Thareja Cloud Services

Snapshot of Thareja Cloud Practice

• Expertise: across multiple AWS & Azure services and Open-Source Tool Integration
• Certifications: 75% of our teams has Cloud certifications
• Experienced Team: key members having up to 20 years of experience
• Long-standing: client base including many repeat customer
• Internal Centre of Excellence: consisting of SMEs who set our internal best practices, provide project oversight and recommendations to our clients and project teams
• Collaboration: with Azure & AWS teams through AWS and Microsoft partnerships
• Training: Internal and vendor training to update and expand your team’s skills and knowledge.
• Production: scalable team structure capable of handling projects of all sizes.

Major Cloud Implementation Areas

• Re-hosting and migration (Lift & Shift)
• Refactoring and modernizing legacy applications
• Rearchitecting and Cloud-native development
• L1, L2, L3 support
• Managed services
• DevOps services

Approaches to Cloud Migration

Cloud migration moves data, applications, and computational workloads from physical servers to the cloud.

An organization can choose to move part or all of an application or workload. For example, they may migrate data storage to a cloud platform while hosting the application's code in their data center. Or they may use on-premises infrastructure as a primary site while leveraging the cloud for disaster recovery. Approaches that combine on-premises and cloud hosting are often called a hybrid cloud environment, whereas approaches that combine multiple cloud environments are referred to as multi-cloud.

Additionally cloud migration can involve transferring partial or entire management of enterprise systems to an external vendor:

• Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) is one end of the spectrum of cloud migration and involves maintaining applications, data, middleware and operating systems under company control while virtualization, servers, storage and networking are managed by a service provider.
• Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) leaves control of applications and data in the hands of the company while all other functions are handed over to a service provider.
• Software-as-a-Services (Saas) which involves the transfer of software, storage and platform management to a service provider.

Lastly, organizations generally choose to pursue one of the three main cloud migration strategies:

• Lift and Shift. This is where an organization shifts from local hosting to a cloud provider with minimal changes to the migrated application.
• Refactoring. This strategy involves updating an application's components to meet current and upcoming functional, security, and enterprise standards.
• Rearchitecting. This strategy involves replacing an existing application with a new application which is fully optimized for the cloud. Cloud-native applications are designed to take full advantage of the benefits of cloud computing

Benefits of Cloud migration

Unlike companies that rushed into cloud migration due to the pandemic, organizations are now able to take a more rigorous approach that allows them to fully consider current and future needs and realize the maximum benefit from their migration.

Regardless of which approach an organization chooses to take, cloud migration can provide wide ranging benefits:

• Scalability and Flexibility. Scaling on-premises infrastructure is often time consuming and expensive. Cloud scaling can be quick and inexpensive within additional capacity being brought online and removed in minutes as needed.
• Cost. Physical infrastructure requires continuous maintenance and support and dedicated teams to perform this work. Cloud infrastructure is typically managed by a service provider who assumes this responsibility using technology, automation tools, and its own teams at a fraction of the cost.
• Improved Security. Major cloud providers provide state of the art security solutions with automated updates and patching to ensure your enterprise infrastructure and data are always protected.
• Simplified IT Management. Modern cloud administration interfaces offer a wide range of functions that let organization monitor, configure, and modify any element of their environment.
• Mobility. Cloud service providers can support best in class security approaches for dispersed workers. Cloud solutions can be configured to incorporate zero trust policies, SDWAN software, and other approaches to support secure, low-risk access for remote workforces.

Thinking short term. A faulty migration plan is the number one reason organizations fail to see benefits from their cloud migration strategies. When planning your migration project, think short and long term. Maintaining a legacy system might save some money now by reducing the scope of a migration, but in the long run maintaining these systems outside of your cloud environment can add complexity to your technology infrastructure and impair the performance of your enterprise systems.

Not considering all the costs. Short term thinking can also increase your ongoing costs. Maintaining a hybrid of cloud and locally hosted systems and infrastructure can lead to increased systems management expenses with each environment having different maintenance and support teams – each with their own unique skills and certifications.

Migrating all at once. Moving applications to the cloud can produce substantial benefits. To ensure your migration goes well, take a stepwise approach. When planning your migration, try and identify systems or databases which form a natural dividing line for your cloud migration. Breaking your migration into steps or phases can help ensure each migrated system is deployed, validated, and working properly before the next layer of complexity is added.

