What are the 5 Considerations for cloud computing?

Cloud Computing: Key Considerations

The benefits of a private or hybrid cloud  are certainly intriguing. You receive the full access and capabilities of a private computing environment, just without the expense, hassle or maintenance responsibilities tied to owning a physical infrastructure.

This, however, certainly does not mean that you can just choose any available cloud computing solution. There is not one “all mighty cloud” where your data and applications are stored and managed. Instead, your options are almost as wide-ranging as the number of cloud providers available – with each available service and solution directly dependent on the provider you choose.

When researching the available cloud computing providers, there are three keys areas to consider: Security, Availability and Mobility. Understanding the provider’s approach to each area can help you identify the solution best suited to meet your needs:

Security

With cloud computing, you are entrusting the security of your mission sensitive data to a third party. The provider must be able to meet industry regulations and compliance needs. It is also equally important for them to be able to illustrate who has access to your data, and what systems, infrastructures and environments your data touches throughout its life-cycle.

Availability

How does the provider ensure up-time and data availability? The Service Level Agreement (SLA) can offer some insight into the provider’s capabilities. Keep in mind, however, that even SLAs that offer 100% guaranteed up-time may not provide the protection you need, as many are capped at the monthly service fee – an amount far less than the cost to the business if the service becomes unavailable or if data is lost.

Mobility

For many businesses, the adoption of a cloud computing solution is a multi-step process – one that begins with virtualization and colocation, and then transforms into a private and then public cloud solution. It is important to ensure that the provider offers physical colocation along with their cloud offerings. This allows for the seamless communication of data and applications across physical and virtual platforms.

Of course, at Expedient we’re always ready to answer any of your questions. Contact us today for more info or to schedule a tour at one of our data centers.

Back when digital transformation first made cloud solutions a viable option, it was a drawn-out, aggravating endeavor. Today, moving your print infrastructure to the cloud can be done in just 10 minutes. So, if time is not the issue anymore, what considerations do you need to make before migrating from server to cloud?

There are multiple considerations and implications that go into a company moving print capabilities to the cloud. Encircling all considerations is the critical need for security excellence, with anything from cloud governance, security infrastructure, and data protection.

Read on to discover the essential considerations to make when deciding your business should be migrating its print infrastructure to the cloud. Even more, this post will uncover key implications for conducting an on-premises to cloud migration. Enjoy.

Top 5 Considerations when Migrating from Server to Cloud

When shifting to the cloud, IT pros like yourself no longer have to spend weekends migrating an entire business to the latest hardware models. It also won't take days to set up your IT infrastructure if you need to move offices. Most importantly, when migrated properly, you can feel confident that data is secure and protected in the cloud.

The benefits of migrating from server to cloud are numerous. Cloud applications support a digital office transformation, giving companies the agility and scalability to transform offices anywhere – and for the heroes in IT, you finally get to let go of print management and refocus your attention on on-mission critical tasks.

There are considerations that are important to make before launching a migration project. When you’re shifting from server to cloud, security is one of the elements that determine whether the migration is successful or not. At the same time, cloud printing provides unparalleled opportunities to mitigate risk, so, you’re in good hands.

Hoping to get a real example of considerations for migrating a large-scale print infrastructure from on-premise to the cloud? Here's an example of Mars moving 100K Employees to a cloud print setup.

Let’s go through the 5 major considerations to make when prepping for a cloud transition:

1. IT Infrastructure Security

 No one is more aware of the concerns and considerations that reside inherently within a digital transformation and cloud-first solutions than IT professionals. For you, moving to the cloud comes with the heavy baggage of change since it affects existing rules, regulations, and compliance policies.

As there will be data protection requirements and other regulations to adhere to when migrating from server to cloud, it’s key that you’re well prepared for rules, regulations, and policies to be affected once the migration happens.

2. Strict Cloud Governance 

To balance an ongoing cloud transformation with control and proactive change management, a strong cloud governance framework is essential. Without it, you can quickly experience increased risks and a lack of visibility and control.

In contrast, by creating and implementing a clear and strategic governance framework, you can balance control and ongoing management with the necessary flexibility to make your on-premise to cloud migration a success.

When managed correctly, migrating to cloud infrastructures open up new possibilities for organizations that allow them to be agile and efficient with their cloud capabilities

3. Ensure Business Continuity 

Whether it be cloud migration of print infrastructures or dealing with the impacts of a major lockdown on a business workflow, being able to maintain functionality with minimal pain is critical. For an IT infrastructure migration to succeed, one of the most important elements is to maintain business continuity throughout the transfer.

