How Should You Leverage the Cloud to Get Your Projects Done?
By: Caleb Rogers
Tags: AWS, Technology, Software Development, Cloud Computing, Business Intelligence

How Should You Leverage the Cloud to Get Your Projects Done?

An introduction to cloud computing

Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash

It sounds like you want to get rid of IT.

That’s what one of the techs on my team said when I told him we were going to start migrating all of our on-premises systems to our AWS account. His statement hit me a bit sideways because I didn’t understand why anyone would think that way.

Moving services and systems up to the cloud wasn’t ‘getting rid of IT’. Instead, it was bringing it from the past into the PRESENT.

At the time, I was managing a small IT team at a growth phase startup. It had been around for about 7 years, and when I stepped in there I didn’t just see an IT department. I saw aging servers sitting on a floor. I saw overly complicated solutions to simple problems, just so a computer could sit alone in a server rack in a room with bad ventilation.

I saw single points of failure everywhere. If one of the computers we had hosting four different application virtual machines had a catastrophic hardware failure, we would be in trouble.

Mission-critical software was running on machines that were as old as the company, with no redundancy, no functional backups, and no plan for when things went wrong.

Having all of our servers in the building was a disaster waiting to happen, and AWS was the solution to my problems.

It’s just someone else’s computer, right?

Running your servers in a cloud computing environment means you’re just using someone else’s computer which is stored somewhere other than your business.

Do you trust that company and its computers to hold your data? Is it expensive to rent other people’s hardware when you can just buy your own and be done with it? How much more will you have to learn to effectively leverage cloud computing services versus putting an old computer in a closet with an oscillating fan blowing on it?

Yes, it is someone else’s computer. Yes, you can trust them (there’s way too much money riding on them providing high-performing and tightly-secure systems for you, their customer). And yes, you’ll have to learn how to use their systems, management consoles, and figure out how to keep your bill down to a reasonable amount while getting the most you can out of their cloud.

Who are the main providers?

There are three primary cloud computing service providers: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. Those are the leaders in the industry and provide the widest variety of rock-solid solutions.

There are some other players, but they are either smaller or they provide more specialized offerings. For example, if your business has been using an Oracle database for years and you really want to stick with their platform and services, they have cloud offerings for you. If you want a simple application platform without having to mess with any infrastructure setup, maybe Heroku has something to meet your needs.

There are a lot of options when you start looking at cloud computing service providers, but with those options comes a lot of questions. You’re going to have to learn which provider is going to meet your needs right now and those you’ll have in the future.

Choosing a cloud to stick your business in isn’t a simple decision. You’ve got to think long-term, and you’ve got to think big. It’s not just a question of where you are right now, but where are you going to be once your five-year roadmap is a success?

I’ve been using AWS for a few years, so I’ll automatically lean towards it when I have a new project. That doesn’t mean it’s right for everyone or every project. Azure might be the perfect solution. Likewise, Google Cloud might be just what you need to run your AI/ML workload and drive your customer intelligence solutions to the next level.

How to get started

You get started by researching and experimenting with one of the three main cloud providers. Sure, there are other offerings you can choose, but I suggest you just start with AWS, Azure, or Google.

They are the leaders, and they will likely be the best solution for you. But you won’t know until you get started.

AWS lets you get started for free and use it for a year, as long as you don’t go over their free tier limits.

Azure has a similar program, offering 12 months to sample their services.

Google Cloud is a little different, but still has a free section and they give you service credits to try out their paid offerings without incurring any charges.

No matter which one of the big three you choose to start your cloud experiments, you can do so for free.

Don’t let aging servers sitting in a dirty room be your downfall. Just pick a cloud provider and start learning.