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11.6.2012

As technology becomes more advanced, complexities also have their say in the growth. The situation is not different in the case of cloud computing. Since IT powerhouses as well as even small and medium enterprises are increasingly making their presence felt in the cloud computing sector, operational challenges do pop up frequently, which, if not dealt with immediately could stall your continuity leading to loss of revenue as well as reputation. One of the major challenges faced by enterprises resorting to cloud based business models is migration of key business applications onto the cloud. When CIO’s or managers issue an order asking their staff to migrate a particular app or set of applications onto the cloud, their job is completed by a word or two, but the technical staff has to jump over a China Wall to get things done in time.

This probably explains why a large amount of IT expenditure goes into the process of making applications portable. Here we list some major risks that enterprises face in the event of a cloud migration business strategy and how these issues can be resolved by taking appropriate precautions before the move is made.

Lack of experienced personnel: This is a big drawback as without the service of people who have experience in managing and controlling application portability onto the cloud as well as cloud management skills, your application portability task is bound to be unsuccessful. Porting key business apps onto a cloud would require expertise and precision compared to the human equivalent of a brain transplant and hence there is no room for even the slightest mistake. A solution to this problem would undoubtedly be to recruit only experienced personnel for the job. Not only that, live testing scenarios should be undertaken before deploying them for duty in addition to providing them with training and reference material.

Handling confidential enterprise data: The internet is a playground for malicious software, viruses, illegal bots, etc. and hence migrating crucial business data and applications to an internet-based business model like cloud computing requires extensive preparation and precautions to ensure and safeguard the authenticity of crucial data and prevent it from landing in the wrong hands. The solution would be to maintain a strict security firewall to prevent intrusions. The entire cloud platform should be under constant surveillance and any suspicious events should be traced to its origin and reported to the respective authority.

Involvement of 3rd Party: If IT is not your key competency, then migrating to a cloud-based business environment would require the service of a 3rd party IT solutions provider who has expertise in cloud operations and management. But then this would mean that your businesses key applications as well as mission-critical data would be handled by an external source which increases the risk of data being leaked or lost. The best way to combat this issue would be to choose a premium partner with proven track record in providing cloud based solutions. Check out their previous partnerships and analyse how their solutions reacted to vulnerabilities and threats.

Integration of in-house and cloud applications: The technical integration of data as well as business applications becomes a key issue when enterprises resort to cloud-based monitoring and service. Very often companies prefer to keep a certain amount of applications and data in-house while migrating to a cloud platform. However the migrated applications may have to depend on these in-house data for their operations, which requires a proper integration of both these components that is technically a challenging perspective. A proper scheduling and systematic approach to migration would solve this issue. Identification of dependent systems, calculating impact of migration and planned migration of all relevant systems onto a trusted cloud platform would eliminate the thoughts of concern plaguing enterprises in this regard.

Support for legacy systems: Moving to the cloud ultimately results in change of infrastructure and adoption of new standards of business operations. Newly integrated software platforms as well as hardware components make their way into offices but at the same time, these changes spark another wave of problems because of the need for interoperability of existing legacy systems with these new components. It is a wiser decision to upgrade your legacy systems rather than degrading cloud infrastructure to facilitate interoperability. Aging systems prove to be a damper in cloud performance and efficiency and also create greater workload because of slower processing capability.

Thus the solution for almost all major application migration issues in cloud computing pretty much lies in the hands of enterprises themselves. Taking steps to resolve them at the earliest would only pave the way for greater success within limited time for a whole new cloud based business model.

GMO Cloud takes pride not only in the excellent service they provide but as well as its proven track record. With the introduction of the public cloud offering, additional services – which includes migration - were included to complement and follow through on the core services sold.

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About the Guest Author:

Mandira Srivastava is a fulltime freelance writer who specializes in technology, health and fitness, politics, and financial writing. Equipped with degree of mass communication and having worked for both private and corporate clients, I have experience meeting a wide range of writing requirements and styles.

11.5.2012

Why are companies moving their IT infrastructures to the cloud nowadays? There could be several reasons for doing so; however, the desire to increase productivity and enhance efficient collaboration are the primary expectations of some business managers entirely moving their IT systems to the cloud.

No doubt, cloud technology affords businesses the unprecedented flexibility and scalability that make it possible for businesses, irrespective of their sizes, to upgrade their IT requirements periodically when the need arises. Invariably, when the amount of information processed by these businesses increases owing to business expansion or hike in customers’ number, they will not necessarily need to worry about how to handle this peak IT requirement, they can simply scale up their storage capacity because cloud computing allows it. Hence, this action will definitely lead to better productivity on the part of these businesses.

Another productivity-enhancing benefit of cloud technology is that it permits relatively easier accessibility for users to log onto the cloud from anywhere and on any digital device in real time to obtain the required data/information. In other words, employees of companies can retrieve relevant data/information stored in the cloud in the course of executing their official duties without facing serious barriers or hindrances.

Incidentally, the rate of retrieval of information stored in the cloud is comparatively faster and less laborious than when the same amount of information was stored on in-house servers. This is because the cloud structure is perpetually managed by a third party whose primary responsibility is to see that the systems do not experience, if possible, any downtime. Interestingly, this uninterrupted continuation in business operations is projected to increase productivity and add long-time value to the good and services produced by these businesses.

Companies are also witnessing efficient collaboration among their ranks of employees using the cloud technology. Now, it is possible to have fast and coordinated chats, email, instant messaging and constant updating of data/information for better business utilization. Before, companies solely relied on duplicating information from one section of their operations to another. But that has changed dramatically; information can be accessed by employees of any company, irrespective of their sections of operations, in real time by merely logging on to the company’s cloud.

This elimination of duplication of documents, data, files and instructions will help businesses to drastically reduce the cost of transmitting information from one department to another. As a result of this practice, data loss, data violation and exposure of data to unauthorized parties will be prevented, and companies can maximize the time of accessing, retrieving and processing information to carry out their operations more efficiently.

Interestingly, these benefits of higher productivity and faster collaboration among employees in a company have reportedly helped business managers to save cost on a number of activities: they do not need to duplicate their files, documents, disks, desktop computers in order to retrieve and utilize certain information/data.  While this practice can help businesses to save cost on running their operations, they also contribute to the conservation of the environment—environment is safe when fewer and fewer business wastes are produced. Instead of having packs of files, employees of a company can share a single file by merely accessing this file on their company’s cloud.

Hence, it is right to say that cloud technology is also a clean-energy process that is capable of helping humans maintain unpolluted environment. This is in addition to the benefit of leading to higher profitability due to the reduction in the overhead expenses and profits from optimum business performance. The efficient collaboration among employers of the same company that has adopted cloud computing reflects a rich culture of greater business performance that many companies need in order to stay highly competitive.

Be Part of Our Cloud Conversation

Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.

About the Guest Author:

Jerry Olasakinju, a Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) degree holder, is a passionate researcher and writer whose interest in everything computing is unparalleled. He blogs about his literary works at http://jerryolasakinju.blogspot.jp/