For every difficult situation, your business may encounter, having contingency plans prepared means you set your business up for success. In terms of migrating from server to cloud, make sure you have a clearly defined strategy set up to make your print migration a smooth sailing process with next to no inconvenience for your personnel.

Going a step beyond, to ensure your cloud environment is safe and effective at any point, start preparing a business continuity plan post-migration with recovery procedures and data backup ready to go. That way, you can uphold cloud resiliency and start foreseeing possible disruptions to technology service at your business.

4. Hosting and Management 

Migrating to the cloud is one thing – but there’s one additional thing to consider. You’ll need to evaluate your current infrastructure and identify the key factors for how it meets your business needs.  

After that, ask yourself: what cloud setup best meets those key factors? Is it a private, a public, or a hybrid cloud infrastructure? Either setup comes with its own set of advantages and drawbacks in flexibility, performance, and security. 

Here are some insights into each type of cloud setup: 

1. Public Cloud: Cloud delivered via the internet and shared across multiple companies. This type of cloud scales quickly and conveniently and is agile for innovation. 
   
2. Private Cloud: A cloud environment dedicated uniquely to your company. Private cloud enables greater security controls and higher customisability.
   
3. Hybrid Cloud: Any environment that uses both public and private clouds. This option is great for global IT control of data, processes, and security simultaneously. Hybrid cloud comes with minimal security risks, higher flexibility, and is policy-driven.

5. Stay Compliant and Secure Data 

Without proper security, cloud transformations can come with the potential for large-scale failure and security breaches, together with a waterfall of consequences. But, with few preparations and proactive planning, you’ll quickly learn that a cloud-first setup is much safer than strictly on-premises solutions. More specifically, here are some things to consider about securing data and staying compliant: 

• With wars and conflicts happening every day, new digital attack threats unearth as new conflicts erupt. There will be a need to stay on top of new threats and utilise security capacities like multi-factor authentication to keep the threats at bay.
  
• As companies are collecting an increasing amount of sensitive personal data, there are regulations that they must adhere to protect the data they hold. When moving to a cloud infrastructure, you’ll need to consider with caution where your data will reside and what regulations you have to comply with. There are several standards and frameworks to hold your cloud setup accountable, e.g., GDPR, ISO 27001, OWASP, and more. 

• Cloud solutions are created with security at the heart of development. As an example, our HCP software has been created with data security excellence at its core. With devotion to protecting our customers’ data at any given point, we’ve created a product that keeps your data protection at the top of the priority list – and your data safer than any other accessible solution.
  
• Cloud environments are agile and dynamic, which means enforcing protection policies can be hard. With hybrid workplaces, IT professionals have to concoct a unique security mixture with cloud-native security topped off with multi-factor authentication to make residing on the cloud a safe and comfortable experience. 

If there’s one thing IT heads will need to consider when conducting an on-premise to cloud migration, it’s that the variety of risks affecting print is on the increase. Do you want to learn more about the future of print security? In an earlier article, we’ve listed 7 key predictions that can help your company stay on top of the heap and thrive in print security. 

On a more promising note, with a cloud service set up and ready to go, your security tasks will always be properly prioritised, and reaction times are faster than ever. Also, with all the considerations in mind, remember that a cloud setup offers a lot of value in terms of flexibility in your now-digital office, as it comes with a great promise of serverless computing, mobile activation, and remote/hybrid solutions. 

Key Implications of Cloud Migration 

In terms of the conclusions that can be drawn from the considerations above, here are the actions your IT team needs to achieve a successful on-prem to cloud migration: 

1. Make Migration Resiliency a First Priority

Get relevant security control policies and procedures in place before switching to the cloud. Also, define a cloud resiliency plan to ensure business continuity, i.e., determine your business’ uptime requirements with recovery plans, internet connection reliability, and a solid backup plan to ensure you mitigate risks from the get-go.

Here, a key implication is to adopt a zero-trust print approach where you verify explicitly, use least privileged access, and assume breach. Anticipating that failure will happen means failure happens a lot less. 

2. Be Prepared for the Post-Migration Setup 

Your post-migration setup will look a lot different than your pre-migration setup. Make sure you’ve determined regulatory compliance requirements when data is processed, stored, and transmitted so your data is always protected.

To make sure your post-migration setup comes with resiliency and security, here are some tips on first priorities after the migration: 

1. Verify the integrity of migrated data 
2. Review personnel registries to the cloud 
3. Make sure you have data backups in place 
4. Review that all security requirements are met 

3. Flexible Hosting & Consistent Management 

Take time to examine the market and make sure you opt for a hosting strategy that is flexible in the way you need it to be. Success is an option only if you have made the proper preparations on your side, checking that your infrastructure is in fact migratable.  

