A Contributed Article by Fredrik Schmidt of Accelerite
The snow is melting away and people are taking to the
streets to enjoy the sun, which did little shining during the winter months.
It's times like these that get everyone excited for the summer, with beach
trips, pool hangouts, and endless outdoor activities in
the near future.
I'm sure you're already daydreaming about taking that road
trip down to the shore - hair blowing in the wind as you cruise in your red
convertible down a winding oceanside highway. But unfortunately, that daydream
can only be realized if you sell that all-wheel drive winter machine, or if
you've leased your current car (and can switch to something more
summer-appropriate).
A similar analogy can be made about today's disaster
recovery cloud landscape. You may need a certain provider for time-specific
needs, but once hurricane season has passed and your mission-critical data is secured,
you may look to the cloud with different requirements.
Once you're locked into a long-term disaster recovery arrangement
with one cloud provider, it becomes difficult to jump around to a new cloud,
which may offer benefits not found in your current provider. No one cloud can
offer the range of functionality needed to secure business-critical data and
applications across an entire enterprise, just like a car ranges in size with
different functionalities, room for storage and passengers, cost, and resale
value.
Clouds, too, can be "leased" - today's application and data
replication solutions now allow for migration across multiple clouds. You may
use one cloud for a portion of time, and switch to another provider for new business
needs, or you may be leasing two at the same time, both with different
functions in your business model. Here are some of the benefits of leasing
clouds:
Lease your dream car
You may not have the funds to own a Tesla Model S, but that
doesn't restrict you from ever driving one. Leasers often get larger, more
luxurious, better-equipped cars, as they won't be paying the full price for use
during a limited period of time.
If you've steered clear of signing one disaster recovery cloud
contract, you can ensure your business is using the best cloud providers
available, as price will be less of a pressing issue. You may use provider X
for their expert application recovery ability, and provider Y to backup
mission-critical data. Don't let long-term arrangements and technology inhibit
your business' cloud computing strategy.
Planning your sunny
road trip
You may live in an area with brutal winters that requires
all-wheel drive capabilities. During these months, you drive something that can
handle the snowy roads and has room for the whole family and their ski gear.
But you're looking ahead to the summer, and would really enjoy the ability to put
the top down and catch some rays during your summer road trip.
Just like you can lease a car for an extended timeframe, you
can now work with different cloud providers during different times of the year,
or lease two at once. One cloud solution doesn't offer every function required
to run an enterprise in the cloud. Enterprises need to mix and match a range of
public and private offerings to better suit their specific needs.
Leased cars rarely
require maintenance
Leased cars are usually the most up-to-date models that are
always under warranty and rarely require routine maintenance. You can drive
till your heart's content, and have little worry of mechanical failure during
your lease timeframe. If you do experience troubles, dealerships are easy to
work with as they are fighting for your loyalty for lease number two.
With the proper workload management solution, you can ensure
you're working with the best solution cloud providers are offering. If a new
version comes out, migrating is as simple as stepping out of one car and into
the next. And if you're leasing two clouds at once, cloud downtime is of little
concern as your data can be accessed from your secondary provider.
Customer service for
leased vehicles
Buying a car from a dealership is a very exciting process -
but daunting. The salesman is shoveling information at a fast pace, and your
excitement to take your new car out on the open road means some information
goes over your head. The dealership claims to be there for you in times of
need, but their pitch is designed to ensure loyalty - they're hired to sell
cars, and you've just signed on the dotted line.
Cloud providers work in a similar way. It's all courting and
niceties until you've pulled the trigger and start using their disaster
recovery services. Now you're locked into the deal, and customer service
becomes a thing of the past. If you've avoided a singular contract, cloud
providers are constantly trying to gain your loyalty, and your service stays
top of mind. If you're working with two or more clouds, determine which
provider you'll be dropping based on how you've worked together during your
relationship.
Turning in the keys
You've been counting down the days until your extravagant
beach vacation. You pull up to the dealership, drop off the keys to your winter
workhorse, and step into the red beauty you've been dreaming about during the
freezing winter months. If you're leasing from the same dealership, this
process is simple, as they want your business when snow starts to fall and your
convertible contract is up.
Leaving a cloud provider should be as easy as swapping keys
for a car. Migrating data to a second cloud, clearing out your data, and
leaving your original provider is the best approach currently - but only you
have the technical tools necessary to traverse between environments.
Enterprises should leverage the freedom to pick and choose
providers that cater to the business' specific needs - using two or more clouds
is in everyone's best interest. Much like an organization would host their data
on both onsite and offsite data centers, they can now take advantage of
multiple layers of resiliency. One provider might work fine for an SMB, but
storing data, applications, and other business-critical information across
thousands of machines has too many security risks to rely on one cloud.
Put your seatbelt on - the cloud computing landscape is
making fast turns to a future with multi-cloud solutions taking the front seat.
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About the Author
A 25-year veteran in the IT industry, Fredrik Schmidt is
responsible for driving the development of innovative cloud products and
solutions at Accelerite. Prior to
joining Accelerite, Fredrik served as Technical Director at Symantec, Senior
IT/IS Director at Technicolor by Thomson, and CIO and Co-Founder of Kryptonite
Security.