The old tricks will not work here.
Do you have a false impression of
what it takes to be in the cloud?
For this article, I was inspired by the American comedian Jeff Foxworthy’s “You
Might Be a Redneck If…” album. It started me thinking about the misconcep-
tions, misunderstandings and misdeeds that affect our clients on their journey
to the cloud. So, here is my own version of Jeff’s routine, with a new spin:
“You Might Not Be Ready for the Cloud If...”
1. You ask, "What is the biggest server I can get in the cloud?"
Sure, it is important to know the amount of RAM and the number of CPUs you
can get on a server in the cloud. However, focusing only on those details takes
away from the real objective of what you are trying to achieve. Unlike in your
own data center, where it might take six weeks to get a server stood up which
makes you request the biggest box you can possibly get away with. Spinning up
a server on the cloud is very different. If your environment is architected cor-
rectly, you should be able to simply launch a new server of a different configu-
ration, either from your service catalog or by changing the parameters in your
automation framework. That change from waiting six weeks to waiting five
minutes frees you to focus on the real task at hand — delivering value faster.
2. You want to be able to walk through the vendors’ (AWS,
Azure, GCP) data centers
We are emotionally attached to our data centers, and want to be able see where
our servers and data are located in the cloud as well. This topic comes up par-
ticularly often when talking to Legal and Compliance personnel. The majority
of heavily regulated companies have some sort of “right to audit” clause in their
contracts that requires their clients to have the ability to walk through the data
centers. They insist that the same concept should be applied when they move
to the cloud; but cloud providers simply do not let you walk through their data
centers, nor is there any need to do so. Let us be honest, if your clients come to
your data center and you show them “their” server, do they really have any idea
whether it is indeed their server or not? Cloud providers spread their servers
across different data centers, and you have to rely on their third-party audits
and various reports (SOC 1, SOC 2, ISO, etc.) for the assurance they are operat-
ing appropriately. This is not any different from trusting Bank of America to
keep your money safe without having to go to the local branch to see what is in
the vault.
FALL 2018 | THE DOPPLER | 11