The cloud, big data, and other buzz words populate the daily lingo of tech. But, before you get sucked into a vortex, one key question to ask is: is it suitable for my company? Migrating to cloud-based infrastructure for your company’s technical assets is not that easy in some cases. This is where a lot of things come into play. Many IT consultancy companies in cities like New Jersey say that the following factors require consideration.
Manpower
You will need not just a regular IT guy but a solutions architect, preferably those with Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud Platform certification. Even Microsoft has this certification for IT deployments that involve Windows servers. Whether you are going to do this in-house or outsourced, make sure you have the appropriate workforce for these cutting-edge technologies.
Budget
Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud charge by the minute or hour of using their virtual infrastructure for your data center requirements. So, you need to set a maximum budget for your company. Make sure to use alarms when you are about to pay the monthly usage. Amazon, for example, makes use of Cloud Watch alarms to let you know via email alert if you are exceeding your intended monthly budget for their services.
Local Laws
For the type of data you are using, some laws do apply. For example, gambling data is not usually allowed to be hosted in the cloud but need to be in a physical data warehouse for some countries. Know the requirements for your state and location, so you won’t get in trouble for hosting datasets that are sensitive like bank information, among others.
Your Data Center’s Purpose
Why do you need your data center to be in the cloud? Do you need it as a backup or some archive? If you are archiving the files, you may go for more affordable storage solutions if you can wait for a while to retrieve files on rare occasions. If the data needs to be frequently accessed, you can do better with products like the S3 bucket, Google Cloud instances or containers that you can securely build a connection.
Proposed Infrastructure Design
You need a design in advance before you implement, so you can plan the outcome properly. Take note of how often people are accessing your technical assets and how much of that load needs to be balanced in the cloud. If your physical data warehouse is working better than a cloud-based one, this design period is also the same time you check for compatibility and run benchmark tests.
Get the Experts Involved
You can try getting the services of IT consulting companies in your state. These IT experts are well-versed with migrating various types of systems and can help you do it faster. Their experience will be beneficial to you, especially if it’s your first time to put things in the cloud.
Every Migration Plan Has a Backup Plan
Of course, migration can sometimes fail halfway through. So before you migrate everything, take snapshots of your systems and provide suitable restore points in case things go wrong. It’s always smart to have a backup plan for your data warehouse requirements.
Consider these things before hopping into the cloud-powered bandwagon. Remember, it’s always better to be safe than sorry.
