The benefits of using infrastructure in the cloud include financial benefits—if you manage your cloud computing wisely. The time to start managing your cloud costs is when you start planning your migration. Be sure you evaluate these factors to keep the costs of your migration under control.
1. Fit your instances to your workloads.
Understand your current workloads to understand what capacity you need in the cloud. Your on-premises equipment is likely overprovisioned with excess capacity to handle anticipated growth. When you migrate to the cloud, you don’t need to build in that spare capacity; it’s available on demand. You only need the capacity to handle the current requirements. (That doesn’t mean ignoring peaks in demand, but only the peaks that are real, not the peaks that may come in the future.)
2. Choose the right pricing plan.
Along with choosing the appropriate cloud configuration, you need to consider the different cloud pricing models. You can choose from on-demand pricing or reserved instances that may offer significant cost savings. The appropriate pricing model depends on your applications and performance requirements.
3. Know how much it will cost to transfer your data.
One of the most challenging aspects of a cloud migration is getting the data to the cloud. Different cloud providers offer different options, ranging from using APIs to loading data onto devices that are trucked to the cloud provider’s premises. Do the math to determine how much transferring your data will cost you.
4. Choose the right data storage option.
Once your data is in the cloud, you’ll pay for keeping it there. Different data storage options provide different levels of access and performance. Understand the IOPS and bandwidth your applications require; know which applications are bursty, and which data is rarely used. Then choose the right storage for each workload to ensure you have the performance your apps need but aren’t paying top-dollar for archived data.
5. Understand how moving to the cloud affects your software licenses.
Moving to the cloud will require transferring your software licenses to the new platform. Have a plan for administering licenses in the cloud and understand the time and costs of this effort.
6. Be ready to shutdown unneeded instances.
Since you only pay for what you use in the cloud, make sure you’re using only what you need. Set up a process for monitoring instances to make sure they are active and shutdown any that are idle.
7. Choose the right cloud support strategy.
Depending on which cloud service you use, you will have different responsibilities for supporting your cloud infrastructure. Make sure you understand what the service provider will handle and what your own team will need to handle. Even though capacity can grow on demand, you will still need to monitor usage to know when you need additional capacity and manage the costs. You also need to continue to monitor users to ensure the security of your corporate data. Plan to spend time training your staff in how to perform these functions in the new cloud environment.
You can simplify your cloud support and manage your support costs through using managed services. dcVAST’s managed Amazon Web Services provide full 24×7 support for your cloud infrastructure. Contact us to learn more about how dcVAST can support your transition to the cloud.