If the final cloud architecture isn’t working how you hoped, chances are that it’s an internal issue rather than an issue with the cloud architecture. Either is plausible, so devote time to ensure everything is ready internally before the migration. Many cloud migrations that miss the target just need to be reassessed and then launched back into the cloud with a higher probability of success.  

Once the migration is done, it’s important to ensure consistent management of your cloud infrastructure across multiple locations. What management tasks will be managed by your cloud provider, and what actions do you need to complete? You’ll need to prepare for the fact that managing apps in the cloud require a different set of IT and management skills. 

6 Security Pillars for a Protected Cloud Setup 

To keep cloud estates protected and secure, Check Point, a leader in cyber security, has discovered 6 pillars for robust cloud security beyond the cloud-native security features and services offered by cloud providers in any niche: 

1. Policy-based authentication controls across cloud infrastructures 
2. Zero-trust cloud security controls across logically isolated networks 
3. Enforcement of virtual server protection policies and processes 
4. Protecting all applications with a next-generation firewall 
5. Enhanced data protection and encryption 
6. Threat intelligence that detects and fights threats in real-time 

 No matter what security elements you bring into your cloud-first strategy you can count on cloud security being a responsibility that is shared between the cloud provider and the customer. So, your cloud solution should come with some security already integrated.  

Migrating from Server to Cloud with Hybrid Cloud Platform 

Having a cloud setup that’s thoroughly protected is paramount – you probably already knew that, since security has reached an all-high momentum when talking about cloud migration.

At EveryonePrint, our Hybrid Cloud Platform facilitates IT leads everywhere with a print setup that migrates both the print task and the management of print to a cloud infrastructure, all with a security-first approach.  

As a mature cloud provider, we’ve had a unique opportunity to stand prepared as the market matured in the last 10 years. Instead of having to focus on fast launches and grabbing market shares, we’ve been able to analyse the market intensively. As such, we quickly realised that security will be a key concern as businesses initiate their digital transformations. 

With our Hybrid Cloud Platform, HCP, security comes first. After that, comes quality assurance and user experience metrics needed to create software our customers can enjoy using.   

No matter how you look at it, it has to be safe first. HCP is a multi-tenant application, which allows us to seamlessly integrate new prerequisite data protection standards for all cloud users in the same organization without additional costs. This way, cloud resiliency, and security are achievable and cheaper. 

Here’s all you need to know about security with HCP: 

• EveryonePrint makes security part of our DNA 
• HCP is designed for zero-trust requirements 

• We have comprehensive Incident Management and Major Incident Management procedures in place. 
• Service level information is published on our website including real-time information on system performance and interruption to overall service. 
• With HCP, advanced encryption governs your data 
• We ensure that your data in the cloud is secure according to best practices to governmental standards. 
• EveryonePrint (your cloud provider) is certified under ISO 27001 (Data security) 
• HCP upholds standards of security from SOC 2, OWASP, CAIQ/CCM, and GDPR.

FAQs on On-Premise to Cloud Migration 

What is the Risk of Migrating to the Cloud? 

Migrating from server to cloud can open your business to a variety of security risks, from compliance violations and data breaches to insecure APIs, accidental errors, external attacks, and more. Also, when moving workloads and assets from on-prem to the cloud, organizations companies forfeit a certain level of visibility into online operations. 

Being well-prepared means the opportunities outweigh the risks. However, it is essential that businesses take all major considerations into account and set themselves up for higher success with a migration plan and strategy in action. 

How Long does it take to Migrate to the Cloud? 

Migrating from server to cloud with inexperienced software can take days, if not more. With resilient and mature software like HCP, migrating takes no longer than 10 minutes to complete. To make your print migration simple and effective, we offer a free trial as well as demos to set your company up for cloud resiliency and success. 

Final Points 

Moving to the cloud, thereby taking the next step in your digital transformation, is a great idea. With just a short time frame for drawbacks, you’ll soon notice an ocean of opportunity for your business to work with higher flexibility, less disruption, and proactivity at its core. 

To make security one less thing to worry about, make sure you’re informed of the latest cyber security insights. Want to learn more? Head over and watch our webinar "How Cloud Printing Provides Unparalleled Opportunities to Mitigate Risk" below.

What are the 5 considerations when choosing a cloud service model?

What are the considerations for cloud computing?

What are the 5 attributes of cloud computing?

What are the 5 phases of cloud migration?