Posted by Paul Anderson
Applications That Aren’t Meant For Cloud
Will all my applications run on cloud? It is the most common question that is asked too often by enterprises looking for improved IT solution in cloud. The answer to the question is ‘it depends.’
Cloud is literally raining. Enterprise cloud adoption is growing by leaps and bounds with most enterprises contemplating to shift their entire application suit to cloud to enable a scalable, flexible, accessible, agile and lean working environment. But before you make the decision about moving to cloud it is important to analyze what application you must shift to the newly adopted cloud climate and which are better left home. Organizations, often in the rush to adopt cloud computing, miss this important point and commit the mistake of shifting their entire enterprise application ecosystem to cloud. If you want to extract full advantage of your cloud implementation here is a guide to check which applications do not fit into cloud environment.
Resource consumption: Smart resource allocation is the key to experience maximum output from a cloud. Applications that consume more resources (CPU cycle, RAM etc.), therefore, are not deemed right for cloud switch. Applications that max out time to time would increase your resource consumption and hence, your cost on cloud. They therefore don’t make good candidates for virtualization. Periodically monitoring resource consumption of your applications will help you separate the right candidates for cloud transfer from the wrong ones.
Sensitive data: Applications that are built internally to serve the purpose of managing and storing enterprise’s sensitive data aren’t meant to be hosted on shared, multi-tenant, cloud environment. Though the constant efforts from the cloud computing service providers have made cloud safe enough for running most crucial applications, mission-critical data may still be left on internal server if you have the capacity to accommodate it.
Non-scalable apps: Moving static apps would mean not utilizing the true power of cloud, i.e. scalability. Cloud is best suited for hosting applications that demand scalable platform and automatic spawning. Static applications with fixed demand for resource consumption are more suitable for traditional IT environment.
Regulated applications: Organizations, such as –healthcare and government agencies, which work under strict data regulation, may find it not worthy to move to cloud since they need to meet stricter compliance audit. The idea of cloud is based on the principal of sharing a resource pool in a multi-tenant environment. Applications that require to meet compliance audit regarding privacy and data security are not apt for cloud hosting. Your chances of moving to cloud are practically ruled out if you fall under the scheduled list of companies where you need to divulge the exact physical location of the server where your data is stored.
Input/output heavy apps: Large production database and applications that need to connect to internal server repeatedly will perform better in internal IT environment, whereas, applications meant to work as standalone software can be moved to the cloud for better functionality. Integrating cloud applications with on-premise software although not unachievable but is complex.
Licensing complexities: As most companies are moving to cloud environment from traditional setup they are facing challenges in matching the terms of licensing documents of their legacy applications. Some legacy application developing firms argue that it is difficult to control new user licensing issues on cloud and therefore they don’t want their applications to be hosted on cloud.
Mapping applications to the cloud is the most important part of your cloud adoption. Some applications will perform better on a cloud environment than others. It’ll depend upon the inherent attributes of the application. Indentifying the critical attributes of the application is the crucial part of determining its cloud competence. Applications that demand scalable platform and needed to be accessed by users from anywhere are more often deemed right for cloud hosting.
