Second generation cloud computing IaaS providers are making a cloud infrastructure implementation more painless, than ever before. But you’ll still want to do a needs analysis, do some planning, and get input from key business users. You’ll also want to do some strategic planning to ensure that you’re selecting the right tools, the right cloud model, and the right applications for the cloud to maximize benefits, reduce business process disruptions, and find the right cost-benefit balance.
From analyzing your usage requirements to choosing the right cloud model and the right cloud provider to meet your needs, we’ve rounded up 49 valuable tips and tidbits on cloud server and infrastructure implementation, encompassing every step of the strategic planning and implementation process, as well as the benefits of implementing cloud servers and infrastructure to both small businesses and enterprises (provided they’re implemented strategically, that is). Do you need dedicated hardware? What responsibilities does your organization bear in terms of security? Are all your applications cloud-ready, and have you adopted a ‘cloud-first’ mentality? The following 49 tips offer valuable advice to point you to the answers to these pressing questions and more.
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And please remember, the following 49 tips are not listed in any order of importance or value – they are simply grouped by topic. You can jump to a particular section of interest using the table of contents below:
Table of Contents:
Choosing a Cloud Infrastructure Provider
Tips for Preparing for Cloud Implementation
Tips for Implementing Cloud Servers and Infrastructure
Tips for Improving Performance with Cloud Implementation
Benefits of Cloud Implementation
Choosing a Cloud Infrastructure Provider
1. Choosing the right provider is critical to ensuring employees have access to the right applications at acceptable speeds. “Chris Harding, director for interoperability at The Open Group, which brings together suppliers and users of IT, says choosing the right global provider involves many elements to ensure employees get access to applications that work, and are not slow.” – Lisa Kelly, Tips for choosing a global cloud infrastructure provider, Computer Weekly, Twitter: @ComputerWeekly
2. Research cloud providers thoroughly before signing up. “Consider utilizing the Consensus Assessment Initiative Questionnaire (CAIQ) provided for free by the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA). The CAIQ offers boilerplate questions established by hundreds of security professionals around the world.” – Phil Agcaoili, chief information security officer at Cox Communications Inc., as cited in Cloud Computing: A Small Business Guide, Business News Daily, Twitter: @BNDarticles
3. Make sure your preferred cloud provider meets any applicable industry regulations, allowing your business to maintain regulatory compliance. The government, for example, has strict encryption standards, and healthcare providers and business associates must comply with tight guidelines to protect personal health information. These are just two examples of many regulatory requirements that impact various industries. “Cloud services inherently transmit customer data across uncontrolled internet connections that are susceptible to monitoring and interception. While most cloud based services utilize some form of encryption either via web-based communications (e.g. SSL or TLS over HTTPS) or through a proprietary client to server application, the effectiveness of the data transmission encryption may depend on a number of variables and the actual cryptographic algorithms and protocols may not meet the Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) encryption requirements. Cloud services utilizing proprietary transmission software may require FIPS 140-2 (or successor) validation in order to meet US Government standards, as individual evaluation of proprietary software interfaces for cryptographic implementation would likely not be feasible outside of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cryptographic Module Validation Program (CMVP). Cloud services utilizing web based (e.g. HTTPS) encryption may require specific web browser usage and configuration to ensure only appropriate and approved cryptographic algorithms are employed.” – Recommendations for Implementation of Cloud Computing Solutions, an FBI Technical Report, Twitter: @FBI
4. Understand your responsibilities when it comes to security. “First and foremost, the level of control and your ability as a cloud customer to implement security in your cloud environment is dictated by your cloud type. For example a customer using Software as a Service (SaaS) will have the least amount of control and the SaaS provider will have the greatest level of responsibility for data security, while in Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), the customer has much more control on data security implemented in his cloud account while the IaaS provider will emphasize “shared responsibility”. And to translate it to compliance: A customer in a SaaS environment must rely heavily on the provider’s compliance (which is either there or not), while in a IaaS environment the customer must take active responsibility for compliance together with tools provided by the IaaS cloud provider.” – Ariel, Cloud Compliance in Infrastructure as a Service is Mainly Your Responsibility, Intuit Data Protection, Twitter: @Porticor
5. Look for providers offering multi-tier user management and billing. “As businesses become increasingly complex, their needs become increasingly intricate as well. Cloud providers need to constantly evolve their services to match the expectations of their customers, especially in providing a flexible account structure that allows easy rollup of billing and usage information at the top level. All this while enforcing complete segregation of networks and hosts at the sub-account level.
