In terms of cloud computing myths, there are a fair amount. In this space, we have covered the myths surrounding security and the cloud, we have covered myths surrounding downtime and the cloud, we have covered myths surrounding benefits/downfalls of different cloud models and we have covered myths surrounding the pricing of cloud tech.
Due to this, we are going to use this space to cover five other cloud myths that while not being prominent throughout the marketplace, still persist without reason.
1. The Cloud is Both Expensive and Cheap, All At Once
There is a perception floating around which stats cloud tech is, at once, both expensive and cheap. How can this be? Well, the myth goes something like this. If you happen to be a company without any cloud solutions, the very idea of jumping into the cloud means spending a tremendous amount of money on migrating all existing data into the cloud, i.e. a data center. At the same time, the myth persists that once a company is deployed in the cloud, all the services used, because they are billed in $.03 per hour billing or they are only billed when scaling.
Right off the bat, both of these myths are hogwash. Yes, hogwash. Speaking to the first part of the equation, migration.
It is true that joining the cloud and fully migrating data is more expensive that the money it takes to keep those servers running on a monthly basis, certainly when those servers aren’t scaling. Yet this being said, joining the cloud and migrating data is only as expensive as the data infrastructure requires it to be. Remember, the reason you are migrating, offloading, your data into a professional data center is because it is currently causing too many headaches and costing too much while hosting onsite.
Sure, data migration can be expensive but it is no more expensive than the costs you are already paying to simply maintain that data onsite. Moreover, once that data is migrated, you lose the monthly costs of internal hosting. It’s an upside.
As for the second part of the myth, cloud services tend to be cheap to run only when, and this is a big point, those services require minimal resource/IT needs. If your monthly cloud services require high quantities of RAM, Bandwidth, CPU and Disk, your costs might not be as affordable as you once hoped for.
This said, most cloud cost savings are seen over the long term. As you aren’t paying for onsite management and you aren’t paying for the physical gear needed to maintain your infrastructure, most companies see long term cloud savings over short term savings. While most companies will see a dipping in their IT costs, some will report a net even spend due to various factors.
Both myths of the cloud being expensive and cheap all at once are nonsense. The issue is more sensitive than black or white.
2. A Singular Cloud
Personally, we love this one. There is a myth floating out there which says there is only one cloud. A single cloud which dominates the entire market. Think of this myth like a single atmosphere in which everything exists. How the myth began we don’t know. It might stem from the singular nature of “the cloud” or it might come from general misconceptions out in the public. Whatever it is, the myth is just that, a myth.
The truth is there are multiple clouds, with multiple variations. As any reader of this space will know, the cloud is split into public, private and hybrid offerings. Of those solutions, companies can maintain all services at once delegating each to their liking and their needed security concerns. To their benefit, a lot of companies utilizing cloud solutions are determining their need based on how secure their data must remain.
If a company has highly secure data, they might deploy a wholly private cloud behind an internal firewall and if a company has some highly private data mixed with more decentralized data, they might deploy a hybrid network wherein some data is stored behind a private firewall and some is kept in front of the firewall in a publically accessible cloud platform.
The choice is wholly that of the company and their security requirements.
3. Everything in the Cloud Can Be Automated
Again, not sure where this cloud computing myth came from but it is out there. The myth states everything within the cloud – all the data, all of the security firewalls and yes, all of the hardware powering that cloud – is wholly automated simply because it is cloud based. This myth is nonsense and needs to stop right now for the sole reason that it takes away from the diligent work conducted by many cloud provider engineers around the world.
On the consumer side, the cloud might seem automated but that view is purposefully created to increase consumer satisfaction. To have that view multiply, data center technicians, support specialists, NOC engineers, network engineers, Linux/Unix/Windows admins, programmers/devs and a whole host of other IT employees work in the background behind a screen you never need see. Those IT employees work tirelessly within the chilled confines of a data center, between endless hot data center isles and in front of command line prompts to ensure your consumer experience is flawless, always up and seemingly automated.
Are some parts of the cloud automated? Absolutely. Does instant scaling of a cloud server mean automated scaling? In most cases, yes. But, don’t make the mistake to think that automatic scaling simply happened on its own. Those seemingly automated cloud solutions are possibly because a team of engineers worked to make them possible.
Not everything in the cloud is automated and, if it is, a ton of work happened to make automation possible.
4. The Cloud is Always Best For Your Business
Here is the thing, we hold to the simple fact that cloud computing solutions can help every business run in more efficient, productive and cost savings manner. This being said, a myth exists out there which states that the cloud – any version of it – is always best for a business. This simple isn’t true.
The truth is for most companies knowing which cloud works best for them, for their type of work, their type of data and their security needs, remains a critical component in day-to-day workable solutions. For the majority of companies, simply choosing one cloud platform isn’t the right choice. For most companies, choosing the right cloud platform will require picking multiple platforms to wholly cover organization needs. This means understanding the public platform might work best for part of your business but the private might work best for another. Not only does this mean understanding the difference, it means working with people, both onsite and offsite, who know how to manage the platforms and everything they encompass.
The Cloud isn’t always best for your business. Multiple platforms will be needed to cover your organization needs.
5. Cloud Means Moving Out of the Data Center
We can count this error up to the marketing of cloud services. For the longest period of time, the marketplace has been fed the picture of cloud services being like wind simply rushing around in the atmosphere without any tethering to the physical world. IT marketing has pushed the term “cloud” so hard, the marketplace actually believes the technology, like a physical cloud, floats around in the world without any physical servers backing it up.
Here is the truth: investing in cloud solutions means investing in offsite computing power which you can harness from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection. That offsite computing power is housed in physical servers sitting in a data center someone in the world. This cloud computing myth could not be further from the truth. That data center powering the cloud is comprised of servers, nodes, routers, modems, firewalls, computers, cooling equipment and fire suppression systems, Much to the opposite of how the cloud was marketed, the technology is wholly bounded to physical devices and software designed to virtualize, automate and scale in an instant.
While we think of the cloud as ephemeral, it is no such thing. The name of the tech betrays how the technology is really operating.
In summary:
- The cloud is neither cheap nor expensive. It just depends on how you operate it on a day-to-day and month-to-month basis.
- There isn’t a single cloud. It comes in different platforms and different variations all tailored to meet specific needs of consumers.
- Everything in the cloud isn’t automated and instant. A ton of work goes into making that marketplace illusion possible.
- The cloud is always best for your business but that’s only true when the right type of platform is applied for your business concerns.
- The cloud does not mean moving away from hardware. It means moving away from the hardware you keep onsite. Data centers, servers and other physical tech is still needed.