.
Capital expenditure would be less on the cloud as compared to on-premise so the return from cloud migration is higher.
- Business Goals
Before making any important decision, the first consideration is what business goals would be achieved by it.
- Security
Before deciding upon a cloud provider and a cloud deployment model, consider the security aspect. security is their main concern in adopting a cloud computing strategy. Though cloud providers have strict security frameworks in place, moving your valuable data from your premises to cloud servers is daunting. check all the security measures and backup plans by your cloud provider.
- Compliance
Different companies or countries have different regulations when it comes to data storage and usage.
Some governments require that certain types of data are kept within their borders while some data can’t be put on the cloud at all.
Before making the move,one should know which of your data can be put on the cloud.
For instance:
The guidelines from government on contractual terms related to cloud services said since the goverment data can be located in one or more place but it should be stored physically in that country only. sensitive kind of data like contry's security related data can not put on virtual cloud. if it may leak it can compromise contry's security.
- Backup and Disaster Recovery
To ensure business continuity, lay out the backup and disaster recovery plan before migrating to the cloud. -What would be the strategy to face downtime or disaster? -How would you come out of the disaster crisis?
To sum up, Migrating to the cloud needs a deep analysis before choosing the type of cloud and the cloud provider. It is a long-term decision and has company-wide implications. This means one should take the decision with all the aspects into consideration.