“The most important thing though is customer control – the customer should have complete control over which sub-accounts must be completely isolated, even from the parent account, and which sub-accounts are allowed to exchange data freely. This allows the segregation of production and development/QA, or perhaps meets a regulatory requirement that two different business units are prohibited from being able to share data between their systems.” – William Rabie, Five tips to secure your cloud future, CloudTech, Twitter: @cloud_comp_news
6. Choose a provider you can trust. “Today’s cloud computing infrastructures usually require customers who transfer data into the cloud to trust the providers of the cloud infrastructure. Not every customer is willing to grant this trust without justification. It should be possible to detect that at least the configuration of the cloud infrastructure—as provided in the form of a hypervisor and administrative domain software—has not been changed without the customer’s consent.” – Ricardo Neisse, Dominik Holling, and Alexander Pretschner, Implementing Trust in Cloud Infrastructures, via ResearchGate.net
7. The key to determining the best cloud solution revolves around use case. “The key to determining the best cloud solution (if any) revolves around use case. My use case was for a predefined ‘virtual appliance’ I was testing out. As an appliance, all my requirements were predefined in the virtual machine; I just had to make sure the vendor could meet those requirements. This already defined 2 key requirements in my use case – 1) Must be able to load my appliance, and 2) must be cheaper than buying my own server. I was not particularly interested in a dedicated server due to the higher costs associated with them compared to shared instances – if I were, I would have just bought a physical server, but this is an option you should consider for your own deployments if it makes sense. It tends to be a particularly attractive option in situations where you cannot use shared instances, yet you have no other need for an on premise server. Two other common pricing models are contract and Pay as you Go. Contract pricing is a simple affair where the vendor enters into an agreement for a guaranteed minimum use scenario. You tend to get a significant price discount for this minimum use agreement, and still pay less for whatever you use above this minimum use. Pay as you go pricing (also called no contract pricing) is always the most expensive route per hour of use, but if it isn’t up all the time, it may still be cheaper when it comes time to pay. This defined my 3rd requirement – Pay as you Go pricing without a dedicated minimum.” – Thomas Higgins, Implementing Your Own IaaS Solution, SitePoint, Twitter: @sitepointdotcom
8. IaaS allows the customer to maintain control over the operating system, middleware, and application deployment. “Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) traditionally sits at the base of a cloud computing pyramid that also comprises PaaS (Platform as a Service) and SaaS (Software as a Service), with the amount of customer control over the virtualised IT resources decreasing as you ascend the pyramid. In a typical IaaS deployment, the service provider manages everything below the hypervisor layer (the server, storage and networking hardware and its virtualisation), leaving the customer to handle operating system, middleware and application deployment on self-service virtual machines that can be ‘spun up’ on demand, usually via a web-based dashboard.” – Charles McLellan, Moving to IaaS: An overview, ZDNet, Twitter: @ZDNet
Tips for Preparing for Cloud Implementation
9. Understand your business and its unique requirements. “It is important to identify the requirements of employees and identify in detail the business reason and purpose for the move to cloud computing. This is essential to the success of the cloud implementation. Set specific metrics to evaluate the success of the cloud deployment.” – 10 Tips for a Successful Cloud Computing Implementation, VectorUSA.com, Twitter: @VectorUSA
10. Assess your needs. “This may sound simple but it isn’t. What do you need out of a cloud? Companies should consider, for example, if they could save money, and person-power, by having a service provider manage the servers and software needed to operate anything from email to HR software or marketing and ordering applications.
