People often think of the cloud as a place to be or a specific set of technologies you need to run your software. The cloud is so much more than that, though. If you look underneath cloud technologies and cloud providers, you will find a set of deeply held values and beliefs that are a huge shift in how information technology (IT) is managed compared to pre-cloud philosophies of IT management.
The Cloud Is Not a Destination
Many people think of the cloud as a place to land their workloads or to move their infrastructure. They want to “move to the cloud” if they are not already there. Oftentimes, this involves an actual literal move of infrastructure from their current non-cloud platform to a huge public cloud provider. But thinking that you have to literally move your workloads onto another platform is a critical misunderstanding of what the cloud is about and what using the cloud means. The cloud is not just a technology stack; rather, the cloud is a philosophy and way of life for architecting, organizing, implementing, and maintaining your infrastructure.
The Cloud Means Hardware Does Not Matter
When you use cloud technology, you do not have to worry about the hardware that you are using to power the cloud. All that really matters is that you have the CPU, RAM, storage, and other resources you need to power your workload. For the most part, at the user’s level, the cloud is the same no matter what brand name is on the physical hardware in use.
Your Workload Has to Be Cloud Ready
Software cannot take advantage of the cloud’s features and functionality unless it is specifically made to do so. Many popular technologies that were originally created before the cloud was a thing struggle to get the most benefit out of running on a cloud platform. These technologies are often run on the cloud more or less the same way they are run on traditional physical server machines for this reason. Workloads that rely on this software cannot generally take advantage of the cloud’s dynamic resource allocation and automatic recovery functionality.
Make Infrastructure Disposable
One of the key parts of the cloud is making sure your infrastructure is disposable. To be able to get the most use out of the cloud’s ability to flexibly allocate resources, your workloads must be able to be discarded and restarted without any disruptions. You do not have to discard your data, of course, but the parts of your workloads that do computing or actively work on data need to be able to stop and restart without any loss of data. If you are using automatic scaling or recovery features on a cloud platform, the parts of your infrastructure that do computing work will be created and destroyed frequently based on your workload’s resource needs.
Automate Everything
Automation is a key part of cloud technology. Cloud platforms usually have well-developed support for a variety of tools and approaches for automating the deployment and management of infrastructure. When you automate your infrastructure, you can manage more complex and larger infrastructure. You can also free up yourself to focus on more valuable work than tedious, time-consuming work setting up infrastructure by hand.
The Cloud Is a Different Way of Thinking
The cloud is more than just a place to put your workloads. Maximizing the value you get from the cloud requires changing how you approach your infrastructure and deploying your workloads onto the cloud. Teams who adapt to the cloud will see the best results and benefits from using the cloud.