3 tips for migrating to the cloud saving you money and pain
Moving to the Cloud is frightening! Time-boxed it is probably the longest project ever in your organisation. You are wondering where to start?
Not all organisations have departments of Cloud architects easily available to guide you and the task is huge and infinite.
My three tips will save you money, frustration, and add several % points to your success rate. In the end of the article there is a bonus tip as well.
Without further ado
1. Cloud Native
Make sure your applications are cloud-native. It is a no-go to migrate legacy software to the cloud, this is unless you want to enter a world of pain to support and maintain it. Switch to software from your cloud vendor, managed services (SaaS) or choose software developed natively for the cloud. This will keep the technical debt as low as possible and your organisation can spend their time building great solutions instead of patching and fixing issues with legacy software not made for the Cloud.
When you hear the words “let’s install it” its a no-go, but when you hear “let’s provision it” is a big yes! Imagine not using gmail or Office365? The same applies to your ERP, CRM, database or any other software application. Don’t let legacy software providers talk you into something else. Look for a managed service instead.
You probably think this a no-brainer, but I still see software being installed on private clouds causing frustration and many hours of support and maintenance.
2. Focus on Security
Focus on setting up your security! Don’t get too enthusiastic and provision any services before you have enabled the relevant security protocols and standards. A good example is Single Sign On (SSO), manually adding and removing users in multiple applications is a nightmare and with GDPR, don’t do it!
If you need to integrate to legacy on-prem LDAP, then start with it. It is a simple yet complicated task that will save you hundreds of hours, to be honest, not doing it, is a huge security risk not worth taking. Another good example is encryption. Encrypt everything from the beginning. Enforce and test it! There cannot be any exceptions from this rule, to quote an old colleague of mine
If it hasn't been tested it hasn't been done — Kjersti Bøe
You probably also think this is a no-brainer too, but you still hear about examples of data stored on S3 buckets not being encrypted and the file in plain text…
3. Monitoring usage and save $$$
Using the Cloud is easy, almost to easy. Setting up servers and services are available with one click and you are up running. Unfortunately your $$$ bill will also be running fast and reducing cost is actually one of the benefits of using cloud services.
You must monitor your usage and you have to work continuously on optimising usage and shutting down services no longer being used. All Cloud vendors offer monitoring and optimisation services, use them from the beginning and learn how to use the right services for the right purposes.
You probably also think this is a no-brainer as well :-) I recently configured two services for prototyping purposes, unfortunately it was in a wrong AWS region (mistakes happens! :-) and I forgot to close it down. The cost was only $3 a day, but it is still $1.000 a year for nothing, I was happy it only took me five days to notice it :-) You cannot avoid it, mistakes happens, but you can monitor and fix it.
This is my three recommendations, they are very simple and easy to get started with, but I promise you they will be a time and $$$ saver for everything you do.
Good luck!
BONUS TIP
And the promised bonus tip? Don’t worry about cloud vendor lock-in, you shouldnt avoid it! Focus on the benefits of using software from the same vendor which is optimised for the applications made available directly from the same vendor.
If you have any questions comment below or drop me an e-mail!
Have a great weekend :-)