“Another thing to consider is how much moving applications and data storage to the cloud could free up what is most likely an overworked IT department. Some analysts contend that by offloading some of IT’s heavy lifting to the cloud — including fixing crashed systems, helping users who bring their own devices to work and dealing with an expanding security perimeter — enterprises can let someone else worry about at least part of the regular maintenance routine.” – Sharon Gaudin, 5 tips for building a successful hybrid cloud, Computerworld, Twitter: @Computerworld
11. Understand the capabilities required of your software. “Before you can even address the question ‘to cloud or not to cloud’ or weigh cloud computing advantages and disadvantages, you need to make sure you have a clear definition of what your software needs to do: Not only the user and data functions, but important attributes about the software as a business system.” – 16 Tips: Cloud Computing Advantages and Disadvantages, Modgility, Twitter: @modgility
12. Determine the hardware and software desired to be in the cloud. “Not all applications are good candidates for moving to the cloud. Before taking advantage of new applications built and developed for the cloud, it is best to start with a low-risk, back office (non-strategic) application before setting your sights on more ambitious targets.” – Curtis Paradzick, VP of Sales, Vector Resources, Inc., in a guest contribution, 10 Tips for a Successful Cloud Computing Implementation, at TMCnet.com, Twitter: @tmcnet
13. How much will it cost to move desired applications (or all applications) to the cloud? “It is necessary to calculate the cost of moving all applications to the cloud. At this point, you should consider whether to move all applications or only certain parts and you have to calculate the cost and the differences arising from it.” – Asher Ross, 10 tips for a Successful implementation in the Cloud Computing, Eukhost, Twitter: @eUKhostLtd
14. Determine if your cloud fits within your existing IT infrastructure. “Cloud management is not a standalone entity. For private or hybrid clouds to be successful, they need to integrate and work with your existing IT management infrastructure and best practices.
“There has been a lot of debate about what capabilities constitute a private or hybrid cloud deployment. Regardless of whose definition you use, automating the delivery of IT services requires orchestrating service deployment across multiple technology components, such as configuring physical servers, storage, networks, virtualization hypervisors, connection brokers, and so on. Unless you have a very basic infrastructure, delivering IT services requires integrating with the surrounding management ecosystem. This can require generating or acknowledging a work order ticket, updating a Configuration Management Database (CMDB), or installing software using existing server automation tools.
“Most cloud automation products only automate a portion of your provisioning, ongoing management, or decommissioning processes. To facilitate integration with current IT infrastructure and management ecosystems, a cloud management platform must deliver broad multivendor support as well as extensible architecture. When evaluating cloud management platforms, you need to assess whether a solution has the
capabilities that enable it to work with your IT infrastructure. Your cloud management choice not only impacts prior investments, it can limit your future investment options.” – Implementing Cloud Solutions Within Your Existing IT Environment, VMware, Twitter: @VMware
15. Evaluate the cloud-readiness of your key applications. “Are the applications which you use already web-based ? Will they benefit from a cloud- based architecture? Can it scale your present application up in the Cloud ? Migrating your old ‘legacy applications’ to a Cloud based infrastructure will not bring the correct benefits. You need to carry out an assessment to determine an application’s readiness for the Cloud. This means evaluating, via a potential supplier, the readiness of all your key applications. This will provide clear recommendations on your options – whether private or public Cloud.” – 10 Vital Steps For Successful Cloud Computing Implementation, meshIP Blog, Twitter: @meshIPllc
16. Be prepared to transform business processes to align with cloud infrastructure implementation. “Implementing a cloud architecture may have to include business process redesign as well as technology infrastructure redesign. As non-IT business executives rethink what cloud computing is all about, it sometimes leads to a gap between how the two groups think about it.
“Under constant budget pressure, IT managers are putting more stock in the potential cost reduction than business executives; 52% of IT managers saw that as a primary goal, while only 41% of business executives did. On the other hand, 24% of business executives counted on cloud adoption leading to business process transformation, versus 20% for IT managers.
“Likewise, 34% of IT executives assumed the cloud would provide quicker speed to adoption of business-enabling technologies, while only 21% of business executives emphasized the adoption rate.
“The two groups were most closely aligned in believing cloud computing would allow business process transformation, entry into new markets and improved interactions with customers. Seventy percent of the two groups combined said they agreed (38%) or strongly agreed (32%) with the statement that cloud computing was delivering “significant efficiencies and cost savings.” Six percent disagreed, with only 1% strongly disagreeing, out of the 674 respondents hailing from 16 countries.” – Charles Babcock, Cloud Implementation Costs, Complexity Surprise Companies, InformationWeek, Twitter: @InformationWeek
17. Carefully weigh the complete set of considerations, such as how much virtualization, what management software, and what services like backup and restore, patching, and security are needed. “For example, a purpose-built infrastructure is easier to plan and build than a general-purpose one. That’s because less technology selection is involved, thus a lower chance to miscalculate. Another consideration is standardization. A strong tension exists between standardization and the need for flexibility. However, too much flexibility will kill any hope of implementing cloud and saving money over business-as-usual solutions.
