Transitioning seamlessly from public cloud services to on-premise cloud solutions
Starting a business in the digital age often means relying on the cloud for IT infrastructure. Public cloud services, such as Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, offer a cost-effective and scalable solution for startups in their early stages. However, as a business grows, so do its computational, storage, and performance needs, and security becomes critical.
Transitioning from a public cloud to a virtual private cloud or on-premise private cloud can be a smooth process for visionary startups with the right partnership. Entrepreneurs who partner with a provider during the startup phase can expect a strong and profitable cash flow as their business successfully grows.
However, the operational time lost due to outages or performance bottlenecks on public clouds can be costly beyond just money, as reputation and customer loss are also at risk. To avoid such scenarios, startups should adopt a multi-layered strategy focused on reliability, resilience, transparency, and preparedness.
Reliability can be achieved by leveraging managed cloud services with built-in high availability (HA) and backup features. Google Cloud’s managed instance groups (MIGs), Kubernetes Engine (GKE) clusters, and multi-regional services are examples of such services.
Resilience can be enhanced by implementing multi-cloud or multi-region strategies. This distributes workloads across multiple cloud providers or regions, minimizing single points of failure and enabling failover to an alternative service if one provider experiences an outage.
Transparency is crucial for understanding the root causes of outages. Startups should collect, analyze, and share outage data systematically within the organization to make informed decisions and apply preventive measures.
Preparedness involves automating deployments and operational tasks to reduce human error, improve response time, and enable rapid recovery from incidents. It also includes establishing clear emergency access and identity management procedures, and preparing thorough exit and contingency plans.
Investing in a strategic partnership with a cloud infrastructure and security services provider like Happiest Minds can help startups be proactive and save time, resources, and potential errors. Raju Chellaton, SVP and Global Head, Cross Business Units, at Happiest Minds Technologies, emphasizes the importance of such partnerships.
By following these key approaches, startups can anticipate, avoid, and effectively respond to cloud outages, thereby ensuring service excellence for their customers despite the inherent risks in complex cloud environments. It's crucial for startups to set out a long-term plan and find a partner who can watch and proactively advise when to initiate actions that will save the business from complications.
To maintain a strong and profitable cash flow as their business grows, startups can engage a cloud infrastructure and security services provider like Happiest Minds for a strategic partnership. By adopting a multi-layered strategy centered on reliability, resilience, transparency, and preparedness, they can proactively mitigate risks in complex cloud environments and ensure service excellence for their customers.