For many years we’ve been hyped with the cloud generation of computing with the likes of giants such as Amazon, Microsoft, VMware and Oracle to name a few in the ring. But moving entirely to the cloud has some considerations to take into account and a Cloud Risk Assessment is to be conducted to analyse the possible risks you may be placing your data in. On the up side cloud reduces internal costs, internal resources providing companies with better efficiency and flexibility to maintain data usage loads and scalability.
All these factors give the cloud experience two faces to trust, trust in the cloud provider entirely or trust in your IT department to maintain the cloud infrastructure. Responsibility of maintaining databases and applications should remain internal and not be handed off to the cloud provider. Both Platforms and Infrastructure should be maintained by oversight using cloud monitoring tools into the cloud provider’s network.
Previously you owned your own gear and now it’s for hire on a subscription basis, and because that’s the case, a vigilant eye needs to be across the rented gear.
Some cloud considerations that may affect performance include:
- Resource Pool Sharing
- Bandwidth Sharing
- Cloud Security
- Data Privacy
- Data Retention
- Data Storage Location
- Software Licensing
- Application Compatibility
- Cloud Provider Service levels
Our recommendations:
- A thorough review of the cloud provider’s contractual agreements
- Cloud monitoring tools to be deployed (if not yet done so)
- Deploy a Cloud Portfolio Management tool which is considered as the single pane view of glass which monitors all the hosted cloud networks your company uses e.g. RightScale
Author: Tony Shen