“One way to get a handle on the cloud-implementation challenge is to break the effort into activities. Three key areas are analysis, planning and implementation. Each has factors to consider, which can be grouped into areas like benefits and risks, and technology scope.” – Joseph Gulla, Implementing Cloud Computing Takes a Complete Strategy, IBMSystems Magazine, Twitter: @mainframemag
18. Are your applications able to leverage cloud features? “To be effective in the cloud, applications need to be specifically designed to leverage cloud features. Traditional boxed software business applications are typically coupled tightly to hardware. They can be installed on a virtual server, but can’t be extended to more servers, making them unsuitable for use in the cloud. Take a look at the applications that you are planning to host in the cloud: Can you leverage APIs when designing your program so that the application can automatically grow or shrink, drawing upon resources as required? If not, consider upgrading to a newer, cloud-compatible version, migrating to a new software platform, or choose to avoid the cloud altogether.” – Navigating the cloud: 15 tips for a successful implementation, ITWorld Canada, Twitter: @itworldca
19. Create an implementation plan. “This depends a lot on the size of your project, and what exactly you are implementing. I’ve found that a lot of formal documents are overkill for most small projects. I usually start by writing myself a list of things that need to happen before I implement. I ask myself questions like:
What actually will be implemented?
When do we want to do it, and what do we need to check before we do the implementation?
Do users have to be out of the systems when we do the implementation?
Is there a time-dependency (i.e. outside business hours, on the weekend, etc) for our implementation?
How many actual servers/workstations/databases are going to be updated?
Is this a brand-new application, or an upgrade to an existing system (the answer to this changes your implementation plan A LOT)?
What are the actual steps we will take to do the implementation?
How will we back up the existing system before we implement, in case we need to roll back?
How will we test the application after it is implemented?
How do we roll back to our backup?
Who needs to be notified about the implementation (before, during, after, statuses, etc.)?
Do we have documentation of what the changes are, and how the users can use the new changes?
Who’s going to take support phone calls from users?
“Once I have answers to these kinds of questions, I write up the plan, usually as a basic Word document, with different sections and a timeline. I like to put in the detailed step by step parts, with paths to files, etc., logins, etc., so I will have all the sticky little detail in one place.
“As a morning person who has to do installs when I’m normally sleeping, I like the comfort of a list of all the steps I need to take, so I don’t forget something. I think it is worth writing down the communication steps you’ll take, particularly if a group is doing the implementation, and some items are dependent on the others, or if you aren’t all in the same place. (ex. I will email Fred when the database updates are complete, so that he can do the web server updates, Fred will email us all when he’s done, so we can all do the testing)
“Then, once you have one that works, it can become your template for future updates to the same system, or be a jumping off point.” – Jennifer S., What is an “implementation plan”?, Programmers, StackExchange, Twitter: @StackExchange
20. Use an implementation and migration plan template for project management, such as this template. “The Implementation and Migration Plan is a key document you’ll want to add to your project management tool box. Our Implementation and Migration Plan template will help you to get started on the right foot in developing your project specific plan.” – Implementation and Migration Plan, Project Management Docs
21. Find the model that works for you: public, private, or hybrid. “Most enterprise IT departments now manage applications across multiple environments in a dizzyingly complex overall IT architecture. They also must constantly reevaluate their unique mix of on-premises, private cloud and public cloud infrastructure to meet new business goals and determine how applications can be migrated to the public cloud in a cost-effective way.
“This is no small feat. Dozens or even hundreds of applications built at different times, in different languages, and by different teams need to be evaluated for migration to the cloud, which often requires deep knowledge of the existing IT infrastructure as well as the public cloud resources that could replace these functions.” – Logicworks, Private vs public vs hybrid cloud: Which one to choose?, CloudTech, Twitter: @cloud_comp_news
22. Get input and interaction from business users. “The cloud infrastructure trap that many organizations fall into is that…
“The project team begins and ends with IT, with little interaction or input from the business users that consume and pay for the IT services they deliver. Thus, success criteria get focused solely on technical results – ‘speeds’ and ‘feeds’ – versus specific business objectives. As a result a thorough requirements definition is not performed and the goals and objectives of the cloud strategy don’t align with the business objectives of the intended audience.
