By Johan Scheepers, Commvault Systems Engineering Director for MESAT
Moving to the cloud is inevitable. Already, researchers are noting that globally organisations are committing to multi-cloud architectures. The shift is, however, daunting for many – organisations are often worried that it will be difficult to marry on premise and cloud-based operations while securing data and keeping costs down. It’s easier than they think, with a clear strategy and best practices. What’s more, there are huge benefits to be had.
There are a number of sound drivers for moving to the cloud – done correctly, it can free up on premise resources, make management easier and allow users to access and share applications and data from wherever they are. Cloud technologies and strategies help organisations improve agility, lower costs and avoid disruption in the enterprise.
The reality is that if you are not in the cloud, you are already behind. Early movers have the advantage. According to CloudHealth Technologies, Cloud leaders grow revenue 2.3 times faster and, on average, are generating a 35 percent year-over-year increase in top line revenue. They are faster and more agile, and roll out new apps and services faster. In addition, there are some non-negotiables that need to be taken into consideration: Gartner predicts that by 2019 more than 30 percent of the 100 largest vendors’ new software investments will have shifted from a cloud first to cloud-only.
So, what is holding organisations back? The issues confronting those moving their data to the cloud include security, interoperability, data analysis and portability, a lack of a management console or tools to manage data, and cost overruns.
Fundamentally, it’s about the data. Regardless of the type of cloud service you are talking about – software as a service, infrastructure as a service, platform as a service, security as a service – you are also talking about moving associated data to and from the cloud. A big part of the process, whether the focus of the organisation is backup and disaster recovery, archiving or collaborative ops, is moving data from legacy systems to the cloud, between existing and new resources, and finding ways to manage and take advantage of that data so that every user in the organisation benefits.
To move the data from legacy systems to the cloud, it needs to aligned and up to date. At a higher level though, companies also need to be aware that a cloud strategy is not just about cost savings, it’s about acceleration to revenue.
So, how do organisations get their data into the cloud? What’s the best way to build a strategy?
Building a strategy
Companies should start by understanding the workload – what systems and apps does the organisation need, what are the cloud services and tools that are needed? For example, if your organisation has app developers building custom apps and they want to be able to respond faster to requests, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) or Software as a Service (SaaS) may be the right fit. Or, if your enterprise CRM app is not delivering the reliability or innovation you need, perhaps a SaaS solution that delivers the right functionality may help. By defining your workload needs you can map your cloud strategy to a specific set of services.
Big bang won’t do
To create your business’ strategy, it’s also important to know what assets and services you have, and to understand which can or should move – and which you can begin to partially extend into the cloud. Layering and automation can help reduce complexity, assisting to move datasets to the cloud on demand and empower users. Complexity is a matter of perspective. Cloud architecture can scale seemingly magically but to do so the onus remains on organisation to map out process and focus on workloads.
Security concerns? It’s better in the cloud.
Security is still a top inhibitor but concerns are down. In fact, the thinking now is shifting to the fact that moving to the cloud can enhance the organisation’s security strategy. Today, CEOs are hugely impacted by security decisions but in the last few years we have realised as an industry that large cloud providers like Amazon and Google have so much more to invest in security. However, this must be paired with a set of secure practices in the enterprise.
Cloud will force organisations to really assess their data security profile. To embrace the cloud they will need to reassess for the cloud environment, looking at issues such as encryption of data at rest and data in flight, for example.
What expertise is needed for Cloud?
There is a lot of confusion given the relative ‘newness’ of cloud technology. Companies are treating cloud services as a commodity. These are on-demand services so the questions they need to be asking are: how do we provision for it, build it into our costing. There is a learning curve to working with the cloud.
There are a lot of online resources and certifications everywhere giving organisations the opportunity to learn about cloud solutions, and understand how to migrate app to the cloud, get the right processes in place to facilitate security, and so on. However, there are also many managed service offerings that will assist organisations and augment any lack of resources.
Public, private or hybrid cloud?
Organisations are likely to make use of a hybrid hosting strategy as they transition to the cloud, hosting some data in-house and some in the cloud – but it is a transitory state, or should be.
There are some apps that just cannot be moved yet due to security requirements or legacy issues, but this is a transitory state, or should be. Early movers are now getting the majority of their revenues from the cloud. To fully utilise cloud there should be a company mindset and leadership support for everything going to the cloud. Companies should identify workloads and move them over to the cloud, nothing should be left in the company’s datacentre if they want to take full advantage of cloud.
How do you choose a cloud provider?
Cisco predicts that by 2020, 92 percent of workloads will be processed by cloud data centres. The SLAs a cloud provider offers will be based on its capabilities, some clouds will be better suited to specific workloads. And if you are selecting a provider, note that geography also needs to be factored in to meet regulatory prescriptions. It will be important to understand types and levels of service cloud provider can add, and weigh them up against the cost structures associated with moving data between providers and the consequences in terms of workload requirements.
IT organisations are very wary of lock-in. Some may want to use more than one provider to avoid that but they should also be aware that there is an opportunity to strategically commit to one vendor and keep things simple. Netflix is a good example with its commitment to using Amazon’s cloud.
There is a lot of discussion around what is being called ‘data gravity’ – wherever you have mass of data, that’s where your apps have to be because you want fast access to the data. If lock-in is not avoidable, companies need to be thinking about how they will maximise impact and get the most out of the cloud.
Biggest mistakes when migrating to the cloud?
Two of the biggest mistakes companies make are failing to think about workloads and trying to take a big bang approach when migrating to the cloud.
When defining their 2017 cloud posture, companies should not be thinking just about reducing costs and shifting from CAPEX to OPEX expenditures; a shift to the cloud can provide an organisation with a real opportunity to accelerate the organisation, accelerate revenue, grow business, and deliver new capabilities and services rapidly. To harness the full power of cloud they need to be asking themselves: what are the real opportunities cloud creates?
The biggest mistake is definitely not taking a strategic view. In their datacentres, many companies were focussed on simply keeping lights on. This was a tactical response that did not have a positive outcome – it resulted in the proliferation of point solutions, creation of data silo and overlapping infrastructure. Organisations certainly don’t want to extend this thinking to the cloud.
Regardless of where it is, data is the company’s most important asset. Managing it well and ensuring its security it paramount. The cloud is just another place to store it and move it with ease – its needs to be seen as an extension of the business. It’s a powerful tool to protect, manage and recover data. These are all great benefits but they don’t need new policies. What is important, however, is that the data strategy be part of a larger cloud strategy – one that incorporates how the cloud can support and enable strategic business goals and grow revenue.
