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Reengineering in Place vs. Migrating to the Cloud

As technology advances, businesses must stay relevant and competitive in this era of digital transformation. Adapting their IT infrastructure is crucial, and two options are available: reengineering in place and migrating to the cloud. Each has unique benefits, so let’s explore which is the best fit for your business.

Cost-Effective Approach – One of the main benefits of reengineering in place is its cost-effectiveness. Instead of having to migrate your entire IT infrastructure to the cloud, reengineering in place allows you to update and modernize your current systems to meet the needs of today’s environment. Reengineering in place is a great option for businesses with a limited budget who have already invested in their current infrastructure.
Customizability – Reengineering in place offers a high level of customizability, as you can tailor your IT infrastructure to meet the specific needs of your business. By understanding your business’s unique needs and pain points, you can update your current systems to optimize performance and efficiency. With reengineering in place, you have control over every aspect of your IT infrastructure, which can also help to improve security by eliminating unnecessary systems.
Integration with Legacy Systems – Sometimes, migrating to the cloud isn’t feasible, especially when there are legacy systems in place that are crucial to your business’s operations. With reengineering in place, you can integrate your current legacy systems with new technology to ensure that your overall IT infrastructure is up to date and working efficiently. This integration can also help to improve employee productivity by streamlining processes.
Scalability – While migrating to the cloud may seem like the obvious choice for scalability, reengineering in place can also provide a scalable solution. As your business grows, it’s important that your IT infrastructure can adapt to meet those changes. With reengineering in place, you can update your systems to accommodate growth and expansion, without having to migrate to the cloud.
Data Control – If your business deals with sensitive data, reengineering in place may be the best option for data control. While cloud providers offer high levels of security, there are still concerns around the control of sensitive data. With reengineering in place, you can maintain complete control over your data, which can provide peace of mind and assist with compliance regulations.

Deciding to reengineer or migrate to the cloud depends on your business needs. While cloud migration seems appealing, reengineering offers cost-effective, customizable solutions with legacy system integration, scalability, and data control. Weighing the pros and cons helps you make the best IT infrastructure decision. Stay up to date with technology and implement the right solutions to support your business.

Differences Between SLI, SLE, and SLA

In the world of technology, there are plenty of acronyms to learn. Three of the most commonly used are SLI, SLE, and SLA. Although they all refer to service-level agreements, they have different meanings and functions. If you are a tech exec, it is essential to understand these differences to make informed decisions about your service providers.

So, what are the difference:

Service Level Indicator (SLI): SLI is a metric used to measure the performance of a specific service. It is expressed as a percentage and tells you how often the service met the desired outcome. SLI is calculated based on specific criteria such as website availability or response times to user requests. A higher SLI score indicates better performance. This metric is useful in tracking the effectiveness of your IT infrastructure or third-party service providers.

Service Level Expectation (SLE): SLE is a target level of service performance that you expect from a vendor or service provider. It is presented as a threshold percentage that must be met for a specific metric within a particular time period. For example, if you have an SLE of 99% uptime, you expect your website to be available for at least 99% of the time. SLEs are useful in defining performance expectations when negotiating contracts with vendors or outsourcing partners.

Service Level Agreement (SLA): SLA is a contract between a service provider and a customer that defines the minimum level of service that will be provided. It lays out the specific services to be offered, performance metrics, and consequences of non-compliance. An SLA typically includes SLI and SLE measurements and may have additional clauses around pricing, support hours, resolution times, and more. SLAs help establish clear expectations for both parties, and they provide a framework for measuring and managing service quality.

Interdependencies Between SLI, SLE, and SLA: Understanding the interdependencies between SLI, SLE, and SLA is critical. Without measuring and monitoring SLIs, you won’t have an accurate picture of how your IT infrastructure or third-party services are performing. Without defining SLEs, you won’t have clear performance expectations to measure against. Without an SLA, you won’t have a contract that defines roles, responsibilities, pricing, and more.

It’s essential to define clear SLEs within the SLA and track SLIs to ensure that the performance expectations are met. SLAs should be regularly reviewed to ensure they align with business needs, and they should be updated if circumstances change. SLAs are not static documents, and they should reflect the evolving requirements of the business.

Understanding the differences between SLI, SLE, and SLA is critical for technology executives. These metrics define and measure service performance, set expectations, and provide contract terms for managing service quality. By mastering these concepts and regularly reviewing SLAs, executives can make informed decisions about their service providers and ensure they are delivering on promises. Remember, SLI, SLE, and SLA are interdependent, and they form the foundation for a successful partnership between service providers and customers.

Kubernetes – Creating Another Legacy Environment?

Kubernetes, the open-source container orchestration system, automates deploying and scaling container-based applications. However, its complexity worries tech execs, who fear it may become an expensive, difficult-to-manage legacy environment with security risks. This blog post explores factors that could lead Kubernetes down that path and suggests ways to avoid such pitfalls.