“One consequence can be a failure to identify which mission critical assets should remain on-premise and inside the corporate data center firewall compared with those where a public cloud is ideal for applications and workloads that require on-demand elasticity or surges up and down during peak usage periods.
“The combination of on-premise assets combined with a public cloud for other applications and workloads results in a hybrid IT computing infrastructure that is difficult for many IT departments to manage. If they fail to develop a single-pane dashboard that can view every asset in real time in the enterprise, regardless of where it resides, they will not be able to identify the specific IT services being delivered, let alone provide showback/chargeback services. In many cases this results in billing disputes between departments and projects.
“In conclusion, without very specific, measurable criteria, there is no way to determine if the objectives of your cloud infrastructure strategy are successfully achieved. Each workload, application and IT asset (VMs, Compute, Storage, etc,) must be analyzed to determine where they should reside: on-premise data center, public or private clouds. Otherwise, you are left wondering if the cloud model you have deployed is the most efficient choice for your IT department as well as the overall business.” – Penny Collen, Financial Solutions Architect for Cloud Cruiser, Inc., as appears in 25 Cloud Experts’ Thoughts On Cloud Infrastructure Mistakes, Cloud Cruiser, Twitter: @CloudCruiserInc
23. Get commitment from decision makers within upper management. “The adoption of cloud architecture is a process that requires strong effort for the entire enterprise. Every function, application and data have to be moved to the cloud; for this reason, it is necessary to have a strong commitment from the management.
“Top management is responsible for the harmonious growth of the company, and technology represents a key factor for business development today.
“Managers have to establish reasonable goals for adopting the cloud computing paradigm. A migration to the cloud requires a team effort to plan, design, and execute all the activities to move the workloads to the new IT infrastructure.” – Pierluigi Paganini, What’s Your Advice for Moving Workloads to the Cloud?, InfoSec Institute, Twitter: @Info__Sec
Tips for Implementing Cloud Servers and Infrastructure
24. Test your real workloads. “Maybe it’s your next project that should already be deployed in the cloud. Very often, it’s hard to see the whole picture if all you do for testing is deploy a couple of VMs. Begin by deploying a real application; it forces the team to think about the size of the VMs, the networking and the storage needed, and paints a clear picture of all elements: from price, through technical challenges and how to leverage cloud elasticity and agility.” – Nelson Nahum, Co-Founder CEO, Zadara Storage, as quoted in Advice for Companies Moving to the Cloud and Common Misconceptions and Tips, Click Software, Twitter: @ClickSoftware
25. Know the implementation stages. “Start with server virtualization, follow that with storage virtualization, get virtualization-based management tools in place for monitoring, etc., implement a self service portal/service catalogue function, and add automation and orchestration tools. The order of the above actions can change, but you start with server virtualization.” – Bill Claybrook, Best practices for implementing a private cloud computing environment, TechTarget, Twitter: @DataCenterTT
26. Look for processes, applications, and data that are independent. “Word is that cloud computing, the latest extension of virtualization, is strong and getting stronger. But experience shows that we should focus on a subset of our systems since the cloud is still in its adolescent phase and needs to mature before it supports a complex enterprise. Look to independent, standalone designs as good choices to offload to external providers.” – Mark Holt, Seven criteria for implementing an effective cloud computing plan, TechTarget, Twitter: @DataCenterTT
27. Encrypt your data. “And by encrypt the data, we mean before it’s written to your cloud server. Use an encryption gateway (e.g., CiperCloud, Porticor, etc.).
“Most folks forget that many of our common transport layers are already encrypted (e.g., SSL, SSH, etc.). So VPN isn’t critical to cloud infrastructure, especially if you’re using Dome9 (see our post on VPN Clients are Dead in the Cloud).