Not modernizing applications. Maximizing the ROI of a cloud investment, requires organizations to go beyond just hosting on the cloud. Modernizing applications allows organizations to automate routine processes and systems management functions and reduce ongoing maintenance and management costs.

Choosing the wrong cloud platform. The major cloud service providers are a safe choice, especially when your organization operates in an industry which has strict technology standards that must be met. Other cloud providers may offer attractive pricing but require due diligence to ensure they can perform at the level your business requires.

Sticking with your old technology stack. Organizations often feel more comfortable using a technology stack they have used for years. Cloud migration represents an opportunity to embrace newer technologies which can better equip your organization to meet current and future business needs.

Poor data management. Migrating to the cloud requires rigorous data management to ensure the quality of the data is maintained after the migration. Furthermore, as cloud computing can often introduce substantially more computing power than organizations previously had at their disposal, making new types of analyses, and reporting possible. Faulty data management can compromise an entire cloud migration initiative.

Faulty systems integration. During the pandemic, in the rush to support remote workers, many organizations quickly implemented hybrid cloud solutions which involved migration of some enterprise systems to the cloud which retaining some legacy systems on local infrastructure. These hybrid systems sometimes required complex systems integrations which, if not thoroughly validated, can prove troublesome.

Deficient security. Cloud breaches are occurring at an alarming rate. Most of these breaches were preventable if cloud security best practices had been followed. A thoughtful approach to Cloud migration should include a thoughtful approach to infrastructure, application, and data security.

Failing to automate. Automation can not only positively impact security of your cloud infrastructure, but it can also substantially reduce your ongoing maintenance and management costs. Investing in automation is critical to maximizing ROI from a cloud migration.

Planning Like any technology project, the first step in cloud migration should be planning. Because of the complexity and many nuances of cloud migration, you may benefit from engaging an experienced cloud advisor early in the process. Having an expert on your side can allow you to better understand the opportunities and benefits that are possible for your business and guide you as to how to invest the resources you have to produce the maximum effect. The cloud migration planning process should methodically review your business, technology stack, and future plans to arrive at an approach that makes sense for you. The process, at minimum, should include the following:

• Gathering business requirements including challenges with the current tech stack, future business plans, priority enhancements and upgrades, data management requirements, security disaster recovery, and other issues.
• Create an application upgrade plan which will stipulate the changes that will be made to enterprise applications. Upgrades for cloud migration can be minor such as rehosting and refactoring, or more extensive and involve rebuilding or replacing legacy applications.
• Develop an infrastructure and architecture plan designed to meet the needs of your application plan and anticipated future business requirements. The plan should also include recommendation of a cloud provider, and consideration of how the cloud infrastructure and applications will be managed after implementation.
• Data management is important enough that it deserves its own plan. The plan should detail integrations but also measures to ensure and validate data quality for the initial migration and on an ongoing basis.
• Create a security plan with a mindset that the cloud migration is the opportunity to integrate the latest security best practices, if you have not already done adopted them. Your cloud migration should ideally incorporate concepts like zero trust, encrypting data in use, in transit and at rest, and other strategies to secure your future cloud environment.
• Develop your financial plan incorporating consideration of the application upgrades, integrations, hosting, and security. In addition, you should be sure to consider the ongoing costs associated with systems administration, updates, future upgrades, and support.
• Develop a testing plan to ensure the final implemented solution performs and scales as intended.

Proof of Concept. Depending on the scope of your cloud migration, you may want to consider a proof of concept. The proof of concept will simulate the end cloud migration in a virtual environment to allow you to validate the approach, functionality, benefits and budget. For a modest cost, the proof of concept allows you to identify potential issues and adjust your plan before larger investments are made.

Configuration of Cloud Environment. This stage involves setting up the cloud environment including configuring databases, servers, security, and parameters for scaling. This stage should also include preparation for automation of DevOps and systems administration activities.

Data migration.  Transferring your data to the cloud environment should be done be done systematically with close attention paid to data quality throughout the process. The data management plan should be strictly followed with all manipulations, cleaning and data integrity checks documented and the overall system validated to ensure the integrity of data for the cloud migration and beyond.

Application migration. During this phase enterprise applications undergo any planned upgrades and then are deployed to the cloud. Extensive systems validation is performed prior to cut-over to the cloud-based applications from the legacy environment to ensure reliable performance.