Complexity – The complexity of Kubernetes may lead to excessive layers of abstraction. This can make understanding each layer challenging for developers, resulting in fragmented deployment approaches and inconsistency across the organization. To address this, executives should prioritize comprehensive training and onboarding for stakeholders to foster shared understanding and best practices.
Accessibility – Kubernetes empowers developers, but it also brings governance and control challenges. Access management and guidelines are crucial to prevent issues and maintain a well-managed environment.
Compatibility – One of the significant concerns with legacy environments is the cost of updating and migrating applications. Similarly, the cost of updating and migrating applications in Kubernetes can be complex and expensive. Companies need to ensure that their applications continue to work as they upgrade their Kubernetes operating systems and carry out other version management. To prevent this issue, companies must conduct intensive testing before migrating from older versions to newer ones.
Security – Kubernetes offers many security features and can be integrated with other tools to enhance security. However, improper configuration during deployments can diminish these security features. Configuration errors, like granting too many privileges to a service account, could result in a potential breach of security. To prevent this problem, tech execs should ensure companies have implemented the correct security policies and ensure they follow a sound configuration management process.
Abstraction changes – Kubernetes abstracts a lot of what happens under the hood from its users, making it easy to deploy container-based applications. However, overemphasis of common functionalities abstracted by Kubernetes may lead to a loss of granular insight into how a specific application is run on any given node or cluster. To prevent this problem, tech execs should ensure that monitoring and logging services are in place. These services can allow teams to assess and track performance, view dependencies, and address any discrepancies that arise concerning the abstraction of Kubernetes.

Kubernetes offers an organizational opportunity with automation, faster deployment, and improved scalability. However, be cautious of legacy complexities, security issues, and unmanageable environments. Establish guidelines, enable the right personnel, and implement proper governance for safe adoption and full advantage of Kubernetes.

Cyber Security in the Cloud

Cloud computing has revolutionized business operations, posing challenges for tech execs. With its flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, cloud technology is favored by companies of all sizes. However, as organizations transition to the cloud, cybersecurity becomes a top concern. Security issues in the cloud differ greatly from those in traditional IT environments.

Shared Responsibility: One of the key differences between security in the cloud and traditional IT environments is the shared responsibility between the cloud provider and the customer. While the cloud provider ensures the security of the infrastructure and the underlying software, customers are responsible for securing their own data, applications, and operating systems. Therefore, organizations need to develop a comprehensive security strategy that encompasses every aspect of their cloud operations.

Threat Vectors: As organizations rely more on cloud services, cybercriminals are also adapting their attack methods. Cloud environments, by design, can be accessed from anywhere in the world, which increases the potential threat landscape. Threat vectors can include everything from compromised credentials, data breaches, and insider threats, to hacks of an organization’s cloud vendors.

Compliance: When it comes to data security, regulatory compliance is a necessity. The cloud has created new challenges for organizations in complying with various regulations. Organizations need to ensure that their cloud environment complies with industry-specific regulations such as HIPAA or GDPR. Non-compliance not only carries financial penalties but can also harm the reputation of the organization.

Continuous Monitoring: Proactive threat detection and response is critical in securing a cloud environment. Continuous monitoring of the cloud environment is needed to identify and respond to suspicious activities. This requires a combination of tools and expertise to identify threats and protect against them.

Cloud-Specific Security Solutions: Finally, the specific security solutions that work in traditional IT environments may not effectively protect the cloud. Organizations need to choose cloud-specific security solutions that can protect against threats unique to the cloud environment. These solutions should include firewalls, encryption, multi-factor authentication, and cloud access security brokers (CASB).

The cloud has transformed cybersecurity, requiring new solutions to safeguard organizational data. Regardless of the type of cloud (public, private, or hybrid), organizations must formulate a holistic strategy. This involves selecting appropriate security solutions, implementing strong policies, monitoring compliance, and assembling a dedicated team. In an ever-evolving digital landscape, securing the cloud is a challenge that demands proactive action.

Getting a Good TCO from a Hybrid Cloud Environment

Many tech execs manage a hybrid cloud environment, with multiple cloud providers and possibly an existing mainframe. Some companies ended up with a hybrid environment because they were early cloud adopters and didn’t get the desired outcomes, prompting them to try another provider. Alternatively, multiple organizations chose different cloud providers without proper decision controls. Another strategy is to select multiple cloud providers to avoid relying on a single one.

No matter how a company got to where they are, the tech executive has been working to figure out how to get the most out of this complex environment. Total cost of ownership can be really out of whack if there are multiple cloud implementations, and the legacy, say mainframe, environment exists as well.

Many tech execs are sweating because the cost of their overall technology infrastructure has increased with the migration to cloud. Their messaging has always been that moving to cloud will reduce costs because the cloud provider will own the equipment, vs. having to maintain hardware in the datacenter. So, this sales job by a tech executive to their leadership can appear to have been inaccurate.

Reality is, you can’t simply rehost applications from your legacy environment to the cloud without increased costs. While transition may require some overlap in production, it’s crucial to decommission as much as possible during migration. A detailed plan should demonstrate the cost reduction during the move. Clearing up tech debt in the mainframe environment beforehand is wise to avoid carrying debt to the cloud, which adds to expenses.

Why are organizations stuck with a hybrid environment? Initially, in the cloud hype, many jumped onboard hoping for immediate savings. However, merely moving a messy app to a new platform means shifting problems to a different environment. In other words, rehosting doesn’t actually solve anything. It’s just a datacenter change without leveraging the cloud provider’s benefits.

Many organizations decided to give another cloud provider a chance due to various misunderstandings on deriving value from the initial choice. The act of rehosting merely shifted chaos from one place to another. Failing to leverage the cloud provider’s PaaS offerings resulted in increased costs for the new platform.

A tech exec needs a thorough plan to migrate the legacy environment to the cloud. If going hybrid, understand the total cost of ownership and consider consolidating platforms for cost-effectiveness. Manage legacy decommissioning alongside migration. Simplify and optimize platform management. Use TCO to assess value in a broad environment.

See this post on Total Cost of Ownership and how to calculate.