“But it’s critical (and required, by law in some cases) to encrypt your data, so do it.” – Dome9, 5 cloud server security tips for 2013, CloudTech, Twitter: @cloud_comp_news
28. Understand your level of control and responsibilities. “The capability provided to the consumer is to provision processing, storage, networks, and other fundamental computing resources where the consumer is able to deploy and run arbitrary software, which can include operating systems and applications. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud physical infrastructure but has control over operating systems, storage, deployed applications, and possibly limited control of select networking components.” – Bill Loeffler, Cloud Computing: What is Infrastructure as a Service, TechNet Magazine, Twitter: @TechNetTips
29. If you’re implementing a private cloud, build it so that moving to a hybrid model is possible if you require public cloud services in the future. “Build your private cloud so that you can move to a hybrid model if public cloud services are required. This involves many factors, including security and making sure you can run your workloads in both places.” – Bill Claybrook, Building a private cloud: Get ready for a bumpy ride, Computerworld, Twitter: @Computerworld
30. Use a checklist to ensure you do not miss critical implementation steps. “Server deployments and migrations can go bad in a hurry. Choose the wrong platform or configuration and you could find yourself with an incompatible setup. That can be an expensive mistake, in terms of both the time and capital required to repair the error. Deploying a new server is no time to discover that a client or department runs a critical application requiring a 32-bit OS. Nor is deploy day a good time to learn the box doesn’t have the necessary spindles, drive arrays, or licenses required to meet application or business requirements.” – Erik Eckel, Download this checklist to make server deployments go smoothly, TechRepublic, Twitter: @TechRepublic
31. Avoid ‘lifting and shifting’. “Don’t just ‘lift and shift’ — that is, don’t simply take your existing infrastructure and move it wholesale to the cloud. “Don’t move to the cloud just because it’s trendy. Sure, it might save you some money — but you’ll miss the opportunity to transform how you do business, and those don’t come around that often.” – Chris Drumgoole, chief operating officer for cloud services at General Electric, as quoted by Ann Bednarz, 13 Tips to Achieve Cloud Success, CIO, Twitter: @CIOonline
Tips for Improving Performance with Cloud Implementation
32. Improve performance by restructuring your complex and disparate IT technology-focused silos to a centralized, converged infrastructure team. “Restructure your complex and disparate IT technology-focused silos to a centralised, streamlined and service-oriented converged infrastructure team that will be able to do a lot more a lot quicker. Traditional designs are based on in house and siloed expertise that inevitably introduce risk as success depends on this expertise being shared and correlated between teams prior to building the infrastructure.” – Colin Marrs, 10 tips for implementing converged cloud infrastructure, PublicTechnology.net, Twitter: @PublicTech
33. Be sure you can access and retrieve your data from the cloud. “Beyond looking at the data on the cloud server, being able to pull the data into third-party tools, such as Microsoft Excel, is crucial. While the data is available, it may not be in a format that is conducive to the reporting process. After all, data is a primary driver for business decisions and must be easily accessible regardless of where it’s stored.” – George McMann, President and CEO of BizNet Software Inc., as quoted in 25 Cloud Experts’ Thoughts On Cloud Infrastructure Mistakes, ProfitBricks, Twitter: @ProfitBricksUSA
34. Determine who holds responsibility for security. “Many compliance regulations (like PCI and HIPAA) require data encryption at multiple touch points. That means it’s no longer the other guy’s (customer, provider, vendor, or all) problem, but yours. A full 39% of responses from the Ponemon Institute study hoped that if their cloud data was compromised the cloud provider would alert them – but actually it may be their own responsibility. More chillingly – yet realistically: 42% said they wouldn’t know if their cloud server was hacked.
“Taking responsibility for your data involves many precautions. Encryption in the cloud is one of the most important precautions, especially if you make sure to keep ownership of the encryption keys to yourself. As long as you own your encryption keys, you retain control of your data, even if bad things may happen.” – 5 Cloud Encryption Tips, The Security Advocate, Twitter: @saurnou
35. Use fault tolerance techniques to predict failures. “Fault tolerance is a major concern to guarantee availability and reliability of critical services as well as application execution. In order to minimize failure impact on the system and application execution, failures should be
anticipated and proactively handled. Fault tolerance techniques are used to predict these failures and take an appropriate action before failures actually occur.” – Anju Bala, Inderveer Chana, Fault Tolerance- Challenges, Techniques and Implementation in Cloud Computing, IJCSI International Journal of Computer Science Issues, Vol. 9, Issue 1, No 1, January 2012
36. Adopt a “cloud-first” mentality. “Any new project should be viewed with a ‘cloud-first’ bias. If a service provider can offer comparable or superior functionality to that which you can get from a packaged solution, then that’s an ideal candidate. Deploying or upgrading user-facing applications such as sales force automation and collaboration are naturals for hosting. And there is no legacy data to migrate.” – Paul Gillin, Five Tips for Transitioning to the Cloud, CIO, Twitter: @CIOonline
37. Focus on strategy and architecture to plan for the future. “My team focuses on strategy and architecture — frameworks and foundations. That’s the starting point for building the roadmap that takes us two, three and five years down the road. No matter how we decide to achieve that intersection of objectives, it has to be something that we can expand on as we move through the long-term plan.
