demystifying iaas adoption for enterprise applications · 2020-03-14 · demystifying iaas adoption...
TRANSCRIPT
Demystifying IaaS Adoption for Enterprise Applications
Abstract
Despite the growing spend on cloud technologies,
enterprises worldwide are plagued with this
question, “Which among the many is the best
solution for us?” There are no straight answers,
and very few have embarked on this journey,
confident of the cloud solution chosen for their
environment. For the majority, a possible
approach would be to partner with technology
specialists to find the most suited cloud service
suite.
This paper discusses how an Infrastructure as a
Service (IaaS) model of cloud computing could be
a viable option for mid-size enterprises on their
path to cloud adoption. Most businesses may
disrupt their application environment moving to a
model like Software as a Service (SaaS). With
IaaS, however, you can migrate stable
applications to a private cloud environment and
experience immediate benefits. We have laid out
a pragmatic approach for enterprises across
industries that will accelerate their journey
toward cloud adoption.
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Confronting the Fear of the Unknown
Considered one of the major disruptions in the IT industry, cloud
computing makes IT infrastructure, software platforms, and
applications available, round-the-clock, and with much ease.
However, like any other new technology adoption, this also
comes with a host of challenges, such as high costs, numerous
subscription models, lack of a holistic support service, and so
on. Which is why organizations must address these concerns
before taking the plunge:
n What is the right cloud solution for a certain business
environment?
n What is the right time to do the transition?
n Will this disrupt business continuity?
n Are the projected benefits (commercial or operational) real?
With these questions, you may think risks far outweigh the
benefits. However, the numbers paint a different picture.
Gartner predicted that the highest growth in the public cloud
services market in 2017 will come from IaaS, projected to reach 1
$34.6 billion. The problem, therefore, does not lie in the
solution, but the lack of planning.
Perhaps, organizations should then prepare to answer:
n Is their current application landscape stable? Does it have the
required features for ensuring seamless operations?
n Are the application license costs optimized?
n Is IT elasticity needed for the enterprise application
landscape? In other words, will infrastructure requirements
fluctuate frequently or will they be stable with some need for
data growth?
n Does the application landscape change so dynamically that
on-demand provisioning is needed?
These may provide the necessary rationale for adopting IaaS
with minimum disruption and risks, especially if the answers for
the first two queries are affirmative.
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Transitioning with the Right Approach
It is clear, enterprises across industries are at the tipping point
when it comes to building and investing in 'cloud first'
strategies. As public cloud services mature, most companies are
operating in a hybrid IT ecosystem, while maintaining their 2
traditional, on-premises hosting environments. For those still on
the verge of making a decision, it is important to ensure:
Perfect timing—specifically, when the current on-premises
infrastructure is scheduled for a refresh. Financially, it makes
sense to plan for the migration at least six months before the
refresh cycle because once the investment is done in new
infrastructure, you will have to wait for some three to five years
until the next refresh cycle.
A right-sized environment—that is, provision only what is
required. Technology specialists will analyze and recommend
appropriate compute and storage for workloads. As some
software product vendors have different licensing models
depending on the hosting environment, it's critical to analyze
this aspect to optimize the cost.
An extended network—to the private cloud environment. This
will help avoid concerns regarding application performance
owing to bandwidth issues post migration, as well as eliminate
risks related to network security. As the migration process is
resource intensive, a separate high bandwidth link between the
source and destination data centers will be ideal to ensure
business-as-usual (BAU) activities. This ensures volumes of data
from the source to the destination is transferred seamlessly
within a short timeframe. Based on heuristics, for transferring
eight terabytes of data per day, two 1-gbps dedicated links are
recommended (four terabytes per link).
Replication mechanism—leveraging the tools offered by
product vendors to replicate data from one environment to the
other. This becomes simpler when the storage and compute
products utilized are the same on both source and destination
sides. However, when the two sides are different, the process
must include a proof of concept to demonstrate the application.
This is a critical exercise, and its vital technology vendors are
consulted for selecting the right tools.
Inventory and application grouping—when migrating
applications from one data center to another. Ideally, this data
should be available in a configuration management database
(CMDB). Unfortunately, ground realities are different. Most
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companies seldom have a complete, updated CMDB. For such
cases, an IT architect familiar with the enterprise ecosystem can
collaborate with different application teams to create a
comprehensive inventory. Once done, applications move groups
can be created easily with appropriate sequencing.
Testing—to alleviate stakeholder apprehensions about
applications not functioning as-is post migration. Furthermore,
this process will be in phases, with the Development and QA
environments being migrated before Production. Testing the
applications in these environments, especially QA which is
quasi-Production, can address concerns centered on ensuring
minimum business disruption. Hence, applications and business
teams must invest time on testing, focusing on integration and
performance rather than the functional aspects.
On that note, all risk-averse stakeholders will still worry about
applications functioning in the new production environment. In
our experience, the most common question has been: What is
the rollback plan to go back to the original environment?
As part of the usual process followed by planning teams, a
detailed plan can be presented that highlights how the
configuration changes can be reverted to the source
environment. However, this is far from reality. Once the new
production environment is switched on, there is no going back.
In case of issues, these are generally fixed in the new
environment itself. This is usually because of the complexities in
configuring integration points, IP addresses, security, and so on,
are too many to seamlessly switch back to the older
environment. This might be why testing before go-live becomes
critical, with no scope for a rollback. Such transformation
projects, therefore, must be approved and backed by executive
mandates to ensure all stakeholders are on the same page.
Of course, this entire migration plan is incomplete without
factoring in the operational aspects post go-live. At the very
least, this must comprise a monitoring system and reporting of
key metrics. A cloud management portal for ease of provisioning
of infrastructure and for publishing regular reports on utilization
and showback metrics must be instituted. All these may not be
available on the first day after go-live, but there must be a plan
in place to have these up and running in a reasonable
timeframe.
Some immediate benefits, like the ones listed below, can be
demonstrated almost within a quarter of go-live:
n Capex to Opex conversion with overall TCO reduction
n Preserving the investment made in software application
licenses
n Improved performance, with right-sizing and new
infrastructure
n Showback data to report the application-wise usage of
infrastructure
n Experience of migrating to an external data center so that
future cloud strategy can be thought through judiciously.
Conclusion
IaaS and a private cloud can be a perfect launch pad for
enterprises to get over the fear of unknowns. Thereafter, the
right cloud model must be chosen judiciously, which in most
cases is a hybrid model.
We believe that if the aspects that we have outlined here are
given due attention, then there should be no reason for such a
migration to be unsuccessful.
References[1] Gartner., Press Release: Gartner Says Worldwide Public Cloud Services Market to
Grow 18 Percent in 2017 (February 2017), accessed November 14, 2017,
https://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3616417
[2] Gartner., 2017 Planning Guide for Cloud Computing (October 2016), accessed
November 14, 2017,
https://www.gartner.com/binaries/content/assets/events/keywords/catalyst/catus
8/2017_planning_guide_for_cloud.pdf
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About The Author
Navin Verma
Navin Verma is the Client
Partner of two large accounts
within the HiTech business unit
at Tata Consultancy Services
(TCS). He is responsible for
revenue growth, service
delivery and operations, and
customer relationship
management in these
accounts. With over 20 years of
experience in the IT industry,
Verma has played several key
roles across account
management, consulting,
delivery, program
management, and pre-sales in
different domains including
HiTech, Travel and
Transportation, as well as
Healthcare. He holds a Master's
degree in Computer
Applications from the Institute
of Management Technology,
Ghaziabad, India, and has
completed the Tata Group
Executive Leadership course
from the Ross School of
Business, Michigan, USA.