top 5 mistakes ebook apr2012 final

7/28/2019 Top 5 Mistakes eBook Apr2012 Final

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THE TOP FIVE MISTAKESYou Want to Avoid When Becoming

a Cloud Superhero



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Executive summary

Leaping beore you look

Th inking yo u have oun d the on e

Believing tomorrow will be like today

I it its, it ships

Not leveraging the ull potential o the cloud

Summary

Abou t In te rn ap

TABLEof Contents

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T he cloud is continuing to gain popularity as a

sustainable inrastructure deployment optionor enterprises, but is it the right choice or all o

your applications? Are you wondering how you can

leverage the ull beneits o the cloud? To become

your organization’s cloud superhero, you’ll need

to evaluate the undamental dierences between

available cloud oerings, their distinct advantages,

disadvantages and the mistakes to avoid.

As you navigate the road to the c loud, there are ive

common mistakes not to make to ensure a successul

deployment and adoption. Use this eBook to learn

the top ive mistakes to avoid in cloud adoption.

EXECUTIVESummary




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T oday’s CIOs are under tremendous pressure

to do more with less and aster than everbeore. The potential or cost savings makes the

cloud a tempting option. However, remember

that the cloud is a means to an end, not the

end itsel. It is in your best interest to begin with

a comprehensive analysis o your IT needs to

determine whether a cloud solution will help you

reach your long-term business goals.

Beore moving an application into the cloud,

make sure you can get the perormance and

cost improvement you desire. Remember, not all

clouds are created equal. You may use a public

cloud to solve your scaling and bursting needs,

whereas a private cloud would be useul i your

enterprise has strict security and compliance

requirements. Alternatively, clouds based on

open-source hypervisors may have ewer and/

or dierent eatures than their VMware®-based

cousins. Consider the questions on the ollowing

page to determine whether a cloud solution is

right or you.

MISTAKE 1Leaping before you look




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Do I have any compliance considerations that

restrict my ability to use shared infrastructure?

There are several compliance regulat ions that make

it challenging to run an application in the cloud. For

example, the PCI-DSS standards or credit card

processing are clear that irewalls must be used in

order to protect users’ security. You’ll need to ask i

your auditor will permit your irewall to be

cloud-based.

Will the cloud meet my availability

requirements?

Similar to perormance characteristics, cloud

availability is a pragmatic attribute. Once you receive

a Service Level Agreement (SLA) rom a potential

provider, check to see i they disclose how theircloud is architected. Without this inormation it may

be diicult to calculate easible availability. However,

with dedicated environments, you are able to speciy

redundancy at various levels o inrastructure,

allowing you to achieve the availability you need.

Will my applications receive acceptable

performance if I put them in the cloud?

The answer depends on not only how the provider

built the cloud but how you built your application as

well. Traditional elements or measuring perormance

such as hardware speciications and network design

only provide a partial answer when running workloads

in the cloud. Providers may not reveal the specs o

the inrastructure, or how other existing customersare using that inrastructure. Technology is rapidly

changing and traditional attributes cannot be used

objectively to measure perormance. Finally, many

providers design clouds or massive horizontal scaling

across virtual machine instances to support workload

increases, redundancy and overall perormance. I your

applications were not developed with that in mind,

perormance can become an issue. Beore choosinga cloud provider run perormance tests with your own

applications to ensure you receive the perormance

you require.




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Selecting a provider is not like selecting

someone to marry, it doesn’t have to be “untildeath do you part” – you have the ability to change

providers in the uture. It is important to consider

how you will manage your cloud inrastructure as

well as establish a back-up plan.

Will you use application programming interaces

(APIs) to manage your cloud inrastructure? I

so, will the APIs be proprietary to the provider or

common across multiple providers? Proprietary

APIs may have more unctionality; however, mult i-

vendor interaces such as OpenStack TM and

VMware® give you the option to change providers

without the hassle o having to rewrite code.

The same considerations should be applied to

images and data. You will want to have your “Plan

B” leshed out in the event your service provider

has a system outage or raises rates without

warning, so you can act quickly and save the day.

MISTAKE 2Thinking you have found the one




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L

ike the old adage — you never know what tomorrow

holds — your application requirements may changeover time. You may need cloud today, but in all likelihood,

it won’t be the only thing you need tomorrow. Many o

today’s Internet businesses were started in the public

cloud, however as they grew, bottlenecks and economic

break-points occurred, causing them to move some

inrastructure into a managed hosting or colocation

acility. Similarly, some enterprises have attempted to

move their inrastructure to the cloud, only to realizesigniicant portions o their business needed to reside on

dedicated, physical hardware as well — orcing them to

work with multiple providers.

Managing multiple providers adds unnecessary

complexity and switching providers can be painul, like

being in a room illed with kryptonite. Find a vendor that

can not only meet your current requirements but can

also support uture unanticipated needs. Map out growth

projections or major applications and stay advised

on your company’s strategy and how it relates to IT

Inrastructure growth.

MISTAKE 3Believing that tomorrow

will be like today




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T he cloud motto is not the same as that o your

neighborhood post oce: “i it ts, it ships.” Don’t rely

on the assumption that every cloud has the strength o a

superhero and can support your most complex applications.In order to decide whether or not cloud will work or your

business, take a close look at how your critical applications

are designed. Are they complex or highly-customized? For

those types o applications, there may be requirements that a

cloud model cannot support.

For example, i your application is multi-tiered and requires

layer 2 (vLAN) connectivity to properly unction, a cloud,which supports layer 3 (IP addressing) connectivity, will not

necessarily be ideal. In addition, the cloud may not oer the

specialized appliances required or your application. I you

require a physical indexing appliance or a specialized rewall,

it may be dicult to incorporate dedicated hardware with

cloud components.

I you have complex needs but still want to move into the

cloud, nd providers who can acilitate hybrid hosting

between cloud and other IT Inrastructure choices such as

managed hosting and colocation, or your company-owned

data center.

In general, the cloud is the best t or applications that scale

horizontally, have limited application tiers and are constructed

to communicate on layer 3 connectivity.

MISTAKE 4If it fits, it ships




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T he cloud gives new possibility to your

business. For example, instead o sizing your

virtual machines based on previous physical

speciications, make sure you are optimizing

them or the cloud. You will be able to leverage

the on-demand aspect o the cloud to deal with

the “bursty” parts o your application. By scaling

services on-demand on a pay-per-use basis,

you will realize signiicant beneits by eliminating

the need or expensive and underutilized capital

investments.

Additional ly, you should investigate whether

you can use the same cloud to create a test/

dev, staging and production envi ronment or

streamlined design and implementation. By

eliminating the need to move inal products to thecloud, you will ultimately speed time-to-market

or your applications — making you a cloud

superhero.

MISTAKE 5Not leveraging the full

potential of the cloud




T he cloud oers the promise o rapid scalability

combined with pay-or-use billing, while

also removing the headache o speciying and

managing physical inrastructure. It is a powerul

evolution o IT Inrastructure outsourcing options.

However, the cloud still has important caveats tokeep in mind. Beore leaping over tall clouds in a

single bound, understand that cloud may only be

a part o your overall IT Inrastructure strategy and

that happy customers and end users will be the

measuring stick or success.




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• Instant hybridization interace or seamless

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