“It’s about anticipating change and being ready for it, in whatever forms it comes. That way, it doesn’t matter to us if growth comes from a new delivery channel or data from wearables or whatever it might be. Our infrastructure can shift shape so when disruptions come; we are not in an endless continuum of rip and replace or starting over — we adjust.
“That means that we don’t focus on implementing bleeding-edge hardware technology, but rather those technologies that lay on top of the foundations we built when it’s time to refresh and grow our infrastructure. Cutting-edge, expandable building blocks for growth. We course correct and shift rather than having to start over. We implement flexible, adaptable and expandable infrastructure, including leveraging hybrid-cloud capabilities.” – Alex Patent, Staying Ahead Of The Data Deluge, InformationWeek Network Computing, Twitter: @NetworkComputing
38. Measure ROI. “The easiest way to measure success is ROI, but that’s not the only way. The financial institution mentioned above was every bit as concerned about reducing service delivery times and protecting existing investments as achieving ROI for the new cloud tools.
“Jay Litkey, CEO of private cloud management company Embotics, recommends that you consider these factors:
How much can you eliminate IT sprawl and untracked inventory? For one client, Embotics found that out of 650+ VMs, they had 5 VMs out of inventory and 48 powered off, which cost the company over $140K each and every month.
How many system administrators do you need? Typically, cloud-based environments require fewer admins.
How many administrative tasks can you automate?
How much better is the end-user experience?
How well can you automate policy enforcement to streamline regulatory compliance?”
– Jeff Vance, How to Build a Private Cloud: Advice from the Experts, Datamation, Twitter: @Datamation
Benefits of Cloud Implementation
39. Public or hybrid cloud implementation offers high availability and disaster recovery. “Achieving a highly available, geo-redundant setup for a private cloud can be expensive. It requires twice the capital expenditure (and sometimes more) than a single private cloud, and it requires a data center location that is geo-dispersed from the primary data center. Most organizations are reluctant to absorb and justify such expenses. Without a geo-redundant private cloud configuration, organizations are vulnerable to catastrophic events.
“Cloud customers can, however, use hybrid clouds to promote high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR). For example, in a “warm DR” scenario, an organization can keep its production environment in one cloud and a recovery environment in another, ready to spin up as necessary. The organization replicates data across to the second cloud, but all other resources remain non-operational until needed. In the event of a disaster, administrators can quickly start the application in the public cloud, since the data is already present there. When disaster strikes, this configuration results in significant cost savings as well as dramatic improvement in application availability.” – Utpal Thakrar, Private and Hybrid Clouds: 9 Use Cases and Implementation Advice, RightScale Cloud Management Blog, Twitter: @rightscale
40. Cloud implementation can enhance both performance and security, with careful planning and selecting the right applications to run in the cloud. “The key to a successful cloud migration is identifying applications that will generate the most benefits when moved to the cloud, such as cost savings, scalability of services and streamlined IT and services management. Achieving these benefits can be accomplished without sacrificing performance or security. In fact, cloud computing can enhance security.” – Gregg Mossburg, 4 keys to success in the cloud, GCN.com, Twitter: @GCNtech
41. Cloud computing implementation enables enterprises to consolidate IT operations. “My opinion is that, with companies dealing with reduced budgets everywhere, cloud computing is definitely the way to go when it comes to consolidating IT operations. It can help your company reach both your IT and financial goals. Thus, cloud computing enables you to reduce server sprawl and lower total costs of ownership. Virtualization and cloning is fast, inexpensive and there are no upfront capital costs. When taken as a whole, the economic benefits of cloud computing will make good sense for your company to gain greater ROI from your IT investment.” – Rick Blaisdell, How Much Can You Save On Your Cloud Computing Implementation?, Rickscloud, Twitter: @RickBlaisdell
42. Enterprises save on hardware, licensing, and maintenance costs through cloud implementation. “The General Service Administration (GSA) has recently announced they have achieved a cost savings of almost $2 million dollars a year since migrating from Lotus Notes to Google’s Cloud based email (Coleman, 2012). The savings includes cyclical replacement hardware, licensing and maintenance costs, thereby effectively reducing their total cost of ownership. Traditional server farms can now be replaced with centrally hosted virtual servers that can be managed by a fraction of people. According to Gartner, the typical IT organization invests two-thirds of its budget to daily operations. Moving to the cloud will free up 35 to 50 percent of operational and infrastructure resources (Wilcox, 2011). As savings mount and as efficiencies increase, Cloud computing will continue to grow.” – Todd Steiner, An Introduction To Securing a Cloud Environment, SANS Institute InfoSec Reading Room, Twitter: @SANSInstitute
