New processes, skills and tools. IT tools and strategies that work on-premises might simply be inadequate in the cloud. The cloud imposes unique security, monitoring and management challenges that are distinct from those of a traditional on-premises environment. Developers and IT teams, therefore, need special skills to thrive in a cloud environment. It can take time to develop that expertise.
The cloud's benefits can be maximized and challenges simplified by adhering to practices that can make successful cloud transitions easier to achieve.
A transition to the cloud becomes much easier when all stakeholders are on board. They include the technical practitioners who will set up and manage cloud environments as well as senior management and executives, who should support the migration to the cloud as well as handle the temporary and permanent expenses that come with it.
Other employees, too, should understand why the business is moving to the cloud. As users, they should learn how cloud computing will benefit them, how applications will become easier to use and what learning curve to expect. Business leaders should prepare clear answers to questions like these before embarking on a cloud transition.
Given the vast number of cloud services available -- from VMs and containers to object and block storage, IoT device management, and beyond -- businesses should determine upfront and in a systematic way which cloud services are the best fit for their workloads. Otherwise, they could end up deploying more types of services than they can effectively manage at once.
The right services will vary from one workload and business to the next. In general, businesses should consider factors such as how much each type of cloud service costs, how hard or easy it is to deploy workloads on the service, how the service can be monitored and managed, and whether a particular service might create security risks.
Organizations should know that certain workloads may be better left out of a cloud environment. Some applications, for instance, depend on local networking configurations that could be difficult to replicate in the cloud. Other apps might need direct access to bare-metal hardware, which is harder to find and more costly in the cloud.
Early in a cloud transition is the best time for a business to identify which applications won't work well off-premises. Plan steps to modify those applications to suit a cloud environment or, alternatively, commit to keeping those applications out of the cloud.
The cloud presents specific security challenges. Because cloud environments are connected to the internet by default, it is easier for attackers to locate and exploit cloud resources. Cloud environments can also be complex, and even small misconfigurations, such as accidentally allowing public access to a sensitive storage bucket, can have major security implications.
Businesses should assess how they will mitigate these security risks as part of their cloud transition plan.
Cost models can change dramatically in the cloud. Cloud computing enables an organization to pay as it goes, which brings initial cost savings and simplifies cost management in one respect. But the organization still needs to consider other costs related to a transition to the cloud. For example, a provider will assess data egress fees when a customer moves data out of a cloud environment and might also charge for its monitoring and security tools.
For these reasons, it's important to perform a detailed assessment to learn how much each type of cloud service and resource will cost and seek ways to control those costs.
The business should identify who in the organization will oversee the cloud environment. Who has permission to launch new cloud resources? Will the entire organization share one cloud environment, or will each business unit or team have its own account? Do changes to the cloud environment need to be documented in a certain way?
Answering questions like these before a formal transition to the cloud begins should provide the business a consistent plan to manage its cloud environment responsibly.
Cloud environments almost always change over time. Businesses might migrate applications from one type of cloud service, such as VMs, to another, such as Kubernetes. They might move more workloads from on-premises to the cloud or expand from single-cloud architectures to hybrid or multi-cloud configurations.
It's impossible to anticipate every change ahead of time. But organizations can at least create a roadmap that identifies in general terms how they expect their cloud strategy to evolve over time. For instance, the roadmap might specify that the business plans to launch a single cloud at first and will begin evaluating multi-cloud options two years later.