The right advice to move to AWS prevents issues later

When any business decides to migrate their infrastructure and applications to Amazon Web Services (AWS) there are a wide range of considerations that need to be met. Many issues can arise without correct planning, and a lack of advice at critical stages of the process can mean that your project does not yield the full benefits that the Amazon Cloud can offer.

Through years of experience with helping our clients migrate their core infrastructure to the cloud, we have identified the four main reasons which cause issues with an AWS migration.

Forgetting to create a cloud strategy

More often than not, companies that decide they want to move to the Amazon Cloud have not created a strategy to follow. Without a strategy resources can be wasted, effort focused on the wrong applications and, in some cases, a move to the cloud can cause significant financial damage.

To support your business objectives and move to the Amazon Cloud your strategy needs to include:

• Why does your company want to move to the cloud?
• Analysis of the current situation including problems etc
• A plan of what you want to migrate and does everything need migrating?
• What benefits are you expecting to see and are these measurable for both the business and your customers?
• What features and functions might you need from the Amazon Cloud in the future?

Working with an Amazon specialist means that they will provide support and advice so that there are clear goals and a direction for your business in the cloud which can be followed during the migration. This advice will ensure that your migration is completed on time and on budget.

Rushing the migration

Like other cloud solutions, AWS is very easy to get started with and this leads to a great deal of complacency. In-house teams think that because it is easy to use and they can support an existing on-premise IT system they can do the same in the cloud but the reality is very different.

Normally in house AWS migrations will start with the easiest things to move to the cloud and generally speaking these go well with very few issues needing to be resolved. The problem occurs when more complex business-critical applications are migrated and because the business has not thought through the migration and lacks experience and knowledge it uses up resources and costs spiral. 

An AWS managed services partner will initially architect and specify the right Amazon solution, decide what is to be migrated and then run a number of test migrations to ensure that applications behave as expected. In addition, because of their past experience with AWS, they are able to advise your business before problems occur or help resolve issues quickly.

Spiralling Costs

Because it is so easy to spin up new AWS servers and add resources, organisations often find that they are running more services than they actually require or have over specified machines meaning they are paying for compute power and capacity they don’t need.

Because AWS uses a pay-as-you-go pricing model you are still billed for the resource even if it is not used which can lead to inflated costs if not resolved quickly.

IG CloudOps have developed specialist cloud financial management software called CloudOps which allows detailed analysis of cloud spend and helps better management systems to be applied in order to prevent sprawl and rising costs.

Our CloudOps can be used to determine whether there are opportunities to reduce costs and improve efficiency. If you would like to talk to one of certified experts about how we can help you protect your cloud investment contact us for more information.

CloudOps has been specifically developed to:

• Support the delivery of business critical services and applications in the cloud
• Enhance your own services and teams with additional resources and skills
• Maximise the performance and manage costs of cloud operations
• Provide proactive support and management of your cloud

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Data Security

A key challenge with any cloud move is data security and governance.  One of the biggest issues faced by companies who move their applications and infrastructure to the Amazon cloud is that they overlook compliance or security issues as they are not managed in the same way as they are with physical infrastructure.

There may be geographic requirements for where data is hosted which need to be considered when deploying your environment so that compliance is maintained which can also apply to back-ups.

Key standards in software must also be maintained.  Our Cloud Control software handles many of the day to day maintenance issues that are commonly overlooked but can have a significant impact on security.  OS level patches are applied as required and anti-malware software is run on all cloud machines to keep data protected.

Throughout the process of moving and management, our team of AWS specialists provide advice on a range of security issues including:

• Best practices
• AWS Security controls
• User access levels

This advice can then be used to configure the environment so that where possible it helps avoid issues later on. If you would like to get the right advice to support your move to AWS and prevent issues from occurring speak to the certified Amazon Cloud specialists at IG CloudOps today.

Get in touch with us to discuss any aspect of your AWS cloud or future migration. 

You might also be interested in:

• How to Choose the Ideal Option for Your AWS Support Plan 
• How to Achieve AWS Cost Optimisation to Ensure You’re Getting Value for Money