Cloud technology continues to dominate the global business market. In fact, in the next 18 months, the majority of organizations’ IT infrastructures will be cloud-based. But we’re not frolicking on cloud nine today. You already know the benefits this unique platform has to offer, but we should address its pain points thoroughly. That said, let’s take a look at this year’s top cloud challenges, as well as how you can overcome them.

Migration

Don’t panic just yet, we’re not saying you'll have a bumpy from the start. More workload moves to the cloud as more businesses migrate. Oftentimes, this leads to an oversight of legacy applications during migration. You must put the necessary tools in place to manage your new cloud environment, while making sure these applications are migrated in a structured manner.

We recommend testing the performance characteristics of your applications. For instance, if your current applications use a lot of disk input and output, you could configure virtual servers in order to keep pace with that load.  An experienced cloud provider will have no problem walking you through this.

Process adaptation

You need to focus your business processes on integrating services from one or multiple service providers. This will ensure your organization delivers a results-driven set of services to clients. The key lies in upgrading and optimizing your existing solutions, adapting tools as your needs evolve, and implementing new applications to support those needs.

The burden lies on your CIO or IT department  and service provider. They’ll need to work closely to develop a clear roadmap that addresses both legacy environment and business transformation.

Security

Lax authentication and weak passwords continue to be concerning. Businesses often struggle with effective identity management. Even something like forgetting to remove user access from an ex-employee can have a devastating impact.

What’s more, many service providers become a target to cyber criminals due to the vast amount of data stored in the cloud. While your service provider will be fined or sued should the worst happen, you could face indirect effects like reputation damage. It’s crucial that you pick a service provider that offers multiple protection approaches like data encryption, an intrusion prevention system, and off-site storage, to say the least.

Vendor lock-in

This is broken down into three categories: data lock-in, application lock-in and infrastructure lock-in.

Data lock-in risks occur when extracting data and moving them from one cloud vendor’s servers to another. Minimize these risks by working with a cloud provider with significant experience moving large application products and their corresponding datasets.

Application lock-in risks emerge as you build cloud-native applications. This is due to the time-consuming and often expensive reconfiguration of these applications to operate on a new platform. However, there are programs to eliminate these types of applications. Using a virtualized container to improve application portability offers an alternative option.

Infrastructure lock-in

The building blocks of a new service and the cost model for those blocks will likely differ. Think of it as buying a t-shirt: a size “L” from different brands will likely fit differently. You can just go for the next size up when moving a single application just to be safe. However, bumping up the size for hundreds of applications can easily break the bank. An experienced cloud provider can determine when a certain number of smaller blocks are cheaper than the a number of bigger blocks.

We’ve come a long way since the inception of cloud computing. And while the platform isn’t perfect, issues are solvable with the right technology in the right hands. The key is not to avoid the technology, but to embrace it, leverage it, and rethink the way you manage your IT. If you have questions about the cloud or are looking for a seamless migration, give us a call today. We’re happy to help.