NC1701

OPINION
EXPOSING THE TRUE
COST OF CLOUD
PUBLIC CLOUD PRICES SEEM
TO BE ON A CONTINUOUS
DOWNWARD SPIRAL, BUT
THERE CAN BE HIDDEN
COSTS. DREW MARKHAM,
SERVICE STRATEGIST AT
FORDWAY SETS OUT THE
CHALLENGE
Public cloud costs continue to fall as
more hosting services become
available and the industry giants add
new data centres with security capabilities to
satisfy the most serious concerns. Headline
costs seem remarkably cheap with each
server instance only a few pounds per
month, however there is much more to
running a service or application than server
capacity. This price does not include
management and monitoring of back end
components, security, backup, antivirus and
patching, which you will need to provide
from in-house facilities or a third party.
Public cloud is like the shell of a house; you
can live in it, but you need utilities, flooring
and furniture to make it a home.
Additionally, these are not individual houses
but massive virtual complexes, so effectively
you are sharing the bathroom with other
residents! The security provided is for the
data centre itself, so each resident must
provide their own front door locks to be
properly secure.
This jump to cloud is similar to the move to
server virtualisation. Physical servers had to
be justified, bought, installed and
configured, but although they were wasteful,
you knew immediately how many you had.
With virtual servers accounting is more
complex, with servers invisible and easy to
stand up: human nature means they are
never turned off. Cloud providers expect a
similar mentality and users tend to keep
servers, data and all network traffic running,
spending more than planned.
Take an organisation running a simple
nine-to-five requirement. Eight hours of
computer time can look significantly cheaper
than fully loaded internal costs. However,
running that one instance requires additional
services including login and authentication, a
firewall and network. For nine-to-five
availability these need to be powered up
beforehand, and you need back-up, so this
quickly becomes seven-to-nine or longer.
Then add multiple interactive systems,
increasing complexity and cost. As these
systems do not like to be shut down and
restarted (it has to be sequenced) and some
employees will want access outside core
hours, you require 24x7 running. Your costs
are now three times the headline price - and
you still need to add monitoring and
management for final running costs.
Now factor in the cost of migration, the
sunk costs of a computer room - unless all
your equipment is depreciated - a disaster
recovery solution and staff who know the
systems. What was initially an easy cost
justification has just become much more
expensive. Once you have migrated to cloud
it is also difficult to move away in the future,
as the computer room has gone, along with
your IT expertise.
This does not mean public cloud is
necessarily more expensive or a bad choice,
but you need to be sure that all costs are
included. First baseline your existing IT
provision against business requirements. This
enables you to categorise and prioritise the
required systems. Then design those services
and plan a migration timeline to the cloud
before going to market. Most suppliers have
different cost models, but armed with this
definitive blueprint and order list you can
realistically compare available offers.
It is also important not to discount the soft
elements of service delivery. You could
accidentally increase costs if you select a
cloud platform or supplier that does not have
the same risk and value framework in their
processes and operations.
Some services can and should run in
public cloud, some in private cloud and
some should remain on-premise, creating a
hybrid infrastructure that needs managing
and monitoring. Organisations should
therefore retain key skills in-house to control
both costs and the security of their hybrid
cloud environment. NC
26 NETWORKcomputing JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017 @NCMagAndAwards
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