- Cloud Backup Services Can Tell You a Lot
- Service Levels Are Key
- Be Prepared to Pay More for Better Service
- Test Your Options
- Test the Waters
- Use Multiple Providers for Cloud-to-Cloud DR
- Avoid On-Premises Dependencies
- Stay Cloud Platform-Agnostic
- Don’t Expect a Single-Management Platform for Hybrid Clouds Any Time Soon
- Look to Drive Costs Down and Service Levels Up as You Migrate to Public Cloud Services
Cloud Backup Services Can Tell You a Lot
Use this as an early way of learning about cloud providers. Prices have become very competitive, getting well below $1 per gigabyte per month.
Service Levels Are Key
Look for specific metrics, such as guarantees that they can restore specific applications in under eight hours/four hours/one hour.
Be Prepared to Pay More for Better Service
Generally, you get what you pay for. This holds true in the cloud-service world as well as in most other businesses. Keep this in mind when selecting a provider and a service plan.
Test Your Options
Before you risk deploying existing apps in the cloud, use cloud disaster recovery and the DR test options that come with it to check running those apps in the cloud.
Test the Waters
When you’ve used cloud DR to test the apps and you want to upgrade your infrastructure, consider migrating some of your apps to the cloud.
Use Multiple Providers for Cloud-to-Cloud DR
Protect apps running on one cloud with a DR to another cloud; as we have seen on occasion with Amazon and others, their clouds do go down.
Avoid On-Premises Dependencies
Look for cloud platforms that don’t require you to change your on-premise systems. For example, don’t get locked into having on-premise storage devices that only work with one cloud provider.
Stay Cloud Platform-Agnostic
The battle between Amazon, VMware, Microsoft and others to become the dominant cloud operating system is still in its early days. Try to avoid developing apps that only run on a single cloud OS.
Don’t Expect a Single-Management Platform for Hybrid Clouds Any Time Soon
As you migrate from on-premise to public cloud and between public clouds, you will need to choose among the different management tools that come with the new cloud providers.
Look to Drive Costs Down and Service Levels Up as You Migrate to Public Cloud Services
Cloud is all about driving down costs while also driving up the performance and availability of your applications. While using multiple cloud management tools will mean there is still a considerable management cost, expect this to come down as the cloud management tools evolve.