Many organisations developing and executing on a cloud migration strategy find the multi-cloud model a tricky one to get right in the first instance. This is not helped by the many stories around public cloud suitability or how public cloud stacks up against private cloud options..
Choosing the right mix of public and private cloud services requires careful consideration of each platform’s applicability relative to your unique business environment and technical requirements.
In this post, I’ll take you through the key considerations to keep in mind when selecting a cloud platform. I’ll also try to debunk the top public cloud myths doing the rounds today.
Public versus Private
This comparison table is probably a good starting point when weighing up the pros and cons of ‘public vs private’. Consider each application or workload in terms of the below:
While the above table may create the impression that public cloud is always the best option, there are situations where private cloud is a better choice, especially for the organisations who have stable and predictable IT requirements and need tighter security controls directly from the physical components of the Data Centre.
Top Public Cloud Myths Debunked
If you do determine public cloud as the best option for a particular workload, the next challenge typically becomes “which public cloud provider?” Here is where I dispel public cloud misconceptions:
Public Cloud Myth #1: You should go “all in” with one public cloud vendor
I see a lot of businesses going “all-in” with one public cloud vendor. This is largely due to the existing skillset and familiarity of a specific platform within the IT team or because their technology partner is aligned to only one public cloud vendor.
The public cloud market is constantly evolving. While it’s true today that AWS, Azure and Google dominate the market for IaaS, there is an ever-increasing list of public cloud options. Also, the fiercely competitive nature of the public cloud market means there is a constant release cycle of updated features and capabilities. At any given point in time, each public cloud provider will have its own unique strengths, benefits and differentiators which will vary as they evolve their offerings to capture greater market share.
This maelstrom of public cloud competition is great news for your business and one that should be factored into your cloud strategy. By only considering one public cloud vendor, you are limiting your capacity to match (and move) individual workloads to their best-fit cloud platform and therefore potentially capping your ability to manage, secure and optimise all of your workloads.
Public Cloud Myth #2: Assume ‘like for like’
The second public cloud myth I come across – and one that can hamper your ability down the track to scale or provide you with the resilience you need – is that the technology of the workload determines the best cloud platform.
Don’t always assume that Azure will be best for Microsoft applications, or that Java or Unix workloads should be hosted on AWS. This is largely what’s happening today, and one of the biggest mistakes you can make.
Generally speaking, the big public cloud players are all on a par with regards to their technical ability to run mainstream or popular application software stacks.
So, how should you be thinking about public cloud?
Choosing a Public Cloud Platform
Making a decision based on the above factors alone could lead to other mistakes down the track. You need to consider how your decision might impact on your own requirements in terms of:
1.Architecture: it is very important to make a high level comparison of your proposed architecture in potential cloud environments and come up with a quantitative comparison on parameters like security, scalability and optimisation. For example a single Google cloud VPC can span multiple regions without communicating across the public internet. This could be a desirable feature in your architecture. Getting basic architecture wrong is probably the most expensive mistake you can make while moving to the cloud.
2.Security and compliance: each cloud provider has a different set of security controls and policies, and industry certifications (see, for example, AWS Compliance Programs). These need to match with your own organisation’s security requirements and risk management approach, as well as any regulatory or industry compliance obligations you have.
3. Disaster recovery and business continuity: does the cloud provider meet the level of resilience and redundancy you need? For example, do they have data centres in multiple geographic regions in line with your DR strategy? Currently, AWS data centres In Australia are 100% located in Sydney, whereas Azure has data centres in Sydney and Melbourne.. Facts like these should be included in your decision making.
4. Flexibility: how do you avoid vendor lock-in, and can you move your software licenses around in the future? Interoperability between public clouds will become increasingly desirable and available as cloud becomes more mainstream and universal cloud standards are developed, so you need to ensure your cloud architecture is not too closely coupled to that vendor’s PaaS environment.
5. Capital and operational expenditure: each cloud provider has different cost models and ways of charging for its services so comparing billing models is a valuable exercise. While you might be making some initial cost savings by moving to the cloud, you need to make calculations on what cost model will work best for you into the future.
From a long-term perspective, you also need to factor in each cloud provider’s roadmap including future ability to deliver and how well it matches with your own organisation’s strategic direction.
So, some food for thought when considering your own cloud strategy and how to ensure it will support your evolving business needs. In the process, I hope I’ve also helped dispel some of the most common cloud misconceptions I still come across when helping customers build their multi-cloud model.
At Interactive, our team takes into account all of the parameters involved in building the ideal cloud model. This is mapped to each organisation’s unique environment and set of requirements, producing a list of comparative benefits that makes decision-making easier to help you avoid a lot of the cloud procurement mistakes that organisations are making today.
If you’d like to learn more about our Cloud and Managed Services and how we can help you assess and optimise your current cloud environment, click here or call us on 1300 584 644.
