Insights

Five costly cloud infrastructure mistakes to avoid

Fernando Pereiro

Related content

The cloud is the foundation for a resilient infrastructure, which is a mandatory component of the modern resilient enterprise. Therefore, it is no surprise that more than 80% of digitally advanced firms use cloud services to support continuous delivery through DevOps, as Forrester found in a study commissioned by UST. Simply put, cloud infrastructure is the tools and systems needed to access and run data and applications from the cloud.

But while every organization knows how important moving to the cloud is to account for a virtual or hybrid workforce, scalability, and business continuity purposes, many continue making avoidable mistakes during their journey. We have identified five of the most common mistakes below and offered some simple solutions to avoid them to maximize your investment in the cloud.

1. Migrating at the wrong speed

Most cloud journeys have historically taken up to three years to complete; that is unacceptable in a fast-changing environment.

On the other hand, companies can make mistakes in moving to the cloud too quickly. One of the biggest mistakes you can make in cloud migration is moving all of your data at once. The correct process is to first move some non-essential or “pilot” data to the cloud to make sure configurations are correct. Moving everything at once and finding an issue could lead to catastrophic delays that can imperil a business. A guiding hand like UST, which has migrated 10K+ workloads to the hybrid cloud, can ensure you follow the right process to avoid disruptions and data loss. Our CloudVelocity solution features automated discovery and inventory analysis to minimize business disruptions and decision touchpoints during migrations and adoption of AI / ML tools to accelerate the migration to cloud.

2. Misestimating the cost of a cloud migration

Though many misconceptions remain, the fundamental truth is that cloud migrations cost money. They also take time and require you to forgo some access to data when it’s being migrated. If done correctly, the end product will begin to produce significant value through long-term cost reductions. But a cloud migration often hits snags when executives are told it will be cheap. It is rarely cheap, but almost always ultimately worthwhile.

The first step to understanding cost considerations is one many organizations overlook: an in-depth analysis of current on-prem hardware and software costs. By assessing the CapEx of existing infrastructure, you have a baseline from which to view cloud costs, which will be viewed through OpEx of software-as-a-service (SaaS) or infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) solutions.

Next, determine how much - if any - of your existing infrastructure can be considered “life and shift,” which would cost considerably less than needing to refactor everything.

3. Not understanding the shared cloud responsibility model

You could be forgiven in thinking the cloud provider you signed up with provides all security. In fact, security in the public cloud is a joint effort between the provider and the organization using the service. Nowhere is this more apparent than understanding the public cloud service level agreement (SLA). This SLA governs the joint responsibility of elements of the cloud and establishes the provider’s guarantees on service, uptime, and response time to issues.

While the SLA governs many different aspects of the agreement, it’s especially important to realize that the cloud provider is NOT responsible for all security of the data on their cloud.

Organizations also need to know where the data is stored for purposes of regulation, data privacy, and, in the cases of patient information, HIPAA requirements. Responsibility for that data resides with the owner (e.g. the company, not the cloud) so knowledge of where the data center is must occur BEFORE signing the SLA.

4. Failure to have or train the right personnel

A move to the cloud requires a fair amount of upskilling and training. You need personnel to not only manage the migration, but also the continual upkeep. And finally, you need to train your entire company to know how to take advantage of the new processes and applications enabled by the cloud. And then there’s cloud security, which often requires new personnel that few companies will already have on staff.

This is why it’s so important to have the right partner to help manage the cloud footprint, especially if you have a hybrid cloud situation and/or are using multiple public clouds.

One way to immediately upgrade expertise is to work with a trusted partner. With over 15+ years of cloud infrastructure expertise and over 200 cloud experts on staff, UST has the right experience to manage even the most complex migration.

5. Lack of visibility into the entire cloud

You can’t optimize what you can’t see. Failure to have visibility into your cloud operations is not only a security concern, it increases the risk of overspend. Infrastructure costs across the hybrid cloud ecosystem have been growing at an average of 20-30% year-over-year. The cloud is not - and will never be - a set it and forget it situation. That is why nearly every cloud solution provides a dashboard or admin panel for companies to monitor. When choosing cloud providers, you should spend sufficient time understanding their position on visibility and transparency. As mentioned above, many companies will need to know exactly where their data is located for regulation and data privacy reasons.

DIVIDER

Migrating with Intent

UST can help you determine which type of solution (hybrid, multi-cloud or private cloud) works best for you by helping you understand the opportunities and challenges inherent in each option. To ensure your successful migration, we optimize cost, performance, resources, and capacity for cloud or traditional infrastructure models. Every cloud journey is unique, but we have seen the above mistakes occur time and again when companies ask us to help rescue their cloud infrastructure projects. We can help in advance before any of it happens. Reach out today.