Systems validation. During the phase, the newly migrated system is rigorously tested and validated according to the test plan, prior to transfer to the production environment.

Launch, optimization, and maintenance.  Once the solution is migrated to the production environment, optimization begins. Servers, databases, security systems, applications and other elements are optimized to ensure the cloud solution performs within agreed upon performance parameters. After launch maintenance also begins. This typically includes ongoing system performance monitoring and routine updates. Much of the ongoing maintenance required would ideally have been automated.

Secure your user endpoints - In cloud security, endpoints refer to end-user devices such as laptops, desktops, tablets and mobile phones. More broadly, this can also include sensors and primary data sources such as IoT devices that supply data to your cloud applications. The first step in securing endpoints should be a thorough inventory to identify all devices that need to be secured, and to assess the security requirements for each type of device. Implementation of operating systems and software updates and patches should be automated wherever possible to ensure they are implemented immediately upon release. Strong access controls such as multifactor authentication is another important approach. A third key is user awareness. The weakest link in cloud security is often the end-user. We will address users separately.

Implement encryption -Encrypt everything! The best way to safeguard sensitive data from unauthorized access or modification and overcome cloud security challenges is encryption. Data should be encrypted at rest, in transit and in use. There are many different encryption algorithms available today, but they all serve the same purpose: securing information in an unreadable form that only authorized parties can decrypt.

Tighten access controls - A best practice for enterprise cloud system design is the implementation of a zero-trust policy. This approach requires users to be re-authenticated each time they try and access a new system or application within your cloud environment. If your systems are breached, a zero-trust policy can limit the scope of any security breach.

Choose a trusted provider - Many organizations choose to use a third-party cloud service provider to manage their systems and their cloud security. Although working with a third party can result in significant cost savings when compared to the cost of hiring and managing your own team, it is important to do your due diligence. Make sure that your cloud provider holds any certifications that are required in your industry such as HIPAA or SOC2. Even if your industry does not have its own technology security standards, you might want to choose a partner who holds these certifications as you can be assured that they have rigorous processes and procedures in place for cloud security and infrastructure management. Other important criteria should be evidence of regular third-party security audits and scrutinizing their history of data breaches.

Define a data access policy - It's important to establish clear policies on how data should be stored, accessed and used. To keep your cloud environment secure, restricting user access is critical. User access should be reviewed and limited to ensure each easier only has the minimum access and permissions needed for them to do their job. This should include clear guidance on how where data may be accessed and how it should be handled and stored.

Practice good password hygiene - Password policies should go beyond simply imposing minimum requirements for the format of passwords and prompting regular password updates. Multifactor authentication should be an essential feature of your cloud security strategy. Multifactor authentication, including transmitting pins to trusted devices, biometrics, security tokens and other approaches, can represent a significant barrier against malicious activity.

Deploy centralized identity management - Centralized identity management allows organizations to manage all user accounts with a single interface rather than managing it at the departmental or application level. Centralized identity management helps ensure the consistent enforcement of cloud security policies. These systems can not only make it easier when on-boarding new employees, it can also ensure smooth off-boarding of employees without the security worries that can result from decentralized processes and systems.

Utilize the shared responsibility model - The shared responsibility model is a commonly used way to manage a company's cloud security risks. It involves sharing responsibility between a company, its vendors, and its users. The model clearly defines each party’s role in ensuring cloud security and serves as the basis for accountability. This model is beneficial because it allows all parties to ensure there are no gaps in understanding and expectation relating to cloud security and allows them to confidently work to fulfill their obligations.

Regularly train your users - The cloud security threat environment is ever-present and evolving. It is important that end-users are educated to recognize common tactics used by cybercriminals as a first line of defense. Regular cybersecurity training can not only keep workers up to date on the latest tactics used by malicious parties, it can also maintain an elevated state of awareness about the seriousness of ongoing threats to cloud security.

What are Cloud Managed Services?

Simply put, Cloud Managed Services are services that completely or partially manage an organization’s cloud infrastructure on an outsourced basis. Cloud Managed Services can include management of cloud computing, storage, network operations, security, application stacks, and other aspects.

Why should you consider outsourcing your Cloud management?

Here are the five most important advantages Cloud managed services can bring to your organization:

Choosing the right Cloud Managed Services Provider

When evaluating Cloud Managed Services Providers, keep the following factors in mind: