Cloud adoption without turbulence: top 10 mistakes

Many startups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are relying on cloud technologies to reduce costs, preferring to use cloud infrastructure instead of internal IT resources. This is not only cost-effective, but also provides flexibility, convenience and scalability. However, many companies make mistakes when integrating cloud computing into their operations, including global corporations:

Adobe:

• Back in 2018, the technology giant lost $80 thousand in cloud expenses in Azure due to an error by the development team.

Pinterest:

• Ran into the same problem after their AWS spend went $20 million over budget due to unexpected traffic spikes.

Knight Capital:

• In 2012, the company lost $440 million in just a few hours due to an error in the trading algorithm, highlighting the importance of careful testing and monitoring.

GitLab:

• In 2017, the system administrator of a software development platform accidentally deleted important data, causing the service to be unavailable for many hours.

Code Spaces:

• In 2014, they were forced to close after hackers gained access to the company's AWS console and deleted most of its customers' data and resources.

Each of these examples highlights different aspects of cloud computing and IT management where failures can result in significant financial and reputational losses; recalling the need to approach the implementation and management of cloud infrastructure with due diligence and strategic planning.

What are the chances that your startup will make the same mistakes? To avoid this, let's take a closer look at them.

Insufficient planning

Insufficient planning for the transition of IT systems to the cloud can cause serious difficulties, including problems at every stage of implementation and use of cloud technologies. Missing current and future business requirements, lack of understanding of project cost and complexity, and insufficient control over service selection and costs often lead to increased costs and reduced cloud efficiency.

How to avoid:

• In-depth business analysis: studying the business requirements and IT systems of your company;
• Development of a transition strategy: identification of systems and services to be moved with the development of a step-by-step migration plan;
• Financial planning: calculating the costs of using cloud services, taking into account all possible and non-obvious expenses.
   

Choosing the wrong cloud solution

When companies choose cloud services that are not customized to their specific needs and operating habits, this often results in inefficiency, failure to realize the full potential of the chosen technology, and in some cases, even system failures.

How to avoid:

• Meeting business requirements: understanding business needs with a long-term perspective;
• Thorough market analysis: conducting an analysis of available cloud solutions in terms of their functionality, reliability, cost and security;
• Testing solutions: using trial periods or pilot projects to ensure confidence in your choice. For example, OneCloudPlanet provides $20 for a trial period.
   

Underestimating the complexity of migration

Migrating data and applications to the cloud is not just about moving things from one place to another, but about reimagining the workspace, ensuring its functionality and maintaining business value. If you lack experience, OneCloudPlanet specialists will ensure your quick and safe move to the cloud. After all, underestimating this complexity can cause a number of problems, such as data loss, downtime and even financial losses.

How to avoid:

• Migration plan: taking into account all aspects: from data transfer to system performance testing;
• Conducting testing: conducting a comprehensive check before the final transition;
• Post-transition plan: after that, support and optimization of the cloud environment is also necessary, as well as taking into account the reverse.
   

Failure to Integrate

Effective use of cloud technologies often involves the need to integrate various systems and applications into a single ecosystem. Failure to integrate can be a major bottleneck as business processes, data and applications become isolated and cannot communicate effectively with each other, reducing business efficiency and increasing IT management complexity.

How to avoid:

• Understanding the architecture: determining which systems and data need to be integrated, ensuring the integrity and consistency of data throughout its entire lifecycle through the right tools;
• API strategy: developing or selecting API-enabled solutions that will facilitate integration with other systems and allow the business to become more adaptive to changing conditions and requirements;
• Favorable Dev/Test environment: OneCloudPlanet specialists will help you optimize the structure of your IT costs, taking into account the features of information systems, their operation and load.
   

Neglect of safety

When companies migrate to the cloud, they often pay insufficient attention to security aspects, which creates vulnerabilities that can put critical business data and processes at risk. Ignoring the importance of security policies, weak data protection and the lack of effective data protection mechanisms can lead to serious security incidents and data leaks.

How to avoid:

• Encryption and multi-factor authentication: reliable encryption of data at all stages of its life cycle - during transmission, processing and storage to avoid unauthorized access;
• Regular testing and automation of security processes: implementation of tools and solutions that can automate the processes of detecting and responding to security incidents, promptly preventing and minimizing damage from potential threats;
• Firewall (FWaaS): Blocks unauthorized incoming and outgoing network traffic. We will configure interfaces and firewall rules, help with connecting DDoS filtering and VPN access;
• Virtual Private Cloud: Increased security and infrastructure isolation in your production cloud. The private network ensures compliance with most industry security standards. You get an isolated network with a guarantee of the confidentiality of your data.
   

Neglecting a backup strategy

This error can lead to catastrophic consequences, including loss of important data and interruption of business processes. Backup is a vital element of your data management and business continuity strategy.

How to avoid:

• Backups: disk images of your instances are automatically created once a week;
• Snapshots: our system can be used to create copies of existing servers and automate deployments;
• Block Storage: Flexible and reliable storage for demanding workloads with high read/write speeds and low latency. As databases grow, the volume can be scaled to meet project needs.
   

Poor resource management

Poor resource management in the cloud can lead to unnecessary costs, poor performance, and increased time to market. Companies may face challenges such as resource overuse, unoptimized service utilization, and lack of process automation, which reduces the overall efficiency of using cloud technologies.

How to avoid:

• Automation of resource management: implementation of automated scripts for scaling, backup and performance management, to ensure continuous optimization and adaptation to changing conditions;
• Monitoring the use of resources: we will deploy a monitoring system and set up triggers for business-important metrics. We monitor the operation of services around the clock;
• Basic administration: we will set up backups, deploy monitoring systems, install software and monitor the operation of your services. Let's build a backup process. And if anything goes wrong, we will do disaster recovery.
   

Lack of performance management

Moving operations and data to the cloud will not automatically improve performance without proper management. Lack of performance management can cause cloud solutions to become ineffective despite their potential benefits, and even cause downtime. Performance management in a cloud environment involves monitoring, optimizing, and ensuring that applications and services are properly resourced according to their requirements.

How to avoid:

• Systematic monitoring and optimization of resources: monitoring and analyzing resource usage statistics and optimizing their distribution to meet application needs without overspending;
• Application performance management: paying attention not only to the infrastructure, but also to the performance of the applications themselves, taking into account how they interact with the cloud and other services;
• Easily scale with no downtime: our instances can be scaled up or down with virtually no downtime. This will help optimize costs in terms of efficiency, maintaining optimal performance overall.
   

Underestimation of costs

Ignoring or underestimating the costs associated with using cloud services is a common mistake businesses make. This may include a lack of understanding of how services are billed, failure to account for hidden costs, and a lack of transparency in understanding the total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI) of cloud infrastructure.

How to avoid:

• Detailed cost audit: conducting a thorough analysis of all potential costs associated with the transition and use of cloud technologies, including not only direct, but also indirect costs;
• Financial planning: with clearly structured reports for each category of OneCloudPlanet resources, it's easy to see exactly where your funds are going. A visualization of the cost of each selected service parameter is presented at the stage of forming a request, and what exactly the funds are spent on during use;
• Clear visibility of the amount of resources spent: our service provides detailed analytics where you can see what reserves are consumed and what their cost is (for what and for each resource by category).
   

No growth forecast

Failure to consider an organization's long-term planning and increasing workloads can lead to resource shortages, increased costs, and scaling issues in the future. Poor growth projections may limit a company's ability to quickly adapt to changing business conditions.

How to avoid:

• Forecasting and strategy review: Create a model that predicts future needs and incorporates them into your cloud strategy. Regularly update and adapt your cloud strategy based on the current situation and expected growth;
• Architectural flexibility: Design your cloud architecture to easily scale to support growth and change.
• Forecasts: In addition to current spending data, OneCloudPlanet analytics provides information on forecasts for next month's spending while maintaining resource capacity utilization, thereby allowing companies to plan budgets.
   

Hence

Cloud computing is becoming a cornerstone for companies looking to innovate and scale, with a host of pitfalls along the way, ranging from underestimating costs to neglecting security. OneCloudPlanet is a professional cloud solution that provides flexibility and scalability, strong security controls, access to technical expertise, seamless integration, and advanced data and performance management to help companies avoid the previously mentioned pitfalls and run their cloud initiatives smoothly.

By choosing OneCloudPlanet as a partner, enterprises provide themselves with a stable foundation for cloud transformation and scale, allowing their business to thrive and innovate in the digital era, minimizing risk and maximizing ROI from cloud investments.

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