For organizations that have not yet moved to the Cloud solutions, it can potentially be a daunting prospect. Their hesitations around making this fundamental shift might be rooted in myths rather than reality. It’s worth addressing some of these Cloud myths individually, to separate fact from fiction.
Myth 1: Educating Decision Makers on Cloud Benefits Will be Difficult
Some organizations fear that educating the wider organization on the benefits of moving will require a significant time investment, particularly when legacy systems are already “getting the job done.” The truth is, once decision-makers are educated about the compelling benefits that Cloud solution offers, the business case builds itself.
The benefits of the Cloud are manifold, starting with the fact that it reduces IT complexity and frees up IT resources to focus on higher-value activities. Additionally, Cloud lowers total cost of ownership and improves cost predictability, both of which positively impact the bottom line.
Cloud also allows for faster innovation through the ability to take advantage of new features and functionality as soon as they’re available, which in turn leads to greater business agility. Taken together, these benefits make a strong business case for moving to the Cloud.
Myth 2: Cloud Presents a Security Risk
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We live in a time of widespread cyberattacks, ransomware, and security breaches. In this risky environment, your valuable data is often actually safer in the Cloud than when managed on-premises by an organization’s internal IT team.
The reason why is straightforward: The security landscape does not standstill. To ensure the ability to respond to the ever-evolving threat landscape requires constant attention to industry changes and the ability to react to those changes in near real-time. Cloud vendors have developed more subject matter expertise and are able to dedicate more resources towards creating a secure Cloud offering than all but the most well-resourced organizations.
Partnering with other industry-leading service providers allows Cloud vendors to create an ISO-certified and compliant environment with a level of security and protection that would be difficult to replicate in-house.
For additional security, organizations should make sure they are partnering with a Cloud vendor that implements zero trust concepts into their architecture; one that challenges the idea of trust in any form, including the trust of networks, trust between host and applications, and even trust of super users or administrators. These concepts need to intentionally be architected into the design of the Cloud from the start – it is difficult to “retrofit” into a legacy Cloud design. Security-minded Cloud vendors should provide some form of ‘zero-touch administration’ where no humans are allowed access to Cloud infrastructure itself or the customer data, leverage monitors and logs that exist outside of the zero-trust boundary, and adopt extensive automation to make all of the above possible.
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The short version? A properly architected Cloud is one of the most secure places to store data and keep it safe from bad actors.
Myth 3: All Clouds Solutions Are the Same
A lack of awareness around the various Cloud offerings makes some organizations wonder if they’re basically “all the same” – and if not, how best to evaluate what Cloud might be right for an individual organization.
As the above section on security alluded to, all Clouds are not created equal. This principle extends to the overall flexibility of various Cloud offerings, their ability to accommodate different industries and different data privacy requirements, and their resilience.
For example, there might be financial services institutions that do not want their data kept in a multitenant Cloud environment because of regulatory requirements or simply preference. Some Clouds can accommodate this request and others can’t, which is just one embodiment of the notion that all Clouds are the same.
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Likewise, some Clouds can rapidly create an instance in a specific country or jurisdiction by leveraging an infrastructure-as-a-code model; this allows the Cloud vendor to quickly and nimbly respond to the needs of its customer and changing market needs with regard to where data needs to be stored in order to comply with relevant requirements and regulations. Other Clouds simply cannot move that fast – a distinction that helps clarify what the right Cloud for an individual organization might be.
Availability zones are another differentiating factor among Cloud providers designed to ensure business continuity and resilience for business-critical workloads. They help your data stay synchronized and accessible when things go wrong. Data is spread physically across separate physical data centers in the same region, creating zones that are fully fault tolerant. Making use of other locations within or outside of the region, as needed, provides better reliability and disaster recovery when required.
Move Forward with Confidence
By cutting through the fiction and focusing on the facts, organizations can move forward from a knowledgeable and confident position and reap the full benefits that Cloud solutions can provide.
[To share your insights with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]
