Factors to consider before moving to the Cloud

Cloud computing is massively adopted worldwide now, and its adoption rates are only predicted to grow in the coming years. Technavio’s Cloud migration services market is expected to grow by USD 13.01 billion during 2021-2025. Cloud can help organizations at various levels, and it is of paramount importance for you to know the critical concepts of Cloud computing.  

Reliable Data Storage is a massive challenge organizations worldwide face, and Cloud data centers offer the perfect solution with innovative data management & storage methods. Let us look at what a traditional data center is and how it differs from a Cloud data center, along with its various pros and cons. By the end of this section, we will know how Cloud data centers have revolutionized data storage.

What is a Traditional Data Center? 

Traditional Data Centers (aka on-premises) are data management hubs deployed traditionally in a physical site within enterprise office space. Here, servers and hardware required are purchased, operating systems installed, and manually deployed inside the premises. The management of these servers is the business’s responsibility, requiring a separate team to maintain those servers or outsource management to a third party. 

Pros  

• Control: Business has complete control, including hardware and software 
• Customization: Businesses can customize in line with workload requirements 
• Security: Trustworthy, as servers accessible only by in-house/outsourced staff  

Cons 

• Higher Costs: Business pays directly for people, hardware, software, and environment for keeping the servers up and running 
• Maintenance: Business is responsible for uptime and maintenance of the servers and all its resources 
• Limited Scalability: A business should plan to scale up the server when using data scales. Consequentially, business needs to make a plan to scale servers down when usage is down to limit costs s 
• Limited accessibility: On-prem servers cannot easily accommodate needs from distributed workforces across regions 

What is a Cloud Data Center? 

A Cloud Data Center (aka Cloud) also serves the same purpose as a traditional data center but is metaphysically located and maintained by global Cloud service providers. It is accessible across multiple locations/regions, as Cloud data centers are built to handle multi-region requests with the concept of redundancy. It evolved with the concept of “Focus on your application, not the infrastructure” (sets developers free to focus on solving business problems instead of managing server issues).

 Pros 

• Low maintenance cost: Maintenance cost is almost nil, as the business doesn’t have to worry about Datacenter costs, hardware & software upgrades, datacenter staff, power, etc. 
• Pay as you use: In the Cloud infrastructure, you are billed only for the consumed capacity, and no need to pay for idle capacity. 
• Scalability: In a traditional data center you have to plan the hardware capacity well in advance, as once the hardware is purchased you are stuck with purchased capacity. But when it comes to the Cloud you can scale up and scale down your computing capacity in just a few clicks. 
• Zero maintenance: Businesses need not worry about the maintenance, upgrades, security patch updates on the servers as that is all taken care of by the Cloud provider. 
• Redundancy: Redundancy in a traditional datacenter means it involves a lot of costs as we have to build identical facilities as the primary. Whereas in the Cloud everything is already redundant, and no extra charge is billed. 
• Accessibility: All the Cloud providers have a portal with access to almost all their services over the web. It can be accessed from anywhere with the internet.  

Cons 

• Reduced control: Since the infrastructure is entirely owned, managed, and monitored by the providers, only minimal control is given to customers. 
• Security and privacy: Yes, security is another concern as you must trust the Cloud provider to keep the service foolproof from attacks.  
• Vendor lock-in: There are multiple Cloud providers in the market, but switching between providers is not practical right now. 
• Debugging & Local testing: Local testing & debugging the workflows becomes tricky sometimes vendor support required to locate some specific problem. 

 To make these Cloud models available for users, Cloud deployment methods are required. Based on an organization’s need and location of the servers, the scale of business, and various factors goes into the decision of selecting the apt deployment model for Cloud. These deployment models help in designing your scalability, infrastructure, and relationship with your users. Let us take a look at the type of Cloud deployment models.  

Based on an organization’s need and location of the servers, the scale of business, and various factors go into selecting the apt deployment model for Cloud. These deployment models help design your scalability, infrastructure, and relationship with your users. Cloud deployment methods are required to make these Cloud models available for users. Let us take a look at the type of Cloud deployment models. 

Deployment models 

Private Cloud

It is a Cloud computing environment where all hardware and software are dedicated to and exclusively accessible only by a single entity. Many entities choose private Clouds over public Clouds as they deal with confidential documents, PII content, financial data, medical records, etc. 

Community Cloud 

It allows systems and services to be accessible by several organizations to share information between the specific community. It is owned, managed, and operated by one or more organizations in the community, a third party, or a combination. 

Examples: Community health care, EDI shipping system 

Public Cloud 

It is open to all to store and access data through the internet using the pay-per-usage method. Here all the computing resources managed by the Cloud provider. 

Hybrid Cloud 

It is a combination of the public Cloud and the private Cloud. It is partially secure as the services running in the public Cloud can be accessed by anyone. 

Cloud service models 

Cloud can be deployed using various models. It comes in three primary models. They are: 

Software as a Service (SaaS)

It is a Cloud-based software delivery model provided by a Cloud provider who maintains Cloud application software, provides automatic software updates, and makes software available to its customers via the internet on a pay-as-you-go basis. 

SaaS examples are CRM, Office 365, Salesforce, G Suite, Dropbox, and others. 

Platform as a Service (PaaS) 

It is a Cloud-based computing model that delivers the infrastructure and middleware components exposed through the Internet where users can build, integrate, deploy, and manage their web applications. 

PaaS examples are Azure AppService, Google App Engine, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, and others. 

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) 

It is also known as Hardware as a Service (HaaS), in which computing resources are hosted in a public Cloud, private Cloud, or hybrid Cloud. Businesses can access the resources through the internet and pay for what is used. 

IaaS examples are AWS, Azure, GCP, Cisco Cloud, etc. 

We have discussed in detail the Cloud models here. 

 If you are using or planning to use in the future any of the Cloud services, We can help you narrow down to the best choice of Cloud management tool based on our analysis. Also, Eleviant is a proud working partner with top Cloud service providers. Our experts can talk to you in detail about your plan and how to go about your Cloud journey. Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any queries. We will be more than delighted to help you with your Cloud journey!