7 Myths About Cloud Computing

It has almost become a trend to see new buzzwords enter our vocabulary with the advent of a new ‘life changing’ technology; to the extent that we see these terms entering the official Oxford Dictionary as well.

Of course, every ‘new gadget’ comes with its baggage of half-baked rumours and myths, propagated by self-proclaimed tech gurus or ill-informed users.

Today, we discuss some of these myths surrounding a very exciting technological invention: cloud computing.

Cloud computing is touted as the next big thing which is meant to revolutionise the way most companies work around the world. It might even change a few things in our personal lives. But a delay or lag in cloud adoption around the globe has been observed.

Research by Mckinsey Digital found that less than 9% of businesses in 2019 had adopted cloud solutions as opposed to the predicted 16%!

Here are 7 myth-busting facts that can help you make the right decision:

1. Shifting to a cloud business model would only lead to minor reductions in the IT costs

For a layman, shifting from in-house data centres to a cloud computing model means the replacement of on-premise IT activities and infrastructure with cloud-based storage and computing power (and more).

This essentially translates to an automatic reduction in the IT infrastructure and maintenance cost for the company. Quite often, this reduction might not seem as substantial as well, which often becomes a cause of concern for various organisational leaders.

However, this is only a part of the whole picture ‘people tend to focus only on the direct effects of this change. The main value driver of cloud computing lies in the aggregated business benefits enabled by the cloud that swamp the IT cost reductions.

Cloud possesses the potential to transform the products and services of a firm through any of its features such as faster analytics or stronger R&D. The ability to run multiple simulations trumps conducting real-time experiments, thus enabling quicker and less risky innovation with a faster response time.

2. Cloud computing will cost more than in-house computing

The economics working behind that statement deals with several variables that vary from company to company but putting it simply, it is not factually correct for any firm and all setups.

The cost incurred through cloud computing depends a lot on the company’s starting point and its ability to optimise and govern its consumption habits.

A large company can shift its computing needs to an external cloud service and manage to reduce the overall IT costs owing to the huge volume of data running through its systems.

At the same time, a smaller company might find the same strategy quite difficult to implement since they do not have their data requirements at the same scale. This is called ‘Economies of Scale’ and it demonstrates how the same parameter across different organisations (in this case, the scale of business) can determine the cost benefits of cloud adoption.

Keeping your business scale and organisation structure in mind, leaders can explore various options within the cloud computing model that suits their requirements. One such example is to derive benefits by adopting a shared resource cloud model and autoscaling which allows the organisation to pay for the services as they need them, or a pay-as-you-go plan’, as opposed to paying for the complete in-house setup.

The lack of benefits in such cases is usually attributed to faulty internal consumption models or the absence of resource governance and usage optimisation.

3. Applications running on the cloud experience more latency than the ones running on in-house servers

Latency is defined as the total time that has elapsed between a user’s action or command and the system’s response.

In terms of network systems, this would mean the time taken for a data packet to travel from the source to the destination. From this definition, we can say one thing with certainty ‘latency of the network systems is inversely proportional to the efficiency and effectiveness of work done over the said system.

Owing to an incomplete understanding of how the cloud works, a lot of people believe that the latency of the network increases over the cloud, leading to an innate delay in response rate and bad user experience.

However, that is factually inaccurate. In fact, the latency in company networks is attributed to the process of data backhauling; a tactic utilised by several IT departments for increased security at the risk of latency.

Backhauling might serve other functions as well, apart from providing increased security. But at the same time, these requirements must be solved through different means and backhauling is stopped altogether as an activity. In the absence of backhauling, there is no reason to experience greater latency on the cloud.

Further, cloud service providers are well aware of the security risks (something we touch upon later as well) and keep their security protocols quite rigid and updated, negating the need for any backhauling exercises.

4. Data is more secure in on-premise data centres as opposed to the cloud

Data privacy is one of the most important topics of debate in this digital age and it props up as an important concern even for companies mulling over cloud adoption.

Historically, decision-makers have been divided in their willingness to adopt cloud computing, citing the security of cloud infrastructure as a major roadblock. The danger of data leaks has become a real threat in the light of multiple cloud hacks that have been publicised by the media.

However, at the same time, we fail to consider the fact that the business model for cloud service providers relies on the quality and security of the network. Cloud providers are constantly upgrading their security protocols to provide the best-in-class security measures against modern-day cyber-attacks.

Creative and innovative solutions are constantly employed, such as storage of encrypted data in multiple geo-centres, and multi-factor authentication (2FA or MFA) protocols for login access. These cloud solutions are maintained by some of the finest security personnel in the world.

5. Cloud-based systems do not present a transparent picture in terms of reliability and control

There is a clear sense of misunderstanding into the mechanics of the working of cloud computing and storage solutions. A lot of executives believe that these systems are not reliable in times of emergencies such as power outages or massive cyberattacks. Further, extensive media coverage of these incidents has created an air of paranoia about the cloud.

We have already covered our arguments against the cybersecurity myth. Here we shall discuss the physical security maintained by the cloud providers.

To ensure that physical factors such as power outages shall not impact the smooth functioning of the cloud data centres, providers build in various contingencies involving geo-distribution across multiple centres, and redundant components in the physical infrastructure.

Constant upgrades are rolled out in a structured manner across all physical footprints. This ensures that none of the clients who are hooked on to the system are left in the dark.

6. Cloud adoption and transition strategy should revolve around applications or data centres

There seems to be great discourse around the dynamics of cloud adoption and the subsequent transition ‘whether to opt for application intensive or data centre intensive movement.

On one hand, opting for data centre movement opens the company to upfront investment risk in the case that the applications fail to run on the consigned data centres. On the other hand, the application-focused transition might lead to an unwanted impact on user experience owing to higher response time.

Rather, companies should try to move business groups to the cloud, one by one and by business groups, we mean individual verticals such as customer payments, information help desk, and registration portal.

It is easier to lift single applications in one go as compared to data centres and these changes can be gently managed for the customer base, enabling greater experience. Once one workgroup settles into its new role, a similar exercise can be conducted for the remaining ones.

7. Transitioning to the cloud doesn’t consume a lot of time

It is a natural tendency to expect quick results when going for any major change such as cloud adoption. However, venturing into this territory without a proper strategy can lead to major failure and financial setbacks. There is no consistent playbook to devise this strategy as it varies from company to company. Without a successful and controlled transition, it becomes really difficult for companies to extract the maximum potential of a cloud network solution.

Choosing either extreme between slow and fast-paced transitions can have multiple disadvantages. A slow-paced transition can leave certain customer departments hanging in limbo, causing a bad customer experience.

A fast transition can go wrong in any number of unexpected ways due to the complexities involved in recording, configuration, and installation. This emphasises the importance of a well-conceived cloud transition strategy, something that technology advisors in cloud computing can help with.

Cloud adoption has become an important factor in deciding the trajectory of a modern-day business, whether in terms of a digital transformation or replacement of legacy systems.