We’ve been at it with a series of frequently asked questions on the cloud.
From starting your cloud migration journey, to the time that it takes to get there, along with a few best practices, we’re covering all bases.
This time, it’s about looking at why the cloud performs better on-prem and how to get the buy-in that you need to get your lift and shift started.
Once again, the cloud connoisseur himself, Brendon De Meyer, has some great tips to share.
Does the cloud perform better than onsite infrastructure? And Why?
Typically speaking, it’s a 99% yes.
That’s because the hardware is just better. You have access to technology that would typically take large, expensive upgrades and have powerful security measures in place.
For example, you can make everything run on solid state drives now. Which means that you don’t have to go and upgrade 10 different storage arrays to do this. You can just have it available.
Where you’re going to see the opposite is:
- Disconnecting systems that you don’t know the full connectivity map of.
If you have a large system sitting in the cloud and it still accidentally needs to communicate or depend on a system sitting on premise, and you haven’t accounted for that, you could create performance issues.
- Incorrect cloud specs.
We also need to understand that if you’re going to incorrectly spec your cloud (cloud will always be a lower spec than what’s OnPrem), you’re guaranteed to face bottlenecks. The cloud will only go so far, so you can’t go and spec it down to the lowest possible denominator. You still have to be realistic about your consumption. You are going to get away with using less and you are going to get better performance for less. But if you take that bar just a little bit too far, you’re going to see problems.
*Remember: This is always a great time trying to figure out that ratio to do a benchmark and do it with a reporting server, move it into the cloud, test it, and compare it to the speed of the reports. As that will give you a benchmark on what that performance differentiator is.
You can even take a look at also getting smart around the technologies, especially if latency is an issue. If it’s the sort of content that you can serve up, make use of the CDNs and those sorts of things to really deliver data sitting far away, but in a local manner.
How do I get the buy-in from the rest of the business to go cloud?
In terms of the rest of the business, there’s three aspects to it.
- The people who are paying the bills.
- The people who are actually running the environments.
- The people that are consuming.
The biggest thing that you need to do is sell the advantage to each of those three parties at any point in time.
For the people who are paying the bills
The best way to sell it? It’s an easy way of not having to do a hardware refresh. You’re offering them new ways to pull back the cost of doing business. That typically goes a long way, especially when there’s a big capital expenditure coming up to refresh an environment.
The people who are running the environments
The people that are managing the existing environments are a harder sell, because they are typically the ones that worry about job losses or where they fit into the greater scheme of things.
That’s where it comes down to providing opportunities to upskill and then telling them that they’re going to do exactly the same job, but far quicker and far easier. It also frees up more time to do more important work.
The people consuming the systems
Often easier to sell, because it’s going to be:
a) Faster;
b) More available;
c) Easier and quicker to add new features.
You need to have these conversations with each and every one of them.
You also can’t scare them into this big, massive change. Especially the people that are running those environments.
Nobody wants to go through another several years of learning curves, because they’ve just finished doing that on the last system upgrade.
You want them to understand that, yes, this is going to be mildly uncomfortable for a week or two, but that they’re going to have: more features available (and faster), the system is going to be more widely available and the support thereof is easier.
Looking For External Help?
Then look no further!
We not only have the cloud expertise to modernise (and optimise) your hyperscale environment, we also have exactly what you need to have your AI and ML initiatives take rapid flight.
(We’re talking months, not years).
And if you’re thinking about implementing data lakes, or taking on any other cloud modernisation goals – Our teams have you covered!
Get in touch or check out our blog on more cloud, ML, and data related advice.
