The Key to Successful Long-Term Cloud Plans

Many organizations had to quickly transition to cloud computing infrastructure in order to support remote operations. Now, they should be thinking about their long-term plans.

The rapid adoption of cloud services without upfront planning can lead to budget overruns and management challenges. A more lasting approach to the cloud requires organizations to plan properly, exercise caution, and develop a clear strategy. An excellent starting point is a cloud assessment.

A good assessment will give organizations a realistic view of both the likely benefits and potential pitfalls of cloud migration. The process will require a thorough evaluation of the current IT infrastructure, application portfolio, and cloud services to determine what workloads are good fits for cloud deployment. An assessment will also help determine which deployment models are most suitable, and identify ways to optimize the existing cloud environment. 

Rahi helps customers complete a rigorous assessment process to prepare for cloud migrations and determine if cloud workloads are meeting strategic objectives. Here are a few considerations we help customers address:

Application Requirements. In the cloud, applications typically link with other cloud-based applications to deliver functionality. Given this interdependence, organizations must understand how the app handles data requests, how data is exchanged, and how much data users can access. A profile of an application’s data usage is also important to rightsizing the app in the cloud. This typically involves profiling an app to collect information about CPU and memory usage, storage throughput and latency, and network connection frequency.

Risk Factors. Most organizations have concerns about moving sensitive data to a multitenant environment such as a public cloud. It is important to evaluate how cloud providers segment their shared environment to prevent customer overlap. Other risk factors can influence how — or if — an application should be migrated. For example, some mission-critical legacy apps based on older operating systems and hardware may not be appropriate for the cloud because they require significant re-engineering. 

Management Issues. Cloud vendors typically do not provide administrative support. Organizations need to have the technical expertise in-house to design the right solution or seek the services of an outside provider. They should define what level of management their applications require and ensure they have the resources needed for the long-term operation of the cloud environment. A managed services solution can be a good fit for organizations without cloud experts or prefer not to use engineering resources for day-to-day monitoring and management.

Performance Levels. As with traditional hosting models, it’s important to understand workload demands and potential bottlenecks. Organizations should conduct testing to evaluate how a cloud environment affects application performance so that any issues can be addressed. Testing also helps determine what compute, storage, and networking resources are needed to handle peak requirements.

Costs. Organizations waste a significant portion of their cloud spend by overprovisioning resources and failing to take advantage of cost-optimized options. By analyzing usage patterns, organizations can implement cost-saving strategies such as shutting down applications during periods of inactivity or utilizing reserved instances for more predictable workloads. An assessment may uncover applications that can be refactored to run in containers or on serverless platforms rather than virtual machine environments.

A long-term cloud strategy requires careful planning to understand application requirements, infrastructure constraints, and cloud platform options. Rahi’s engineers have a deep understanding of the various cloud models and a proven framework for guiding cloud migrations, optimizing costs, and ensuring performance, availability, and security. Through Rahi’s ELEVATE services methodology, we can help you develop a cloud strategy that meets your business requirements while minimizing risk.