Doing Business with the Cloud

DOING BUSINESS WITH THE CLOUD: WHY A WELL-ARCHITECTED CLOUD IS SO CRUCIAL

There’s a lot more to cloud architecture than targeting workloads to migrate and finding a place to put them. A robust cloud architecture starts with an in-depth examination of your organization’s goals and creates a framework for applying the best cloud solutions to achieve them.

Thus, a well-architected cloud dovetails with business and technology strategy. The design is holistic, accounting for business drivers, budget resources and existing technology investments. This e-book from DMI, leaders in enterprise IT strategy, development and management, spells out the requirements of a well-architected cloud. We open with an overview of modern cloud architecture and close with a look at building architectures for one of the most demanding cloud customers — the U.S. government.

Doing Business with the Cloud: Why a Well-architected Cloud is so Crucial | 2

DEFINING CONTEMPORARY CLOUD ARCHITECTURE The appeal of the cloud is universal — it’s scalable, flexible and economical. But once you

“In a well-architected cloud, your IT environment can

understand the basics, tough

dynamically adjust to the ever-changing needs of business

questions start to pile up. Which

users” says Robert Decker, DMI’s executive director of

cloud providers should you use?

cloud services.

How do you migrate critical IT workloads to the cloud without disrupting operations? How do you

Of course, you have to acknowledge

unplanned growth. In the cloud, you

lock down sensitive data? How

the tradeoffs inherent to cloud

pay for what you use, which costs little

do you manage the tradeoffs that

environments. You lose some control

when usage is low but gets expensive

cloud computing requires?

over memory and storage allocation,

when demand spikes.

All these specific questions fold into a more general one: What should an optimum cloud architecture look like?

processing power and so on. In a conventional data center, you can plan and budget costs required to buy real estate, racks of servers and storage arrays—often over-purchasing for

Doing Business with the Cloud: Why a Well-architected Cloud is so Crucial | 3

Overall, the tradeoffs overwhelmingly favor cloud technologies, but you do have to keep them in mind when assessing cloud architecture.

5 FOUNDATIONS OF CLOUD ARCHITECTURE Cloud architects have to weigh all the factors that influence the performance of a cloud environment. These five issues help form the foundation of a cloud architecture: OPERATIONS. “The cloud architecture must understand the operational factors necessary to maintain the business,” Decker says. You need to account for scenarios like business processes or unplanned events creating bursts of activity that strain available cloud resources. Customer impact is another vital concern.

COMPLIANCE. Cloud operations must comply with data governance and security regulations. Make sure you account for industry-specific rules on availability and data protection.

SOLUTION. Cloud solution providers offer a galaxy of services. It takes a keen eye to pick the right ones for your architecture and tune out the distractions.

“Knowing the business requirements helps you develop the correct architecture for your needs.”

STRATEGY. Your cloud strategy might overtake your IT strategy. Make sure you assess how the cloud affects existing IT infrastructure and staffing. Your IT team will need more training and you’ll have to explore outsourced managed services for many critical functions.

BUDGET. There’s no free lunch in the cloud. “A cloud architecture must fit within a company’s budgetary parameters,” Decker notes. At the same time, you can’t let your cloud environment handcuff business growth or the introduction of new technologies. It’s a delicate balance that typically requires managed services to deliver robust capabilities within the bounds of a budget.

Next, we’ll explore how to put these principles into action.

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CORE PRINCIPLES FOR IMPLEMENTING A CLOUD ARCHITECTURE After you’ve aligned your business challenges with cloud features and technologies, it’s time for the implementation phase. Your main concerns include testing, automating and avoiding common pitfalls.

TESTING. Most cloud initiatives include migrating mission-critical IT workloads to remote servers. These workloads cannot fail.

Thus, your cloud architecture must provision for thorough testing. That includes factors like scaling, load balancing and fail-over capabilities. “Testing makes sure your whole environment functions as designed,” Decker says. “This really becomes critical in secured or private cloud environments.”

AUTOMATING. Machine language or artificial intelligence algorithms may help you optimize your cloud environment. At the architecture stage, you have to weigh the cost of automation vs. the benefits you receive.

“Automation and AI will take out manual interventions in the decision-making process.”

You need processes to monitor algorithms and ensure their actions mirror what your people would do.

AVOIDING PITFALLS. Cloud environments are so dynamic that they often lead to wrong turns. “Without proper governance and controls, the cloud will consume resources and drive up costs,” Decker says. He recommends creating a cloud center of excellence (CCoE) to ensure sound governance. You also need to make sure your cloud providers abide by their agreements. That requires tight oversight.

Doing Business with the Cloud: Why a Well-architected Cloud is so Crucial | 5

DMI’S APPROACH TO CLOUD ARCHITECTURE DMI’s cloud practice takes a holistic approach, integrating cloud architecture into the overall structure of IT, the business and the marketplace.

We assess the client’s existing IT environment and weigh their most important business challenges before we start developing their cloud architecture. Next, we develop the optimum cloud strategy and help migrate clients’ workloads to the cloud. Finally, we help clients manage the environment once they’re in the cloud.

