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Cloud Adoption : Major Challenges

Posted on 13/01/201917/06/2021 by Tushar

Since the start of the pandemic, digital transformation has accelerated as more businesses see the need to adopt advanced technologies and do so quickly. Providing ways to propel businesses forward, adapt to new ways of working and cut-costs, digital transformation has many benefits. Cloud adoption, while a necessary element of that transformation, is not without its challenges. Before migration takes place, companies need to know what the main challenges are. Here, we explain.

Security in the cloud

Cloud services, in themselves, are exceptionally secure. All cloud providers have to comply with stringent regulations and this requires them to put robust security measures in place, including the use of strict protocols and advanced security tools. However, companies still have concerns about multi-tenancy and data location.

Multi-tenancy can be a compliance issue for some organisations which hold sensitive data. The problem can be overcome by storing the data in a single-tenancy private cloud where they have dedicated use of the underlying hardware.

Data location is an issue for organisations which store data protected by regulations such as GDPR. Using a cloud provider that migrates data or backups between countries, puts the data at risk of being kept in a nation that doesn’t comply with those regulations. For example, EU citizen data is protected by GDPR, however, if it is stored on servers in the US, the government there has legal access to it for national security purposes. If it is accessed, the organisation will be in breach of compliance. The easy solution here is to opt for a cloud provider which locates all its datacentres in a single country, as Anteelo does in the UK.

Cost management

One of the biggest advantages of the cloud is the ability to reduce capital expenditure on hardware and in-house datacentres. The other financial advantage is that cloud resources are chargeable on a pay per use basis, enabling companies to scale up and down quickly so that costs can be minimised.

The financial risks here depend on how well a company manages its use of the cloud. Poorly managed, it is easy for the use of these on-demand resources to spiral and this can be costly. Companies need to implement use policies, monitor cloud usage and carefully analyse where the money is being spent.

Lack of IT expertise

Migration to the cloud not only presents a new type of infrastructure to an organisation; it also puts a host of new technologies at their disposal. While the benefits of using these are the prime reason for cloud adoption, one of the challenges faced by most companies is developing the expertise to make use of them.

Organisations adopting the cloud need a clear understanding of what they want to use it for and make sure they have the necessary expertise to help them meet their objectives. This could require the training of current staff or the recruitment of new ones.

Thankfully, many providers offer managed services and 24/7 technical support. There is also a wide range of tools which automate many of the tasks which not so long ago required expert manual input.

Multi-clouds and hybrid clouds

Over 80% of companies now use more than one cloud provider, some as many as five, to carry out different workloads. The reasons for this are numerous, but it boils down to choosing the most appropriate vendor for the specific workload being undertaken. At the same time, there is an increasing number of businesses developing hybrid-clouds, a mixture of public and private clouds together with dedicated servers.

While multi-cloud and hybrid cloud can be beneficial for financial, operational and compliance purposes, they add to the complexity of an organisation’s overall infrastructure. Here, there will be a greater need for governance, monitoring, expertise and security.

Migration

While the points above discuss the challenges of cloud adoption, the migration itself can also cause problems. A cloud environment can be markedly different from the one on which an application is hosted in-house. Issues with operating system compatibility and system configuration may mean an application might not work, or work as expected, in a cloud environment. Resolving these issues can have an impact on the speed of migration, project deadlines and budgets.

Thankfully, there are a wide and growing range of applications, many of them open-source, that have been developed for cloud environments, are quickly deployable and work straight out of the box.

The key to a smooth and speedy migration, however, is to find a vendor with the expertise and technical support to help you manage the migration process.

Conclusion

The pandemic has accelerated the pace of digital transformation across the globe with unprecedented numbers of companies migrating to and expanding workloads in the cloud. While for many organisations, this is a necessary part of the ‘new normal’, they should not underestimate the challenges that cloud adoption presents. The best way to prevent issues is to work closely with a cloud provider that will get to know your company and put tailored solutions in place for you.

Want to reap the full benefits of cloud computing? Reconsider your journey.

Posted on 12/01/201918/06/2021 by Tushar

There’s no denying that companies have realized many benefits from using public clouds – hyperscalability, faster deployment and, perhaps most importantly, flexible operating costs. Cloud has helped organizations gain access to modern applications and new technologies without many upfront costs, and it has transformed software development processes.

