Cloud Hosting

For many oftodays applications and workloads, cloud computing offers the enterprise ahost of advantages over traditional data centers, including lowered operationaland capital expenditures, improved time to market, and the ability todynamically adjust provisioning to meet changing needs globally. Consequently,there has been a massive shift to cloud migration over the past decade, with cloud computing trends showing significantyear-over-year growth since it was first introduced, and Cisco predicting thatby 2021 cloud data centers will process 94 percent of all workloads.According toMarketsandMarkets, the global cloud computing market is projected to surge at acompound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18 percent to reach approximately $623.3 billion by 2023,up from $272 billion in 2018.

Today, however, we are seeing more companies bringing workloads backinto their data centers or edge environments after having them run in the cloudfor several years because they didnt originally fully understand theirsuitability in a cloud environment. 451Research has referred to this dynamic as cloud repatriation,and a recent survey found that 20 percent of cloud users had already moved atleast one or more of their workloads from the public cloud to a private cloud,and another 40 percent planned to do so in the near future.

All of this begs a deceivingly simple question: How do I know whena workload would be better off running in or outside of the cloud?

When Latency, Availability and ControlAre Key

Aswith any IT decision, an inadequately researched, planned and tested process islikely to cause setbacks for enterprise end-users when the organization atlarge is faced with uncertainty whether to move an application or workload outof the public cloud and return it to an on-premises data center or edgeenvironment.

Very often, moving an application or workload from the cloud makes good business sense when critical operational benchmarks are not being met. This might mean inconsistent application performance, high network latency due to congestion, or concerns about data security. For example, we know of one Fortune 500 financial services firm that was pursuing an initiative to move its applications and data to the public cloud and only later discovered that its corporate policy prohibited placement of personally identifiable information (PII) and other sensitive data beyond their internal network/firewall. Although many security standards are supported by public cloud providers, because of its internal policy, the financial organization opted to keep its data on-premises.

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Somecompanies, such as Dropbox, have chosen to migrate from the public cloud tobenefit their bottom line. While cost is but one criterion for leaving, it is amajor one. In the wake of leaving the cloud, Dropbox was able to save nearly$75 million over two years.

Generallyspeaking, applications that are latency sensitive or have datasets which arelarge and require transport between various locations for processing are primecandidates for repatriation. Consider smart cities and IoT-enabled systems, whichcreate enormous amounts of data. While cloud computing provides a strongenabling platform for these next-gen technologies because it provides thenecessary scale, storage and processing power, edge computing environments willbe needed to overcome limitations in latency and the demand for more localprocessing.

Additionally,if your applications and databases require very high availability orredundancy, they may be best suited to private or hybrid clouds. Repatriation alsoprovides improved control over the applications and enables IT to better planfor potential problems.

Yes,moving to the cloud means a decrease in rack space, power usage and ITrequirements, which results in lower installation, hardware, and upgrade costs.Moreover, cloud computing does liberate IT staff from ongoing maintenance andsupport tasks, freeing them to focus on building the business in more innovativeways. And yet, while many businesses are attracted to the gains associated withpublic or hybrid cloud models, they often do not fully appreciate the strategynecessary to optimize their performance. Fortunately, there are tools to assistIT teams to better understand how their cloud infrastructure is performing.

DemystifyingCloud Decision-Making

Nomatter the shape of an organizations cloud public, private or hybrid data center management solutions can provideIT staff with greater visibility and real-time insight into power usage,thermal consumption, server health and utilization. Among the key benefits arebetter operational control, infrastructure optimization and reduced costs.

Beforeany organization moves its data to the public cloud, the IT staff needs tounderstand how its systems perform internally. The unique requirements of itsapplications, including memory, processing power and operating systems, should determinewhat it provisions in the cloud. Data center management solutions collect andnormalize data to help teams understand their current implementationon-premise, empowering them to make more informed decisions as to what isnecessary in a new cloud configuration.

Intel Data Center Manageris a software solution that collects and analyzes the real-time health, power,and thermals of a variety of devices in data centers. Providing the clarityneeded to improve data center reliability and efficiency, including identifyingunderlying hardware issues before they impact uptime, these tools bring invaluableinsight to increasingly cloudy enterprise IT environments, demystifying thequestion of on-premises, public and hybrid cloud decision-making.

Here are some factors to consider whenmaking a decision about embarking on a course of cloud repatriation:

If you answered yes to a majority of the questions above, it might be time to consider cloud repatriation.

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When the Cloud Falls to Earth. Is It Time for Your Organization to Consider Cloud Repatriation? - Data Economy