Top cloud mistakes that will cost dearly

1. Inaccurate estimation of cloud infrastructure needs: Estimation predicts the cost and needs of any service or product. Based on existing infrastructure and resources IT teams predict the estimated methodology for future cloud consumption. However, this method cannot accurately calculate the current usage and the nature of workloads. The expected return on investment can be achieved by right-sizing workloads when cloud infrastructure runs at its total capacity.  

2. Restricted and role-based access is overlooked: Organizations often fail to limit sensitive and classified information to authorized employees only, leading to unnecessary data loss that employees could misuse. It may harm the brand. Moreover, cloud storage can easily be accessed from remote areas, putting sensitive data at risk.  

3. Migrating applications to the cloud without knowing the requirements: One standard mistake organization’s make is migrating the entire infrastructure and services to the cloud in a single go. Organizations sometimes forget that all applications are unsuitable for migrating to the cloud. All data cannot meet the required criteria for lift and shift strategy. The cloud migration strategy should perform a detailed analysis of data and applications that can be shifted and consider moving low-impact applications.  

4. Security issues cannot be left unaddressed: Attack surface of cloud clusters can increase as the cloud stores more data and applications. Prediction of several security issues Being aware of cloud security increases with several security issues. Some of the rare aspects that should be kept in mind while designing a cloud security strategy are data breaches, account hijacking, unauthorized access, data loss, vulnerabilities of applications and systems. The impact caused due to security failure is huge, and organizations cannot afford to overlook them.  

5. Neglecting data cleaning before migration: Organizations may have data stored over a long period that may no longer be relevant or of use. If not carefully looked into before migration, such unused files will occupy extra space on the cloud, resulting in the increment of cost. Organizations can avoid paying to maintain the so called ‘electronic garbage’ on the cloud by cleaning the data before migration.  

6. You cannot ignore the due diligence nature of the cloud: Organizations often fail to conduct deep research on the cloud technology and the cloud service providers before partnering with them. The IT team within the organization needs to research the requirements for migration and choose which cloud provider is best for the task. Several important discussions and meetings between the teams and potential providers can set the right expectations at the outset. New possibilities can come into the picture for a better return on investment. 

7. Relying on a single provider: Many cloud platforms are available, and choosing a single cloud provider seems like finding a pin from the sand. However, the best cloud platforms also face downtime and not every cloud environment is designed to meet the needs of every business. After choosing a primary cloud service, you can add services from smaller providers to fulfil the requirements.