Many companies have not moved to the cloud for a long time for good reasons: they doubted the security and reliability or believed that the transition would be unprofitable. But the world is changing, and now cloud computing is not an untested innovation, but a necessity. In this article, we will consider the main myths concerning application migration to the cloud and explain why you should not be afraid of them.
Popular delusions concerning app migration to the cloud
Nowadays, migration to the cloud is a popular service, relevant for absolutely any business. Such a migration implies that the entire IT infrastructure or part of it, which ensures the normal operation of the organization, will be stored not on the company’s servers, but in the cloud. However, many business owners are afraid to go for a product migration, as there are certain myths about this process.
Myth 1. To maintain the cloud infrastructure, you need separate specialists, you need to expand the staff
It is a mistake to believe that to maintain the cloud infrastructure, you will have to look for some special administrators who know how to work with the clouds. The same with the opinion that the staff will have to expand.
Truth
One of the advantages of the cloud is that it is not your concern to work with servers, virtual environments, and other infrastructure “substrate” that underlies cloud services. The cloud provider takes care of the servers themselves: updates them, repairs them, and ensures uninterrupted operation and data backup. This means that you will need even fewer people – for example, you will not have to keep a person responsible for the hardware.
Setting up and administering cloud services is available through the control panel and API. Cloud virtual machines are, in fact, the same traditional servers familiar to your employees. The IT staff who maintain your servers now will definitely cope with the maintenance of the cloud.
Real risks
With your own infrastructure, there is a higher risk of facing the need to expand the staff. If the project grows, then the IT infrastructure will grow along with it, there is a risk that the current specialists will no longer be able to service it. Thus, there will be a need to look for new ones and spend time and money on this
Myth 2. Cloud is more expensive than own servers
It seems like you have to pay for cloud servers every month and your server is cheaper because over the years the amount of rent will become more than the cost of buying your server.
Truth
In fact, servers eat up quite a lot of money:
- consume electricity and much more than ordinary office PCs;
- require service by IT specialists, who have to be kept in the state;
- periodically require repair or updating of components – a large amount accumulates over the years;
- take up space in the data center, which must be paid for.
If you take into account all the expenses, it may turn out that you pay much more for your server than for a cloud server of the same capacity.
To rent a cloud server, you do not need to buy and configure equipment, you immediately get the required capacity. The cloud also uses the pay-as-you-go payment model: you only pay for the resources you use. In the cloud, you can get unlimited power, the cloud server will not fall down, no matter how many clients come to you.
Real risks
If you have an established business and well-calculated workloads, and you don’t need to regularly update equipment, buying servers can really be more profitable than renting. However, if the load grows and the infrastructure can no longer cope with it, you will have to spend more on repairs or upgrades than in years of using a cloud server of approximately the same capacity.
In addition, when the load is unstable, when peaks give way to recessions, you overpay for idle equipment during quiet periods and risk that the servers will go down at peak times.
Myth 3. Moving to the cloud is forever, you can’t go back
It is believed that if you transfer a complex infrastructure to the cloud completely, it will be difficult to return – you will have to re-purchase equipment, design an IT infrastructure, and install and configure everything. And this will require serious costs.
Truth
In fact, it’s quite rare for companies to decide to come back from the clouds. Clouds are a logical development of the approach to building infrastructure.
Migration to the cloud does not mean that a company necessarily keeps all infrastructure in the cloud. You can add resources on-premises to the cloud – but this will not be a return, but a logical addition to the cloud.
For example, you can launch a startup in the cloud, evaluate the market, understand the load, and then select individual key processes where it is cost-effective to purchase equipment and hire experts who will be 100% loaded. At the same time, it is convenient to leave the cloud to strengthen your own infrastructure at peak loads, as well as on experimental projects and for tests.
Real risks
It is more terrible not to go to the cloud, but rather to be left behind. While you spend time and money on maintaining your servers, other companies will transfer some or all of their infrastructure to the cloud, and the money saved will be spent on growing the business and quickly bringing products to market using ready-made cloud services.
Myth 5. The cloud can break
It is believed that the provider’s cloud can break down due to a data server failure or if the power is turned off in the data center.
Truth
A fault tolerance cloud infrastructure ensures that cloud services continue to operate even if something breaks somewhere. The data centers of modern providers are combined into a single fault tolerance network – all important elements are reserved and replicated. There are several duplicating each other power supply and cooling channels.
In addition, customer data itself is backed up in the cloud. So the chance of losing data due to a breakdown or failure is reduced to almost zero.
Real risks
It is difficult for companies to independently organize the same level of fault tolerance, remove and store backups of all data, and constantly monitor the operation of equipment. If the data is stored on your servers in the same data center, the risk of losing it is much higher. Breakdown, voltage drop, fire – any force majeure is dangerous.
Final thoughts
Cloud infrastructure is almost maintenance-free. You do not have to hire new specialists or expand your staff – your current specialists will handle the cloud servers. Cloud providers regularly make copies, so even if one or more servers break, the data will not be lost. Thus, if you are thinking about application migration forget about myths and bring your vision to reality. A good decision to perform an application migration is to hire an Intellectsoft professional team who can perform this task as reliably as an IT project.