20 CLOUD COMPUTING
20 CLOUD COMPUTING
Pitfalls of cloud migration
By Andy Kennedy , senior sales engineering manager , Zscaler
www . zscaler . com
Network and security infrastructure issues that must be considered ahead of a successful cloud migration using Office 365 as the example case ...
More and more companies are adopting cloud-based applications , eager to take advantage of the cost reductions , improved productivity and collaboration opportunities they offer . However , ensuring a successful implementation can often be more difficult than it initially seems ; resulting in dissatisfied users , increased costs and longer deployment timescales . To combat this , companies must develop a holistic approach to migration concepts prior to launch .
Starting the migration process The first thing to bear in mind is that Microsoft Office 365 is a network intensive application , so companies need to ensure their existing infrastructure can cope with an increase of up to 40 % on their network utilisation in some cases . Applications such as Outlook , Excel and Skype for Business often try to connect simultaneously , generating 12 to 20 persistent connections per user , massively increasing the pressure on firewall state tables .
At the start of the process , it ’ s likely companies will have to call on different areas of expertise both within and outside an organisation ; including business owners , network architects , security and identity management specialists and data centre operations . Unsurprisingly , the adoption of such transformative technology requires the adaptation of numerous existing processes and workflows , which often need to be managed by different parties .
Their input is also needed to offset the fact many companies still cling to the technology comfort blanket of
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