August 21, 2019 // By Magenic
In the years since cloud computing came of age, there has been a lot to learn about its benefits, and there’s been a lot to unlearn about its inefficiencies. Put simply, there have been a few fallacies that have embedded in people’s minds. Here are eight that Magenic has identified through our extensive work on cloud greenfield and migration projects and some tips on how you should think about them.
- It will be cheaper than your data center. This is often true but not always. We recommend a formal portfolio rationalization enabled by discovery and cost-management software. These tools enable organizations to predict costs and measure and adjust once deployed.
- Applications will have similar performance. Changing the environment changes how systems work. Disk IO, Network Latency, Shared Compute all influence how systems run. The only way to know is to measure a baseline (ideally over a long period) and then measure against the baseline, history, and adjust.
- The code is suitable for the cloud. Systems with their origins in client servers that process large amounts of data in big chunks may not do well in the cloud. This does not mean that you can’t do large scale data processing in the cloud, but it may have to be done differently.
- The cloud is more secure. Your organization must understand and follow the vendor’s security best practices guidance. Teams should update the security lifecycle, monitoring, and compliance programs to match the new cloud reality.
- Clouds are easier to manage. Moving to the cloud requires changes to the DevOps program to adjust to how the cloud is provisioned, monitored and managed. Effective cloud use drives organizations up the CMMI hill, which leads to a more effective IT program.
- Any application can be containerized. This is a pleasant dream but not the case. Singletons and affinity are issues. Even more importantly disposability e.g. the ability of apps to start up and shut down quickly are key.
- Basic dependencies exist and act the same. Teams are often surprised by the lack of features they have come to rely on in the data center. For those features that do exist or can be implemented they may not act the same. For example, file storage.
- Migration is easy, fast and cheap. Costs of doing the migration can be hard to estimate as can the change in the maintenance costs year-on-year. Lifting and shifting virtual machines may be cheaper than application modernization, at the cost of lower savings and limited improvements in agility and density.
Keep Your Head in The Cloud
For more information on understanding cloud mechanics, Magenic Architect Stuart Williams has created a deeper dive. Or if you’d like to learn more about our Cloud Readiness assessment and how it can provide your organization a roadmap to the cloud, click here.