Three things to look out for on your journey to the cloud

For a long time, the prevailing attitude was that it was best to archive big data locally, because of the cloud’s high storage costs. The main players in the world of the cloud, such as Microsoft and Amazon, have however invested a lot in data storage drives for so-called cold storage, so storing archived data is now much cheaper in the public cloud than in any on-premise set-up. IT managers are making an intelligent choice with the cloud in other scenarios too, for example by using it to handle peak times for storage and computing power. At our recent event, Co-Thinking about the Future, Prof. Bruno Volckaert from Ghent University explained that open source is the main motive for switching to the cloud, together with mobile working. But it’s still best to choose your supplier carefully. In this blog, we look at three important things to look out for.

All applications that process lots of data, such as the Internet of Things and big data, sometimes need extra computing power to make complex calculations quickly. Buying extra processing power only for it not to be used most of the time is an expensive business; the ROI from approximate predictive maintenance can soon become a loss. So, in a scenario like this, it’s best to switch to the cloud, where you can scale up and down flexibly, and only pay extra as you grow.

1. Platform or specialist?

This is one of the strengths of Microsoft Azure, which operates as an exhaustive platform. Whether you want to run an IoT application in the cloud, or have infrastructure-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service or software-as-a-service: Azure works for every business model. Oracle also has its own cloud solution – Oracle Cloud – for its large databases, but you can’t run virtual servers in it. And you can’t run an Oracle database on Microsoft Azure, either (because of licensing, more about this later).

The breadth of their offering, and their scope and scalability, are the main reasons why Microsoft, Google and Amazon have been able to capture almost the entire market. Apart from a few niche sectors, such as start-ups that run applications in the Alibaba Cloud and government organisations that work with Open Stack and G-Cloud, the cloud market is already more or less saturated.

Companies are more likely to choose one of the three market leaders because they use open standards, which makes it easier to connect public cloud software with other applications. And there’s something to be said for this. It also means you have lots of certified partners to choose from to help with your migration, which makes everything more comfortable. But which should you choose?

2. Licence and SLA politics

Start by carrying out a thorough analysis of your existing applications and licences. You’ll find all the applications that Microsoft supports and guarantees SLAs for in the Azure Marketplace, and you can simply shift your on-premise licences to the cloud. Bring your own licence, is it were.

Microsoft has made good agreements with SAP for this. The software supplier has adapted to the public cloud philosophy. You can set up an Azure environment temporarily to test an SAP application, and then close it again. This means you only pay for the infrastructure cost temporarily, but you also pay for a temporary licence for SAP, and not an annual one. As we’ve already mentioned, Oracle has opted for its own cloud and to retain its own licence system. And you can’t run your virtual machines there, which should of course also be taken into account.

3. Legacy

Alternatively, there’s the hybrid cloud, which is the most popular model in our country. In this model, your large databases or remaining legacy – which Microsoft cannot close any SLAs for – remain in your own or your service provider’s data centre, but with a link to your other systems in the public cloud.

Cloud is therefore being dominated by just three players, but that’s nothing you need to worry about right now. Together, they are democratising IT and that’s a good evolution. But do make sure you carry out a thorough analysis before leaving for the cloud. The Cloud Roadmap from Realdolmen is a good starting point.