Remember your 2018 New Year’s resolutions? Some happened but most did not. Still, the advent of the new year is useful for taking inventory and figuring out new ways forward and changing for the good.
So, what about your cloud computing strategy and technology roadmap for the new year? Chances are those need more work. So, do some advanced planning and make your cloud resolutions now before the new year begins. Here are the Top 2 cloud resolutions I believe should be on your list.
Understand your cloud-native reality and do something about it
Many enterprises spent 2016 and 2017 lifting and shifting their way to “success.” Now that hundreds of application workloads exist on some public cloud, they are understanding that the work was not done and “success” didn’t happen or only partially happened.
Although lift-and-shift is a fast and direct route the public cloud, it also means you don’t get many cloud-native features, such as native security, governance, resources, and performance management. That can leave the shifted workloads in a disabled or partially enabled state. Think of a sports car running on lawn mower tires.
The fix for this is pretty easy to define, but it’s one that many in IT are not happy to hear. You need to refactor the applications in-place on the public cloud so that they can use cloud-native features. Refactoring costs money, time, and risk, but the cost only increases if you don’t do it right the first time.
Take a realistic assessment of cloud security, and fix what you find
If you have workloads and data in the public cloud, you may be surprised at how effective cloud-native security is. Effective, that is, if you’re using it correctly.
I advise clients to hire white-hat hackers (call them “cloud security auditors”) to test security at all levels, with platform, application, and database being the most important. This testing will usually result in at least a half a dozen vulnerabilities or potential vulnerabilities.
Happily, the fixes are cheap—typically, a change in the configuration, some implementation of processes, and some additional training. But it could be worse, or it could be better—its very much situational. Regardless, be productively self-critical and open-minded about the solutions needed.