Electricity and Control October 2023

INDUSTRY 4.0 + IIOT

Migrating to the cloud? Beware of the hurdles

Many businesses today are moving their operations to the cloud. However, before undertaking such a move, companies should understand the hurdles they may face, and consider how to overcome these, says Benjamin Coetzer, Director at local VMware Cloud Verified provider and VMware Principal Partner, Routed.

Benjamin Coetzer, Director at Routed.

M ost businesses today, if they have not already undertaken a cloud migration, are likely considering or planning such a move. This is generally motivated by the benefits proclaimed, including scalability, flexibility and cost efficiency. Although there are undoubtedly many benefits, Coetzer says CIOs need to be especially aware of the challenges that arise in planning a move to the cloud. Some of the biggest challenges revolve around managing cloud spend, understanding the cost components of cloud infrastructure and, of course, how those costs can scale. Additionally, migrating traditional on-premises workloads to hyperscale providers is not always a simple equation. Unlike buying physical servers and equipment, hyperscalers charge for communication and disk access in ways unfamiliar to most organisations. Perhaps the single biggest global challenge currently, and certainly one that is a major issue in South Africa, is the lack of adequate cloud skills. A lot of people do not have the relevant experience in cloud migration and face a steep learning curve when transitioning from on-premises IT to the cloud. Part of the problem is that with on-premises setups, IT teams have more control over data access and security. In the cloud, security becomes a shared responsibility, requiring awareness and training across the enterprise. Moreover, as businesses shift to software-as-a-service (SaaS) models, employees also need retraining, to adapt to new ways of using applications and accessing data while still maintaining effective security. Legacy versus cloud native Another concern is that technical leaders sometimes try to take legacy on-premises applications and shift these straight into a cloud native environment. Such applications do not always work properly in the new environment, but organisations that are used to the traditional Capex-type investments for hardware refreshes or perpetual software licences, quickly find that the cost operation model in a cloud environment is completely different. Often too, it is the non-IT departments in the business that do not know how to handle this new cost model – the finance director, accountants and product teams, for example. There are also significant technical challenges to

consider, connectivity being foremost among these. Since connectivity is critical to the cloud, it is imperative that the business or office park in which it is operating has some form of redundancy built in to ensure continuity. The best approach is to use two different connectivity media, such as a main fibre link, with a wireless connection as a secondary option. A further challenge here is the issue of locality. This is of concern due to the nature of compliance requirements – like the General Data Protection Rule (GDPR) and the Protection of Personal Information Act (PoPIA) – which indicate that certain data must reside within local borders. It is essential for businesses to be aware of the personal information they are saving in their databases, systems, and applications, as there are strict rules around where such data resides, in terms of compliance. Security and data privacy concerns should be among businesses’ priorities, as such issues play a significant role in hindering cloud adoption. For example, we are aware that the cloud introduces new operating paradigms and governance challenges, such as Shadow IT. This is where different departments use various cloud services without oversight, something that can easily lead to data breaches of local regulations like PoPIA, and international ones like the US Cloud Act. Such laws add complexities to data sovereignty and privacy, so organisations need to consider these aspects when selecting a cloud provider. High costs and vendor lock-in It is also important to point out that businesses need to recognise and address these challenges before making the move. This is critical because, once a business is committed to a cloud provider, it is difficult to switch or repatriate data without incurring high costs. Vendor lock-in is a real concern, and carefully planning ahead can prevent a business getting trapped in a situation where options are limited and unforeseen costs arise. This happens because the fees from hyperscalers are often consumption-based when repatriating data or information out of cloud environments. What occurs is that the providers may welcome new customers with an offer of huge discounts on their workloads, but this is done because they know that within the contract period, the client’s consumption of their platform services is going to grow substantially. “Moving to a hyperscaler cloud is like

4 Electricity + Control OCTOBER 2023