#cloud computing roadblocks

Every transformation comes embedded with it, a set of underlying challenges. Today, every industry is increasingly becoming technology driven at its core more than ever before, and it is believed that most innovative technologies are revolutionising the data centre, modernizing the digital workplace and building bridges into the world of Hybrid or Multi or Serverless Cloud which are the next-generation cloud computing platforms.

Cloud technology platform is creating ever-growing business opportunities that are radically different and new which can be built provided we discard what we know, how we even think or operate in every aspect of the enterprise not limited to just IT. It simply means, either you ‘Transform or Die.’ The legacy data centres are not going to help nor recreation of on-premise complexity in the cloud. The thinking has to be transformational and revolutionary which is typified in the transportation industry by Uber and Grab or Airbnb in the hospitality industry.

The IT is amidst of once every twenty years tectonic shift and most recent was in 1990s transition from the Client/Server computing to the Internet which is now being supplanted by the transition to ‘Cloud Computing.’ The disruption is far-reaching and impossible to stop the revolution of the way we store and access data. Even though the businesses are aware of the incredible value, the cloud computing brings, a smooth adoption of any new technology is not free from issues. Let us understand some of the most significant challenges which are essential on the path of this next major shift:

1. Legacy IT Infrastructure:

Most of the businesses have the potential debilitating problem of existing ‘Legacy IT’ infrastructures and strategies which weren’t built to adopt or leverage new and advanced technologies, provide adequate control for remodelling, and to support new business models. Conventional data centres were created in a siloed manner for maximum capacity and peak loads. They were not designed to be flexible, integrate or elastic. Moreover, to make matters worse, the siloed service does not communicate to others and might have been developed to differing standards. Integrating them could become difficult due to incompatible standards, database design, authentication, or communication protocols.

2. Security and Privacy:

One of the most significant challenges in the technology world is ‘Data Security and Privacy.’ The adoption of Cloud Computing depends upon how it tackles the data security and privacy concerns of the businesses and the fact that the valuable enterprise data will be stored outside the corporate firewall raises serious concern for the companies. With growing cybersecurity crimes, attacks on the cloud infrastructure would affect numerous clients who have stored their valuable customer’s personal information. The cloud service providers will have to develop robust security applications, encryption systems and other security software for averting any security breach and provide SLAs that guarantee the protection of data security and privacy.

3. Interoperability and Portability:

The organisations cannot treat the cloud environment like their on-premise data centre. Hence, the organisations will focus on total cost of ownership (TCO) before considering the migration. The businesses should have the flexibility of switching the providers and migrating in and out without having a vendor lock-in period. The cloud computing services should have the capability to integrate with ease to the on-premise IT.

4. Infinite demand for Data Centers:

The hyperscale and cloud computing innovations are displacing traditional enterprise systems and the proliferation of smartphones, tablets, pose an ever-growing pressure on the IT departments and Data Centers. The evolving growth and importance of ‘ Big Data Analytics’ – the resultant of data coming from the ‘Connected Devices’ and Internet of Things (IoT) have led to the rapid growth of data centres. With organisations undergoing a digital transformation, every business today has become mission critical, and every company will become a data company; is evident as you will see every industry gathering more information to analyse data about their customer.

The data deluge will challenge the future of the data centre community’s ability of scalability and to keep pace with the ever-growing demand for computing and storage capacity. The most significant outburst will happen when the pioneered innovators like Amazon, Google, Microsoft or IBM will have to chart strategies when their data centres max out in capacity and physical infrastructure. Apart, from that, the other critical challenge which the Cloud Providers are already facing is the ‘Power Consumption.’ The organisations spend more on cooling their data centres rather on powering and operating the IT equipment. The increase in usage of electricity is impacting the environment and world around us, whereas today; we are talking about conserving energy and creating a green environment. It becomes mission-critical to address the data centre strategy around capacity and power usage effectiveness (PUE).

5. Performance and Bandwidth Cost:

The organisations should periodically monitor and review the established key performance metrics or indicators and take necessary actions to manage any potential and real deviations from what is planned. The businesses cut hardware costs, but they still have to spend on the bandwidth or high-speed internet. However, the bandwidth cost might be a low cost for smaller applications, but it can significantly increase for the data-intensive applications. Delivery of intense and complex data over the network requires sufficient and high-speed bandwidth. The cloud providers will have to be able to offer continued and high performance for the applications running on their cloud, while the businesses also need to analyze the TCO before adopting to any new technology.

6. Service Quality:

The cloud providers very much lack the round the clock service support to the customers, resulting in frequent outages. It becomes crucial for the companies to monitor the service being provided by the cloud vendors using either internal or third-party support and maintenance team. It is critical to have plans to monitor SLAs, usage, robustness, performances, and business dependency of these services.

7. Cloud Subject Matter Expertise:

The organisations cannot assume that the existing IT staff is capable of handling a leap to the cloud. AWS, Azure, Bluemix, and all other cloud platforms are radically different, and the companies need to invest in training their IT staff to ramp up their skills if they do not budget to hire cloud experts from the industry since cloud ignorance will easily cause a security catastrophe. There are hundreds of millions of mission-critical and sensitive business data are being exposed on the public internet which the organisations have no idea, and if a malicious hacker gained access to the data, the vast majority of entities might have to face complete internal network comprise. Hence it becomes extremely crucial for the businesses to avert this potential disaster by spending on building a team who have sufficient knowledge about the technology and industry experience for handling such critical responsibility.

To summarize, the organizations cannot believe that the cloud service provider will handle everything for them. All these challenges are probably not to be considered as the roadblocks in the pursuit of adapting to ‘Cloud Computing’ platform. Every transformation has challenges that come with it, but it is for the cloud vendors to provide solutions for circumventing these challenges will determine the roadmap ahead.

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Rajashree Rao (Raj) is an Industry Thought Leader & Visionary for IoT/IIoT/Smart Cities, Digital Evangelist, Speaker, Writer, Mentor, and Entrepreneur. While Raj writes on a wide variety of subjects, her favorite topics are IoT Technologies, Digital Transformation, Leadership, Women’s Empowerment, and ‘Self.’ Follow Me: Linked In      twitter Photo Credit – ShutterStock/Bluebay