CloudOps blog

Understanding the componentry of Virtual Machines can at first appear quite complex due to the flexible nature and number of components.

The use of cloud infrastructure to replace legacy systems allows organisations to reduce the capital costs of buying IT hardware.  This migration process requires the virtual infrastructure to be specified in the same way as a physical data centre.  This specification process involves determining the processing power required to maximise application performance and designing a solution that delivers this using “virtual machines” or “VMs” in place of physical Servers.

With more and more organisations moving their applications and programmes to the cloud there is a growing need for managing the day to day growth and management of their infrastructure and resources. Companies want to ensure that they have a robust, scalable solution which will meet their objectives today and into the future because downtime can affect profitability and long term growth.

For many independent software vendors (ISVs) the need to move their applications to the cloud has been gathering pace for a number of years. The expectation that an application can be accessed by anyone, from anywhere, means that to compete with competitors a key requirement is to move to a Software as a Service (SaaS) model with applications available from the cloud.

The cloud brings numerous benefits to businesses who choose to migrate their application or data hosting to a virtualised environment.  However, the process of migrating to Azure or AWS can bring some challenges if proper planning is not undertaken.

As with any major IT project, moving a business critical application or data to the cloud carried some risk.

The cloud is now a mature and stable framework for migrating your IT infrastructure. Whilst its scalability provides many benefits, like any resource it needs to be properly managed to ensure you are fully in control of both usage and costs.

It has long been recognised that moving infrastructure and applications to the AWS & Azure cloud can give a multitude of both tangible and intangible benefits. However, many companies fail to protect their investment and do not seek the support of a certified expert. Both Microsoft and Amazon have stringent accreditation programmes that upskill specialists in the relevant platform and validate their knowledge through qualifications.

As more of your business’ data is stored remotely, security and access become ever more important. Single Sign On gives users access to data across multiple applications through one identity – which streamlines the process of accessing information, and improves security for the organisation.

A data centre is a collection of interconnected network computer servers which are accessible to users.  A small data centre could be a single rack within an office, while a large corporate data centre might require a large warehouse with thousands of individual machines operating together.