But when it comes to public cloud migration, many organizations are acting with greater discretion than it might at first appear. Enterprise IT spending on public cloud services is forecast to grow 18.4 percent in 2021 to total $304.9 billion, according to Gartner. This is an impressive number, but it’s just under 10 percent of the entire worldwide IT spending projected at $3.8 trillion over the same period. While cloud growth is striking, it pays to heed the context.

The data center still reigns

In 2021, spending on data center systems will become the second-largest area of growth in IT spending, just under enterprise software spending. And while much growth is attributed to hyperscalers, significant increase also comes from renewed enterprise data center expansion plans. Based on Anteelo Technology’s internal survey of its global enterprise customers, nearly all of them plan to operate in a hybrid cloud environment with nearly two-thirds of their technology footprint remaining on-premises over the next five years or longer. Uptime Institute’s 2020 Data Center Industry Survey also shows that a majority of workloads are operating in enterprise data centers.

Adopting cloud is a new way of life

Deciding what should move to the public cloud takes careful planning followed by solid engineering work. We are seeing that some enterprises, in rushing to the public cloud, don’t have an exit strategy for their current environments and data centers. We have all come across companies that started deploying multiple environments in the cloud but did not plan for changes in the way they develop, deploy and maintain applications and infrastructure. As a result, their on-premises costs stayed the same, while their monthly cloud bill kept rising.

Not everything should move to the public cloud. For example, many enterprises have been running key mission-critical business applications that require high transaction processing, high resiliency and high throughput without significant variation in demand due to seasonality. In these cases, protecting and supporting existing IT infrastructure investments and an on-premises data center or a mainframe modernization is more practical as moving such environments to the public cloud is complex and costly.

To achieve the full benefits, including cost benefits, let’s not forget the operational changes that using the public cloud requires — new testing paradigms, different development models, site reliability, security engineering and regulatory compliance — all of which require flexible teams and alternative ways of working and collaborating.

The key point: Enterprises are not moving everything to the public cloud because many critical applications are better suited for private data centers, while potentially availing themselves of private cloud capabilities.

How can Anteelo help?

With ample evidence that hybrid cloud is the best answer for large enterprise customers to successfully adopt a cloud strategy, employing Anteelo as your managed service provider, with our deep engineering, and infrastructure and application management experience, is a good bet. We hold a leading position in providing pure mainframe services globally and have the skills on hand to help customers with complex, enterprise-scale transformations.

Our purpose-built technology solutions, throughout the Enterprise Technology Stack, can reduce IT operating costs up to 30 percent. In running and maintaining mission-critical IT systems for our customers, we manage hundreds of data centers, hundreds of thousands of servers and have migrated nearly 200,000 workloads to the hybrid cloud, including businesses that use mainframe systems for their core, critical solutions. A hybrid cloud solution is the ideal, fit-for-purpose answer to meet many unique business demands.

Customers want to migrate or modernize applications for many reasons. Croda International is a good example, with its phased approach for cloud migration. Whether moving to the public cloud, implementing a hybrid approach or enhancing non-cloud systems, Anteelo’s proven, integrated approach enables customers to achieve their goals in the quickest, most cost-effective way.

The lesson here: Be careful about drinking the public cloud-only Kool-Aid. With many cloud migrations falling short of their full, intended benefits, you need to assess the risks and rewards. More importantly, a qualified, experienced engineering team will not only help design the right plan, but will ensure that complications are quickly resolved — making for a smoother journey.

And most importantly, every enterprise should look at public cloud as part of its overall technology footprint, knowing that not everything is right for the cloud. Modernizing the technology in your environment should not be overlooked, since it may bring more timely results and better business outcomes, including improving your security posture.

Why Are These Big Name Brands Moving To The Cloud Technology?

Posted on 10/01/201917/06/2021 by Tushar

The economic turmoil caused by the pandemic has kickstarted the rapid adoption of cloud technology. Across the globe, companies in their housands are expanding the number of services they operate in the cloud in a bid to speed up digital transformation and put themselves in a better position to withstand the volatility of today’s marketplace. In this post, we’ll look at some major brands to discover why they have decided to migrate to the cloud over the last few months.

