When we think of one of the most widely used applications of technology today, we think of cloud computing. First of all what is cloud computing? It is a collection of networks. A user can use the services provided by the cloud through the internet for storing data. There are three components involved in cloud computing, they are, client computers which the end users use to interact with the cloud, distributed servers, which are servers that are distributed in different places but act like they are working with each other, and lastly, Data Centers with contain all the data servers. There are three types of services that cloud provides, they are SaaS, also known as software as a service, in this type of service the user does not need to install software in their computer but instead can access it via the internet. The next type of service is called PaaS or platform as a service, in this type of service the platform or environment is given to user and they can deploy their own software and start building their application. The last type of service is called IaaS, or better known as Infrastructure as a service, is where all resources needed to build an application are given to the user, which includes, hardware, software, operating system and storage devices on demand. Major IT industries have enormous amounts of data that needs to be stored. All of these organizations store its data, applications and workloads to a cloud infrastructure. This is known as cloud migration. This migration can be over public, private or like most organizations, hybrid cloud. Migration through public cloud involves services being delivered over the internet. Migration through private cloud involves services of a protected cloud infrastructure available only to that organization. Hybrid cloud environment involves both public as well as private cloud.
Like anything in technology, cloud migration also has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Organizations should take all of these into consideration when migrating data into cloud. Some of the advantages of migrating IT systems to cloud are:
1) Cost: The cost of the cloud services provided depends on how much space is occupied by the data. The capacity of the cloud can be updated as and when required and the cost will also change according to the capacity of the cloud this ultimately leads to the increase in the performance of IT processes.
2) Allows organizations to focus more on development of applications and less on an underlying infrastructure for data.
3) Due to the pay-as-you-go schema that cloud providers use, organizations can now store more amounts of data, and expand their businesses in a multiregional way, thus increasing deployment of applications.
4) Some cloud providers handle software updates, data backup and maintenance automatically, so organizations do not have to update their underlying software as it can be a very time consuming and tedious task.
5) An ever-expanding organization will have an ever-expanding amount of data being generated, if the organization has not taken a cloud service then the cost and effort to keep up with the storage requirements, will be time-consuming as well as take maximum effort.
But, with cloud, especially cloud migration there are some risks as well as many disadvantages involved as well. Here are some of the disadvantages of migration of IT companies to cloud:
1) One of the biggest disadvantages in cloud migration is the tendency to underestimate the cost of during the mitigation of data. The cost of mitigating the data are calculated but the tools and services involved in the transition are almost always missed during the interpretation of cost.
2) Another important disadvantage is that we often forget that this a change of the enablement of a cloud-based legacy system. This technological advancement is new and requires more understanding of the impact and scope of these new advancements. This affects stakeholders in the project as well, they need to assess the suitability for these exiting legacy systems.
3) Security is of huge concern for organizations when moving data to the cloud. Therefore more number of organizations may move some components from the legacy system to cloud whereas some components are put in local organization network and cloud services are offered to them.
4) In order to enable the migration of data to cloud a series of code modifications are made in the legacy system to utilize the services offered by the cloud. This involves the creation of new components to integrate with the existing components. This may lead to a variety of incompatibility issues between the legacy system and the cloud services.
Along with the disadvantages, there are also a number of risks involved in the migration of data. The environment definitely plays a role in the risks involved in data migration to cloud but there are some risks that apply in general:
1) As mentioned above in the disadvantages involved, security is a huge concern in the migration of data, so if an organization is storing and retrieving sensitive data then the organization may not prefer to migrate data to the cloud. This is one the biggest risks involved.
2) What if an organization has a setup of its own that is meeting its needs. The need for migration reduces. There is always a risk involved in migrating unnecessary data.
3) When migrating data, some operations might attain latency when using the services provided by cloud over the internet.
4) In cloud, if some resources are shared, the organization’s neighbors will make themselves heard through these shared resources.
5) The organization’s application design and architecture may not support the cloud’s distributed architecture, and therefore some modifications might have to be made, there is always a risk that these modifications may not ever fit the architecture of the cloud completely.
6) Once the organization is using the cloud services, it is very difficult to change its platform, there is always a risk involved if the organization ever wants to change or leave the platform.
As mentioned before, while using any new technology, there will always be advantages, disadvantages and risks involved. Many organizations today, are switching to using cloud services. Given the risks and disadvantages involved, the benefits seem to outweigh it all.
Cloud migration costs
The common prorogating portion about cloud immigration is price prediction. We generally depreciate the obligations incited by this method. So we further have to not only examine that the price of the migration but we have to further consider the demand incited by devices including armies included within a particular transaction.
We also must admit advances towards the network connectivity to work extended bandwidth requirements and after migration, price to run workloads cloud environment. As migration decrease in front prices when adding technology, the cloud-based model of technology. It's open-ended cost besides necessitate preparation and budgeting.
A study in 'Forrester Consulting' in 2017 says that Enough Attention does that 'Cornerstone of Public Cloud Migration Success', discovered about plenty of organizations do not pass the budget during cloud migration, frequently misses the necessary treat costs continuing. Rather than restricted prices. The finding includes the below stated as follows:
1) Less than 40% of companies match or beat aims compared over the journey and spread payments.
2) Around 58% of companies observed that governing their base in particular cloud-capped their charge evaluations.
3) Groups would advise likely emigrations individually. The common acknowledgments advanced to finance in agents, develop production distinctness, and procure a greater recognition of prices, uncertainties, and advantages.
To calculate the cost we can use online available sources. By using these tools we can walk through the complete model and additional options related to the cloud migration method.
Financial planning is important to successful cloud migration. When setting funds, be sure to factor in current costs compared with the workloads being moved as well as the expense of moving those workloads and managing them in the cloud. Proper budget planning also helps from simply defining project goals and setting a practical timeline for migration.
Many companies have found it useful for effective budget planning to work similarly with consultants, cloud providers, and financial experts to conduct the necessary assessments and prepare actual cost projections.
Trends:
Cloud selection by the industry is frequently common. Currently, the overpowering majority of enterprises use the cloud in some form, and, in most situations, organizations are leveraging multiple clouds.
Most industries have a cloud approach, and 85% of them use various clouds. The general trend in the enterprise is to leverage four to five clouds on average. The multi-cloud trend is fueled by the method of mixing and matching applications to the cloud infrastructure that is best adapted to each particular workload. Multicloud strategies, hence, add stability while increasing flexibility and scalability.
Digital transform is added driver of cloud migration trends. Organizations are shifting to cloud infrastructures to quicken their digitization plans to drive innovation strategies and increase customer experience. Companies are leveraging the flexibility of the cloud to accelerate development projects to introduce new services and products in their own markets.
Lastly, extra major driver of cloud migration is the Internet of Things (IoT), which aims to combine devices with other devices and humans to collect, review, and act on data in myriad ways. As it expands, the IoT will depend massively on cloud infrastructures to process, store, and analyze the large volumes of data captured by sensors, trackers, and monitoring devices in a broad variety of environments. Enterprises seeming to kickstart their IoT implementations simply are turning to the cloud to accelerate their deployment plans.
Finally we conclude it by saying advantages overweight’s the disadvantages. We can say that every industry is moving to cloud to minimize the operation cost and increase their performance. Cloud is offering various benefits with minimum cost.
