Come live in the cloud!
TIL Friday: Why are we not embracing cloud-hosted services?
I spoke to someone at Atlassian the other day who said to me: "Kevin, if our customers are not predominantly cloud-based customers in the next 5 years, we won't have a business"
I was really shocked when I heard this! I mean sure, cloud is the future of course, but 5 years?? The majority of clients whom I work with, including all government accounts, host locally on-prem. And they are comfortable doing so! If you look at these organisation's tech road map, cloud is certainly not the top priority. (Containers and Kubernetes first!)
SO why are our organisations so slow to adopting cloud?
I mean the more I think about it the more I realise how right Atlassian is to be pro cloud... Cloud is so much better. So why are we not converting?
The answer I keep getting over and over again, especially in a government context, is a folded armed, stern-faced: for security and data sovereignty reasons. And that's it. Conversation over... No ifs or buts...
BUT!!!!
We need to talk about this! Because Atlassian is right! Cloud is a really good solution for all of us. And saying "security and data sovereignty reasons" to end the conversation is not the solution.
Here are 3 reasons why you should embrace cloud-hosted services:
- I argue that cloud-hosted services have better security than your on-prem system - especially when it comes to something as large and as reputable as Atlassian. The Service Level Agreement you get with Atlassian is pretty much a guarantee that they are going to be on-it-like-a-hawk to ensure that you have high availability All. The. Time. It's their main job. You might have a great team who can react to bugs quickly, but when critical security breaches occur, you do not want to be rebooting your systems on the weekend. Why not let them worry about it. And they do a good job at it!
- Data sovereignty is not a deal-breaker anymore either! Sure, Atlassian don't have a product offering for you yet, but there are other options... You can insist on specific geographical hosting in AWS and Azure for instance. We can (and do) host your Atlassian "Server" or "Data Centre" licences for you in a guaranteed Australian based data centre so that you can have your sovereignty AND the cloud experience within your organisation.
- It's cheaper! Sooo much cheaper. Buying hardware is as bad an investment as buying a brand new car off the lot. By the time you turn it on and hear it humming away, it's out of date... At least you can sell your car. Seriously though, erase your operating system overhead! No more hardware, installation, dependencies, maintenance, support, patching... And besides, you still pay for server licences on top of that anyway.
So next time you are talking to a security person within your organisation who furrows their brow, folds their arms and tries to shut down your cloud aspirations with: "security and data sovereignty reasons" - dig a little deeper.
Why? Because life is bliss in the cloud - bliss, cheaper and safer.
Have a great weekend!
As always, feel free to comment, like, share - or if you have a question, get in touch!
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