Q&A with Chateaux Principal Ken Zimmerman and Cloud Expert Sam Somashekar

This is a brief segment of an interview with Sam Somashekar, Cloud Strategy Expert for Chateaux. Check back each week for a new Cloud question! 

Cloud Computing

Ken: From the point of view of an organization looking to move to the cloud, people think it’s the same as it always was, time-share systems just moved into the cloud on Amazon or Azure, and away you go. However, they also understand that there is a lot of other technology that the cloud offers. It sounds easy, but maybe you could tell us what else we need to think about when moving to the cloud?

Sam: You’re right, a lot of people think that it’s easy to just take an application, put it on Amazon, and expect the same or better performance and maintainability. But the reality is it’s anything but easy. The key to success with the cloud is to leverage the right mix of technologies and tools that are available. Cloud computing can transform IT into a service supply chain, with multiple vendors working together in a modular style to deliver an overall service to the end user. This is very different from an on-premise application where its domain is tightly governed. As such, you must ensure that identity and access are consistent across the application’s domains. You must have a good understanding of the tools and vendors that are available; for example, the level of service you receive from Amazon may be very different from Rackspace or IBM. There are also compliance issues to consider, especially in healthcare or finance where additional configuration is required. These are some areas to consider when moving to the cloud.

Don’t want to wait to keep reading? Download your complimentary copy of the full interview here!

This 2 page interactive PDF includes insights on these topics:
– On-premise vs. in the cloud solutions
– Hybrid clouds
– Disaster recovery and business continuity in the cloud and more!

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