Points to Consider Before Migrating your Enterprise to the Cloud

1. Points to Consider Before Migrating your Enterprise to the Cloud For some time now, enterprises have been considering moving their legacy systems to the cloud. For one, it increases accessibility of remote data, and keeps data secure. Another major reason being, enterprises don’t need to build infrastructure for data storage. The cloud not only allows you to store the data, but also reduces the storage and retrieval costs by allowing you to pay for what you use. Given the positives associated with cloud computing, the move to cloud is inevitable. But, before enterprises can make the move it is important to take certain things into consideration. Data Security Before planning your move to the cloud, you need to check how secure the cloud infrastructure is. This is important given you need to transfer confidential data from the enterprise infrastructure to the cloud. At this point, you should have a secure connection between the sites of transfer. One of the most favored connections is the two-way encryption i.e. 2 way SSL, which offers top-line security along with multi-level encryption. The data encryption will take care of the attacks on your data, without any data-loss. Data accessibility from within the cloud is also secure. A lot of large enterprises access their data through private network. In some cases, enterprises also consider multiprotocol label switching network in order to ensure security, and keep the traffic in control. System Redundancy While equipment failures and outages are common in most systems, many enterprises fail to function owing to these failures. This calls for redundancy within the system, so that during failover the secondary system takes over and starts functioning. This will improve the system reliability and ensure maximum security. While looking to migrate to the cloud, you should look for vendors who account for completely redundant systems and IP connections to offer secure access. Performance The performance of your cloud infrastructure pays off in the form of improved user experience. When your user is on a web application and it times out regularly, you would lose out on a potential convert. That’s why you need to improve performance of your system. When migrating your system to the cloud, you need to take into consideration the performance of the network (bandwidth+ distance), Disk I/O, Resource (CPU + Memory) available in the virtual environment for strong accessibility and increased user experience. You should also incorporate excellent caching techniques to improve performance of the web application that renders from the cloud infrastructure. The Deployment Model It is important to choose the right cloud deployment model for your legacy application, before making the move to the cloud. Whether you want to go for public cloud or, private cloud depends on your needs and end goals. You should address your needs, the pros and cons for each model, and which one will suitably fulfill your need before moving ahead with the chosen deployment model.

2. Public clouds like Amazon Web Services offer a scalable environment accompanied by a pay-per- use model. The public cloud does not offer the controlled environment required for data security. The multi-tenancy is another reason why enterprises in financial services, healthcare refuse to take up public cloud deployment models. On the other hand private cloud offers better control in the on-premise environment. It is a more reliable environment toughening up on security and performance. For enterprises, it is always good to choose a hybrid environment, which offers the best of both worlds. Cost Evaluation By migrating to the cloud, you tend to reduce spend made on hardware and IT staffing. You don’t need to hold up space for on-premise infrastructure. The financial benefits to a great extent depend on your application. If you are running your mobile applications on the cloud, the benefits are greater. But, on the other hand if you are planning to have your legacy Oracle application on the cloud, the financial benefits might not be that great or huge. With certain vendors, the hidden costs can prove to be huge. You need to evaluate the costs before you migrate your application to the cloud. Evaluating all parameters before making the decision to migrate the system or application to the cloud is necessary. This will save all the cost overheads, and improve performance and efficiency of your enterprise. Seashore Partners has extensive experience of cloud computing & software development. Connect with us to know more about our services and unique solutions.