Summary

• Private Cloud: A private cloud consists of infrastructure and resources owned and managed by the organisation itself
• Community Cloud: A community cloud is a shared cloud computing environment where multiple organisations with common goals or requirements collaborate and pool resources
• Public Cloud: refers to model where resources and services are made available to the general public over the internet by a third-party cloud service provider
• Sovereign Cloud: also known as a national or government cloud, refers to a cloud designed and operated to serve the needs of a country or region
• Hybrid Cloud: Refers to an environment that combines both private and public cloud infrastructures, allowing organisations to leverage the benefits of both
• Multi-Cloud: Refers to the utilisation of multiple cloud computing platforms or providers to meet an organisation’s specific requirements
• The 7Rs of cloud adoption provide a useful framework for evaluating and categorising various IT systems and determining the appropriate approach for cloud migration

Cloud Infrastructure

The following is a summary of the available cloud models, use cases, advantages and disadvantages. We will discuss a number of available cloud environments highlighting their unique characteristics and benefits for businesses.

Private Cloud: A private cloud consists of infrastructure and resources owned and managed by the organisation itself. It can be on-premises or hosted in a third-party datacentre. This infrastructure is dedicated to a single organisation and offers greater control, security, and compliance, making it suitable for sensitive data or applications with specific requirements.

Community Cloud: A community cloud is a shared cloud computing environment where multiple organisations with common goals or requirements collaborate and pool resources. It offers customisation, control, and enhanced security to meet the specific needs and compliance standards of the participating organisations. By sharing infrastructure and costs, community clouds promote resource efficiency and cost optimisation. They foster collaboration, information sharing, and interoperability within a trusted community. Managed services and support can be provided to ensure efficient operation and maintenance of the community cloud. Overall, community clouds provide a collaborative platform that enables organisations with similar interests to leverage shared resources, enhance security, and achieve their common objectives.

Public Cloud: refers to model where resources and services are made available to the general public over the internet by a third-party cloud service provider. In a public cloud, multiple users and organisations can share the same infrastructure, such as servers, storage, and networking components, resulting in cost savings through economies of scale. The public cloud offers scalability, allowing users to easily scale up or down their resources based on demand. It provides a wide range of services, including virtual machines, storage, databases, and software applications that users can access on-demand. The responsibility for managing and maintaining the underlying infrastructure rests with the cloud service provider, relieving users of those tasks. While public clouds offer convenience, flexibility, and cost efficiency, they may raise concerns about data security and privacy since resources are shared among multiple users.

Sovereign Cloud: also known as a national or government cloud, refers to a cloud designed and operated to serve the needs of a country or region. It emphasises data sovereignty and control, ensuring that sensitive data and critical services remain within the jurisdiction and under the governance of the respective government. Sovereign clouds are established to address security, privacy, and regulatory concerns by offering localised data storage, strict compliance with local laws and regulations, and enhanced protection against unauthorised access or data breaches. They enable a country to maintain control over their data while leveraging cloud computing benefits, such as scalability, cost-efficiency, and flexibility, tailored to their requirements.

Hybrid Cloud: Refers to an environment that combines both private and public cloud infrastructures, allowing organisations to leverage the benefits of both. In a hybrid cloud, organisations can seamlessly integrate and manage workloads across multiple environments, utilising on-premises infrastructure for sensitive data or specific applications while utilising the public cloud for scalability, cost-efficiency, and flexibility. The hybrid cloud offers a unified platform for data and application portability, enabling seamless data transfer and workload mobility between private and public cloud environments. This flexibility allows organisations to optimise their IT resources, maintain control over critical data, and take advantage of the vast scalability and resources offered by public cloud services when needed, creating a versatile and adaptable cloud computing solution.

Multi-Cloud: Refers to the utilisation of multiple cloud computing platforms or providers to meet an organisation’s specific requirements. With a multi-cloud strategy, organisations can distribute their workloads across different cloud environments, such as public clouds, private clouds, or even community clouds. By leveraging multiple cloud providers, organisations can take advantage of the unique features, services, and pricing models offered by each provider. This approach provides flexibility, avoiding vendor lock-in and allowing organisations to choose the most suitable cloud platform for each workload or application. Multi-cloud also enhances resilience and reduces the risk of service disruptions, as workloads can be easily shifted between clouds in the event of downtime or performance issues. However, managing a multi-cloud environment requires robust governance, monitoring, and integration strategies to ensure efficient coordination and consistent management across the different cloud platforms.

Migrating to the Cloud first principles: The 7Rs of Cloud Readiness

When migrating to a Cloud Server Provider (CSP) whether it be Infrastructure, Platform, or Software as a Service, you should consider the first principles of the 7R’s of Cloud Migration Readiness:

Retire: Applications that are obsolete or no longer serve a purpose can be retired, eliminating the associated infrastructure and maintenance costs.

Retain: In some cases, organisations may choose to retain certain applications or systems on-premises due to compliance requirements, specialised hardware dependencies, or cost-effectiveness. These might include applications that require major refactoring and you want to postpone that work until a later time, and legacy applications that you want to retain, because there’s no business justification for migrating them.

Relocate (hypervisor-level lift and shift): Move infrastructure to the cloud without purchasing new hardware, rewriting applications, or modifying your existing operations. By executing a hypervisor migration in this way, the pressure on local on-premises hardware can be alleviated while retaining the integrity of application in flight. However, any short-term gain maybe be lost if the application or service is not migrated to a native cloud equivalent (See Replatform and Refactor) in time and cost could spiral when compared to on-premise or Private Cloud equivalent hosting.

Rehost: Also known as “lift and shift,” rehosting involves moving existing applications to the cloud infrastructure without significant changes. This approach offers quick migration but may limit the benefits of cloud-native features. An advantage of rehosting could be taking a database application to the cloud and take advantage of CSP licensing in a use on demand model. Or using service on demand for application expansion and contraction in times of busy and quiet periods. As with ‘Relocate’ the cost could spiral if the application is not migrated to a native cloud equivalent.

Repurchase (drop and shop): Switch to a different product, typically by moving from a traditional license to a SaaS model.

Revise/Replatform: Organisations can revise or replatform applications by making minor modifications to improve their compatibility with the cloud environment. This approach strikes a balance between effort and benefits.

Refactor/Re-architect: Refactoring or re-architecting approach involves completely redesigning applications to leverage cloud-native capabilities fully. This approach offers improved scalability and flexibility but requires substantial development, significant resources, time and effort.

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