43. Cloud deployment models, Big Data analytics, and data center virtualization are driving highly evolving parallelized workloads. “The traditional server system is a cluster of server nodes, the dedicated local storage and connected over an Ethernet network. These server nodes use their directed-attached storage as scratch/swap space and use a storage server on the Ethernet network for primary storage. In the cloud era, on one hand, optimized TCO, compute efficiency, and fastest growing server segment will grow to dominate the server trends. On the other hand, cloud deployment models, big data analytics, and data center virtualization are driving highly evolving parallelized workloads. The servers in large-scale data centers require high density, high performance/cost and high performance/Watt. Furthermore, the rapid growth in dense compute shows dense compute clusters are the future of volume servers for cloud computing.” – Hua Nie, Xiaojun Yang, Chaoqun Sha, Yanping Gao, and Keping Long, Research and Implementation of a New Cloud Server, WorldComp-Proceedings.com
44. Cloud implementation enables enterprises to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly, without investing in new infrastructure. “Cloud computing comes into focus only when you think about what IT always needs: a way to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software. Cloud computing encompasses any subscription-based or pay-per-use service that, in real time over the Internet, extends IT’s existing capabilities.” – Eric Knorr, What Cloud Computing Really Means, InfoWorld, Twitter: @infoworld
45. Zero-trust policies can scale when the workloads and network are virtual or cloud-based. “In physical implementations of zero trust security — a security model in which no user, interface or application is automatically “trusted” — traffic flows through a centralized security device. But because a single device has to filter all traffic, it’s difficult for a zero trust security policy to scale. Environments can scale, however, when the workloads and network are virtual or cloud-based.” – Keith Townsend, Achieving zero trust security in the cloud, TechTarget
46. Public clouds are leading in enterprise adoption and offering better options for businesses over private cloud models. “Cost is a fundamental issue with private clouds because users have to purchase hardware and software, as well as data center space. Therefore, they look, feel and cost approximately the same as traditional systems. On the other hand, vendors sell public clouds more as utilities, and these environments are easy to turn on and off, as needed.
“Until a few years ago, private and public clouds basically provided the same core services. But today, public cloud providers are leaping ahead. Public clouds provide many more features and functions than private clouds, including better security and governance tools and technology.” – David Linthicum, Private cloud adoption dwindles in the enterprise, TechTarget, Twitter: @TTintheCloud
47. Organizations can now procure, implement, and integrate infrastructure, platform, and application requirements from cloud providers on a utility basis. “Cloudsourcing is similar to traditional outsourcing, in that an organisation employs a third party to provide certain infrastructure, platforms, applications and the associated processes and services. However, the rise of cloud computing means that organisations can now procure, implement and integrate infrastructure, platform and application requirements from cloud providers on a utility basis. As cloud computing matures, its use in IT provisioning is going to rapidly increase. Consequently, we can expect to see substantial changes to many aspects of traditional IT outsourcing.” – Jenny Hotchin, Cloudsourcing – do you understand the legal complexities of next-generation outsourcing?, Computerworld UK, Twitter: @computerworlduk
48. Hybrid cloud models provide secure, on-demand access to IT resources with the flexibility to move workloads on-site or off-site to meet specific needs. “IT has long debated the merits of public and private cloud. Public clouds allow organizations to gain capacity and scale services on-demand, while private clouds allow companies to maintain control and visibility of business-critical applications. But there is one cloud model that stands apart: hybrid cloud. Hybrid clouds provide the best of both worlds: secure, on-demand access to IT resources with the flexibility to move workloads onsite or offsite to meet specific needs. It’s the security you need in your private cloud with the scalability and reach of your public cloud. Hybrid cloud implementations should be versatile, easy to use, and interoperable with your onsite VMware vSphere® environment. Interoperability allows the same people to manage both onsite and offsite resources while leveraging existin