Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2021. Read them in this 13th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Operating Cloud First - A Top 2021 Trend and What You Must Know
By Dustin Milberg, Field CTO Cloud Services at InterVision
Remember the good-old-days, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic?
The days when your systems engineers could freely walk into the datacenter and
physically manage the infrastructure? The days when you could order, receive,
and rack-and-stack new infrastructure as needed to run your business-critical
platforms on an OpEx model? In some ways, it seems like yesterday. In others,
it seems like a distant memory.
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, manufacturers have
experienced delays, price instability has made predictive budgeting far more
difficult, and the requirements of social distancing have impeded the ability
for individuals to simply enter and exit the datacenter as they please. All the
while, demand on internet-based applications has continued to rise as users
have changed the way they consume everything from clothes, to groceries, to
cars, to entertainment. Organizations are put in a position where they are
forced to keep up with the demand, while facing the harsh realities of the
supply chain.
These trends have caused business leaders and previous
skeptics of cloud to rethink their platform scalability strategies in favor of
transitioning to the public cloud. This move has the potential to help shift
business operations away from dependence on managing physical datacenter
infrastructure to a model that enables measurably improved quality,
performance, scalability, security, and agility, with ubiquitous access.
However, many organizations have made wholesale moves from on-premise to the
cloud and have seen dramatically increased cost and complexity, a decrease in
performance and user satisfaction, and a significant erosion in employee morale
and culture (which, in this author's humble opinion, are far too often
overlooked and the single greatest contributor to cloud adoption success or
failure). And the simple truth of the matter is, it is not the fault of the
public cloud providers; rather, a lack of understanding of what it really takes
to harness the power of the cloud and do it in a cost-effective manner. This
includes considerations of technical and security requirements, and how to
provide a user experience that delights and engages employees in a way that
fosters excellence and innovation.
Put simply, the journey to the cloud is more important than
the arrival! The planning and strategies adopted are directly reflected in the
results of the value derived. The importance and popularity of cloud has been
growing, but moving into 2021, these initiatives will be critical to long-term business success. Here are few
common misconceptions about cloud-first and what you need to know to find
success with this strategy moving forward:
1. "'Cloud-First'
Is Not ‘Public Cloud Only'"
This is probably the most common misconception about the
cloud. If your organization is developing and delivering platforms exposed to
users outside of your company, then you have built a private cloud. In fact,
the existing datacenter strategy does not have to be abandoned to have a
well-conceived cloud-first strategy. It simply means that the way the resources
are consumed may need to be re-architected or re-factored to optimize the
platform in order to take advantage of incorporating public cloud into the mix.
2. "My
Systems Contain Highly Sensitive Data and I Just Cannot Trust That Public
Cloud Is Secure Enough"
If this is the case, then the current, self-managed platform
is also at risk (probably more so). The reality is that public cloud providers
all help improve security for organizations by introducing the "shared
responsibility model." Public cloud providers leverage state-of-the-art
datacenters and extremely modern physical and technical security. The way they
enable organizations to consume their resources secures everything below the
physical layer. Which means that organizations are still responsible for strong
security practices built into their consumption models: virtual firewalls, WAF,
SAST, DAST, etc. A strong security program is required, regardless of where the
infrastructure resides.
3. "I
Am Too Dependent on CapEx to Move to OpEx, and Public Cloud Doesn't Allow
for That"
Moving to the cloud does not have to be an either/or
decision when it comes to how to manage expenses on the balance sheet. Cash is
king! If you don't need to spend it, then don't! You still have the flexibility
to capitalize public cloud resources. But it requires planning and
coordination. What the public cloud allows you to do is plan for the resources
you need in perpetuity while only paying for surge capacity when it is needed.
4. "After
We Lift-and-Shift My Platform and Continue Running, It Will be Business as
Usual"
This is probably the most common mistake made by
organizations. Lift-and-shift is a perfectly viable option for some types of
systems. However, most require some level of either re-platforming,
re-architecting, or re-factoring in order to truly harness the power and
optimize cost in public cloud. Consuming public cloud resources not only
changes your infrastructure strategy, it also changes the way that you develop,
test, and deploy software. As I mentioned early, you cannot under-estimate,
plan for, or invest in the way the shift to the cloud will impact the behaviors
and culture of your organization. Having a comprehensive plan to address the
people, process, and tools (in that order) required to make the shift will pay
massive dividends in your success.
To start with these goals, first ask yourself why you want
to be in the cloud. What does success look like to you? What is the primary
driver, and how do you anticipate tracking against this goal to be sure you're
headed in the right direction? Indeed, a good cloud strategy should cover
aspects well beyond simply "getting to the cloud," so your team should have a
plan built for how and when to go about optimizing the environment.
Leverage Cloud
Managed Services to Optimize the Plan
There are many cloud providers to choose from when selecting
the right environment for your business, the biggest players being Microsoft
Azure, Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Leveraging cloud managed services delivers the skills and
services to enable fast and effective cloud adoption without increased burdens
on your technical staff. With varying levels of management after cloud
migration, third-party providers can step in to assist your business at the
right balance of support you need, whether it's testing, monitoring or
everything end to end.
Too often an organization can stall on their way to the
cloud because of skills gaps, culture, fatigue, unforeseen technology
interdependencies, security and compliance concerns, and unclear total cost
expectations. These are all areas where cloud managed services can assist,
either in part or in whole, fulfilling cloud-first objectives along the
ever-important journey.
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About the Author
Dustin Milberg is a seasoned enterprise technology executive and
current Field CTO Cloud Services at InterVision, a leading IT strategic service provider and
Premier Consulting Partner in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner Network
(APN). In this role, Dustin focuses on helping customers adopt a holistic
approach to developing and delivering sustainable platforms and solutions,
while enabling technology organizations to optimize the entire operation:
people, process, infrastructure, operations, development, quality, and
security.