Coca-Cola

Arguably the most recognisable brand in the world, Coca-Cola may have been making the same product for 128 years but its operations are strictly 21^st century. Its manufacturing processes have long been massively automated and now, it has adopted a cloud-first policy with regard to IT.

As part of its digital transformation, the company has migrated to a hybrid cloud technology setup in a bid to reduce operational costs and increase IT resilience. This will enable it to deploy data analytics and artificial intelligence to provide it with insights that it can use to improve its services and operations.

Coca-Cola will use the migration to streamline its existing IT infrastructure and develop a company-wide platform for standardised business processes, technology and data. In order to integrate the public and private elements of its hybrid cloud, together with existing technology it plans to keep, it will deploy a single-dashboard, multi-cloud management system.

Finastra

UK-based fintech company, Finastra, is migrating to the cloud to accelerate not only its own digital transformation but those of its 8,000 global customers. The objective is to revolutionise the use of technology in the financial services sector by developing a platform that financial companies can use to speed up innovation and improve collaboration.

To achieve this, Finastra will migrate its entire customer base to the new cloud platform. From here, they will be able to create digital-first workplaces and provide their own clients with financial services and solutions, such as electronic notary services and electronic signatory, which are better suited to today’s digital world.

Major bank migrations: Deutsche Bank and HSBC

Two of the world’s major banks, Deutsche Bank and HSBC, have both announced plans for migrations over the last few weeks. A key element of its digital transformation, Deutsche Bank sees the cloud as being crucial for increasing revenue and minimising costs. It aims to make use of data science, artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve risk analysis and cash flow forecasting, as well as to develop digital communications that are easier for customers to interact with and which enhance the customer experience.

The German bank is also using the move to improve security, seeing it as a way to help it comply with data protection and privacy regulations and to ensure the integrity of customer data.

HSBC Holdings, the parent company of HSBC Bank, is adopting the cloud to benefit from its storage, compute, data analytics, AI, machine learning, database and container services, as well as for the cloud’s advanced security.

Its major goal is to provide more personalised and customer-centric banking services for its customers, for which it will develop customer-facing applications. It also intends to use the move to update its Global Wealth & Personal Banking division, develop new digital products and improve compliance.

Car manufacturer migrations: Daimler and Nissan

Two leading car manufacturers, Mercedes-Benz parent company, Daimler AG, and Nissan have also announced plans to adopt cloud technology. Daimler will migrate its after-sales portal to the public cloud to help it innovate and accelerate the development of new products and services for its global customer base, as well as to provide it with scalability. Like many other companies, it also sees cloud as being a secure platform and will use it to encrypt and store data to protect it from ransomware and hacking.

Nissan, meanwhile, is using the cloud primarily to help cut costs during the post-pandemic downturn. With poor sales throughout 2020, it views digital transformation as essential to remain agile and resilient.

The move will allow the car maker to store its vast quantities of data far less expensively than in-house and provide it with cost-effective, scalable processing resources. These it will use to undertake application-based, computational fluid dynamics and structural simulations which are needed to design its cars and test them for aerodynamics and structural issues. The cloud will also enable it to carry out performance and engineering simulations, helping it improve its vehicles’ fuel efficiency, reliability and safety.

UK public sector cloud initiative

The UK government has implemented a cloud-first policy in a bid to make the UK the world’s most digitally transformed nation. As part of the project, government departments, local authorities, the NHS, police and educational institutions will be encouraged to initiate cloud-based projects and take advantage of the speed, scalability and security of the public cloud.

To help bring this about, the government has established a digital marketplace on its website where public sector organisations can find approved service providers. Known as the G-Cloud (Government Cloud), these providers, which include eukhost, offer the advanced, secure and compliant cloud services, together with the technical expertise needed to make public sector digital transformation a reality.

Conclusion

As these use cases exemplify, cloud adoption and digital transformation are key to helping organisations cope with the impact of the current economic crisis and put them in a stronger position to innovate and prosper in the future. However, it is not just major brands that are making the move, businesses across the globe are moving quickly to take advantage of what cloud has to offer.

Tag: #CloudComputing

Cloud Adoption : Major Challenges

Security in the cloud

Cost management

Lack of IT expertise

Multi-clouds and hybrid clouds

Migration

Conclusion

Want to reap the full benefits of cloud computing? Reconsider your journey.