17 / 04 / 2024
Brecht Vancauwenberghe is a senior .NET and Azure developer and architect at CloudFuel. He tells us how he helps his clients bring their applications to the cloud and avoid the pitfalls that come with it.
When a customer asks us to modernize its applications, we of course first make an analysis of all the on prem applications. Before we decide which applications to bring to the cloud, we first of all look for the differentiator: how big is the differentiating factor? Because it makes no sense to blindly modernize every application if that differentiator is too small or non-existent. For example, you can also opt for a hybrid model. Thanks to Azure's PaaS Solutions we can perfectly measure where the distinguishing capacity, and thus often the cost savings, of each application lies. This does not mean it has to be a big bang or a complete rewrite every time. What runs well, runs well.
When effectively migrating applications to the cloud, the biggest pitfall we see is falling back into old habits. This is typically human, we do what we know and we often see internal development teams stuck in the 'we've always done it this way' mindset. They also don't always have the knowledge or know-how to know how to do a proper fitting of their applications to the cloud. Without the right knowledge and mindset, the cloud is reduced to just another data center. The differentiating factor is really in the PaaS services and no longer in the infrastructure. Collaborating with and being guided by specialists is therefore key to making your cloud adventure a success.
By the way, it is a misconception that once an application is in the cloud, that is the end of the matter. Unfortunately, that is not the case. You still need to keep an eye on a lot of things technically, but a move to the cloud also requires a different mindset in terms of responsibilities. On prem the division of responsibilities is very clear: on the one hand you have the system management, the IT that takes care of the infrastructure, and on the other hand the application developers, they make the software and make sure it runs well. With a migration to the cloud, you get more into a system of shared responsibility. The role of the system manager, for example, takes on a different meaning. Using Azure Governance you can draw certain chalk lines within which the developers can color without taking away their velocity: that is the new task of the system administrator. Companies like ours can, of course, help to stake out those chalk lines in the right place.
As a 'modernized' IT manager, you must also constantly keep an eye on the evolutions of your systems. You have to keep up with the latest components, releases and versions. In reality we see that the internal development teams are under great pressure from the business to come up with ad hoc solutions for their BI needs. This often leads to a situation where there is no time to keep up with technological advances. This, of course, is how you gradually end up with a never-ending story. Here too we can help with advice and monitoring of new releases.
A final misconception that often accompanies a migration to the cloud is that this also immediately covers the entire security component. Unfortunately, this is not the case. In theory, of course, security in the cloud is many times better than on prem, but just because the tools are there, doesn't mean people use them. In practice we often see old habits seeping back in the form of public ports being opened up or too many rights being granted. Just as with governance and keeping your technology up-to-date, one piece of golden advice applies to security: get advice and assistance from the right people so that you can make optimal use of all the wonderful possibilities of the cloud.
