The document discusses the considerations and benefits associated with moving to cloud computing, highlighting aspects such as security, compliance, and performance. It emphasizes the importance of application suitability and migration strategies, as well as internal and external business implications like vendor selection and cost planning. Organizations must adapt their IT strategies and ensure that both legacy and new applications are architected to leverage cloud advantages effectively.

1. MOVING TO THE CLOUD
PEDRO ALEXANDER ROMERO
Cloud Computing

2. Cloud Security
Agenda
- Considerations
- Technical
- Internals
- Externals
From: www.rackspace.com/cloud/cloudu

3. Moving to the Cloud
Reasons to Move
Benefits:
 Virtualization – The ability to increase computing efficiency
 Democratization of Computing – Bringing enterprise scale
infrastructure to small and medium businesses
 Scalability and fast provisioning – Bringing web scale IT at
a rapid pace
 Commoditization of infrastructure – Enabling IT to focus on
the strategic aspects of its role

4. Moving to the Cloud
Technical Considerations (1/7)
1. Which applications?
The prime candidates to move are:
• Have significant interaction with
external applications or services
• Are not a point of differentiation
between the organization and its
competitors

5. Moving to the Cloud
Technical Considerations (2/7)
2. Security Considerations
Organizations should be aware that security is a
partnership between the vendor and the user.
Must be a clear definition:
Which aspects of security are the responsibility of the Vendor
and which are the responsibility of the User.

6. Moving to the Cloud
Technical Considerations (3/7)
2. Security Considerations (Cont.)

7. Moving to the Cloud
Technical Considerations (4/7)
3. Compliance Considerations
Depending on the type of industry, there are a number of
different compliance requirements which may need to be
met.
Examples of these include:
PCI: Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard
HIPAA: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
GAAP: Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (USA)
SOX: Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002
IFRS: International Financial Reporting Standards

8. Moving to the Cloud
Technical Considerations (5/7)
4. Performance Considerations
It is important to accurately assess the performance
requirements the organization may have.
In particular for applications with:
 High database transfer rates
 Very high CPU or RAM requirements
May be either difficult, or cost prohibitive, to move to the
Cloud.

9. Moving to the Cloud
Technical Considerations (6/7)
5. Migration Strategy
Cost and time it takes to move an existing workload to the
Cloud.
Specific topics:
 The bandwidth cost of moving significant amounts of data
to the Cloud
 The time taken to transfer data in the migration process
 In the case of an application, the business process
involved in a migration (downtime, business continuity,
training etc.)

10. Moving to the Cloud
Technical Considerations (7/7)
6. Architecting for the Cloud
To realize Cloud Computing benefits, the applications need
to be architected to take advantage of the scalable nature of
Cloud Computing.
 Legacy applications may not be able to truly leverage
Cloud benefits, without significant re-architecting.
 New applications, should be built with this in mind.

11. Moving to the Cloud
Internal Business Considerations
1. Planning for Shifting IT Responsibilities
2. Lack of Formal Certifications
3. Dealing with Objections
A move to the Cloud changes the face of corporate IT.
Recommendations:
 A proactive approach to professional development and
training.
 Motivate personnel to explore new areas as: application
customization and agile development.

12. Moving to the Cloud
External Business Considerations (1/3)
1. Dealing with Sunk Cost
Considering previous capital expenditure:
New applications or excess capacity delivered from the
Cloud can be seen as appropriate.
2. Costs and Planning for Variability
With proper controls, when compute resources are being
used, they are adding value, unlike traditional IT
investments that continue to be amortized even if sitting
idle.

13. Moving to the Cloud
External Business Considerations (2/3)
3. Vendor Lock-in
Organizations should look at a number of different
factors:
 Does the vendor use industry standard APIs or proprietary
ones?
 Does the vendor provide quick and easy data extraction in
the event that the customer wishes to shift?
 Does the vendor use open standards or have they created
their own ways of doing things?
 Can the Cloud Computing service be controlled by third
party control panels?

14. Moving to the Cloud
External Business Considerations (3/3)
4. Choosing a Vendor
 Billing capabilities – Flexible billing to meet variability.
 Fixed costs – Should be variable and related to usage
 Minimum charges – Avoid vendors who seek to set a
minimum charge for compute or storage as it impacts
upon the flexibility of the offering
 Performance – Service Level Agreements and
performance dashboards should give users certainty
and transparency over the availability and performance
of their vendor
 Support – A vendor who provides high levels of support
may prove a significant benefit and simplify a move to
the Cloud.