In this post, we are going to describe three main stages for enterprise users to experience a smooth cloud transformation journey.
Introduction to Cloud Transformation
Ranging from the mainframe to the web, to client-server, to the cloud, IT infrastructures have evolved for supporting the way individuals require to work. If someone observes the thing, he or she will observe that ‘everything old is new again. Trending online technology shares user commonalities – particularly the ability to communicate remotely – with a mainframe infrastructure, except the cloud platform is considerably more widely spread, resilient, and scalable.
Previously computing architects can never be imagined with limitless storage space, scope breadth, and 24*7 service availability. But in today’s date, Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) vendors like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have invested a lot to offer elasticity in work, pay what customers use, and 24*7 availability. These cloud services have displaced on-site computing in an effective manner, and even private data centers. The cloud is now no longer a field for IT experiments but, rather an operational mandate for companies of all sizes. Well, it’s now time, to begin with, an explanation of the 3 main stages required for cloud transformation.
- Application Transformation – Innovative product vendors like Salesforce were introduced in the era of SaaS (Software-as-a-Service). The CRM of Salesforce rapidly moved incumbent business internal-hosted contact management systems. Similarly, Microsoft displaced its Office suite of productivity tools and email to the cloud, which is now popularly known as Office 365. Bundle of benefits is offered by SaaS to business clients to shrink-wrapped alternatives:
- Subscription costing instead of product licensing.
- 24*7 availability with the guarantee of uptime service.
- Auto-update the online apps without human involvement.
Cloud transformation offers businesses an ideal chance to manage corporate apps in a better manner. Most of the companies have embarked on shifting offline applications to online in three tranches:
- Partial Refactoring – Moving the components of an app stack, usually the front-side, to the cloud. Eliminate the legacy data processing and storage in the corporate information center.
- Lift And Shift – Taking internal applications, which are already internet-activated and host them on the cloud itself.
- Refactoring – Rewrite the products for the cloud and host the entirety of applications – database, middleware, and front-end – in the cloud.
- Network Transformation – Earlier in legacy hub-and-spoke business networks, the apps were hosted in a data center, end-users used them through the business networks, and always within the boundary of the perimeter-based firewall. To communicate, end-users logged on through VPNs, associated with a VPN concentrator back at the headquarters, and moving through MPLS circuits to their required app destination. Cloud computing technology cracks the model of legacy networks. MPLS hair-pinning impacts the end-user experience, specifically when individuals are using cloud apps like Microsoft Office 365. Users require to connect directly to the internet and online resources, from the coffee shop, home, or on a plane. Hub-and-spoke networks compel that increasing traffic, filtering it via a security hardware appliances stack, routing it over the spotty VPN to the local hub, out via a secure web gateway to the online platform.
Cloud access demands for bandwidth and companies face struggling to keep up with the bandwidth requirement. End users who connect directly to the online resources through local internet breakouts show the network transformation promise. It demands an application that addresses traffic destination and routes it towards the business data center or out towards the web. - Security Transformation – Legacy network protection infrastructures secure the complete business network. But, a question arises that how can a company secure users bypass the previous network on the path towards the cloud? Cloud security transformation should begin with the deploying of zero-trust networking, a way that establishes a default-deny structure for all network records and traffic interactions. Another thing is to move on legacy security to dynamic, regular adaptive trust and threat mitigation. The legacy castle-and-moat network security infrastructure depends upon the IP address for authentication. That’s just a beginning, but with the current threat landscape, it is not protected – Use any of the websites. One can rapidly address the IP address, and he or she can give an attempt into the page several times. Users can try several ports for finger, FTP, or telnet. An intruder can try cross-site scripting or SQL injection threats. A nation-state could stop the connection and inject its own threat to harm the target’s smartphone or PC. The online-based inline security check post makes use of the granular standard engine, which can impose each user’s use to each app. Traffic goes through several filters much like a UTM device, except the infrastructure is multi-tenant and scalable.
Conclusion
The cloud transformation implications are readily evident. More efficient IT results in more efficient company processes, which leads to higher business productivity. A better Cyber security level is delivered to end-users at lower finance.