This process includes examining the dependencies between applications and data, and making sure our solutions align with realworld business requirements.

“We explore different infrastructure options to determine the best cloud strategy unique to the customer’s workload — not just what a particular cloud service provider says it should be.”

In the private sector, it pays to exploit the speed of rapid cloud technology advances because so many new, powerful tools arrive every day. Things are different in the public sector, where cloud architectures must address the government’s need to enforce rules and protect private data. We’ll explore these challenges to cloud architecture in the next section.

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CLOUD IN ACTION: U.S. GOVERNMENT Discussing cloud architectures for

DMI’s federal cloud services. “They’re

government agencies starts with data

asking, is my data secure? And can

governance and security. Compliance

you show me that it really is? Visibility

requirements are stiff because the

is key — and there’s a lot of rigor

cloud stores people’s private data

behind it.”

beyond the bounds of governmentcontrolled buildings.

Askew has extensive experience with that rigor. Before joining DMI in

“If you don’t bring that long-term perspective to the table, you could end up developing a solution that two years down the road

These demands manifest in the

2018, she led a team that was the

isn’t what the government

Federal Risk and Authorization

first to gain provisional authorization

needs anymore. For lack

Management Program (FedRAMP),

to serve federal agencies under

of better terms, you can

which provides stringent standards for

FedRAMP guidelines. Today, dozens

securing data in cloud environments.

of cloud providers, including titans like

be stuck.”

The FedRAMP marketplace lists all

Amazon, Microsoft and Oracle, have

the cloud providers currently

earned that authorization.

authorized to serve federal agencies, and the ones working their way through the approval process.

Government agencies naturally run more slowly than private-sector companies. That forces cloud

“When a federal agency looks at their

architecture developers to think about

cloud architecture, the questions

their systems years in the future.

are always where is my data?’’ says Rachel Askew, executive director of

Moreover, you must make sure that every component within your architecture has full regulatory approval. Otherwise, an audit could force you to rebuild a large portion of your cloud environment — or scrap it altogether — because a single cloud

“You’re looking at really long, long

app hasn’t been approved for federal

time periods,” Askew says.

agencies.

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THE CLOUD IN THREE FEDERAL AGENCIES Askew shared her experience with three

and say ‘okay, that’s great. Good

government departments: Justice, Social

job’. They have their own levels

Security and Defense.

of authorizations you have to go

JUSTICE. Askew saw one Justice Department request that illustrated an especially thorny challenge that might never arise in the private sector: “They wanted the ability to get their data

through,” Askew says. “It’s like ‘security plus’.” While the DOD’s system is similar to FedRAMP, it still requires vendors to demonstrate that they can meet higher security standards for sensitive and top-secret data.

back,” she recalls. That is, the agency

For federal cloud architecture

wanted to be able to remove data

developers, Askew says, the complexities

from the cloud and return it to their

of compliance and slow-moving

direct oversight. That’s tough because

bureaucracies can be simplified with one

cloud data gets scattered across

question: “What’s your desired outcome?”

multiple servers and data centers.

If you want to improve an application’s

“We’ve learned a lot of long-term

usability, for instance, make sure your

lessons over how to actually get

cloud architecture enables that to happen.

your data back from a cloud service provider,” she says. “And the answer to that always is it’s really hard.”

DMI is developing a cloud management platform that will give federal agencies a single dashboard to view multiple cloud

SOCIAL SECURITY.

environments from providers like Amazon

The agency supporting America’s

and Microsoft Azure.

retirees is among the more forward-thinking ones, Askew recalls. They show a keen interest

“We’re bringing into the platform

in modernization and often allow

some-cutting edge tools that are

more flexibility in cloud architecture.

available to the private sector

At the same time, they have

that are currently not available to

strict demands. “Doing a cloud architecture with the Social Security

the public sector.”

Administration gives you a little bit more freedom, but you have to be more right,” Askew says.

DMI’s holistic approach to cloud architecture ensures a robust, secure cloud

DEFENSE.

environment that addresses public sector

The Pentagon adds extra layers

imperatives while staying abreast of the

of security and compliance. “The

latest and greatest private-sector tools.

Department of Defense won’t take your FedRAMP authorization Doing Business with the Cloud: Why a Well-architected Cloud is so Crucial | 8

ALL SECTORS, PUBLIC OR PRIVATE, DESERVE A WELL-ARCHITECTED CLOUD There’s more to cloud architecture than sweating the details of system design. With the right approach to architecture, you can help your entire organization adapt to the blazing pace of

“To take full advantage of

technology change.

the ever-changing cloud,

“In years past, new technologies had long lead times that gave

business executives and IT

IT departments plenty of time to analyze, plan, budget and train

leaders must develop an

people to use the new functionality,” DMI’s Robert Decker recalls.

internal culture that not only

Today, new cloud features arrive quickly—directly improving your ability to compete. That requires openness to change across the

embraces change, but also

entire organization.

continually explores and drives new technologies.”

DMI’s dedication to user- and business-centered design ensures that our cloud environments have the flexibility to ride each wave of technology change.

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