Automating Infrastructure as a Service
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is the holy grail of the information technology space in the eyes of many organizations. Everyone wants to get to the cloud, but it is important to note that IaaS is a lot more than having on-demand cloud resources.
Infrastructure as a Service sits as part of the main pillars of cloud computing. It is all about delivering on-demand resources and virtual computing power. You also have Software as a Service (SaaS) delivering on-demand software, as well as Platform as a Service (PaaS) delivering more of the operating system or platform side of the house to round out the three offerings. It all starts with infrastructure, though, before you can layer on the other available cloud opportunities.
Migration to the Cloud Takes Time
Migration to the cloud can take a lot of time (unless, of course, you use Voleer to simplify your process). The vast majority of organizations still have legacy applications running via dedicated servers on-premises. You also have many net new applications being stood up by organizations out in the cloud. How do you get these two sets of applications to talk to one another and to operate in a seamless fashion?
It is important to bridge the gap and know that the migration to the cloud takes time. Organizations have the goal of getting critical applications to the cloud as soon as possible, but to get there it needs doing securely, and effectively. It is going to require time for organizations to do this and until then, you have a set of applications that exist on a dedicated server rack, while others live out in Azure, on Amazon’s AWS, or elsewhere.
Mitigating Risk
You face a lot of risks when you are looking at legacy applications and trying to get them to integrate with the cloud environment. When you do not have appropriate tools in place, available to you, the risk exists that you will isolate your legacy and cloud applications too much. You need adequate tools at the ready as part of your IaaS solution that let you integrate with the push of a button.
Automation of the Build-Out
It is great to have computing power at your fingertips, on-demand computing through an IaaS solution. You can spin up all the computing power that you want, but what if it is not going to meet your needs in terms of tools available? When you spin up new infrastructure, you need to have development and operations management working to ensure a toolset comes with every available instance you create.
When you think about a legacy on-premises application and a net new cloud-based application, you need the two to integrate. With automation tools in place, you can spin up new architecture in the cloud that will be able to better work with legacy applications you currently have running.
No Need to Configure Every Time
You need an enterprise cloud solution when it comes to IaaS where you have standard security settings, reduction of risk, and ease in terms of creating pipelines to integrate existing on-premises applications. Your company needs to work to be sure there are automation tools where you do not have to configure your IaaS architecture spin-ups with the creation of every net new application.
You should have a default setting or set of parameters in place, tools available, so you can configure with the enterprise standard in mind. When you think about risks such as those with data in transit, lack of encryption, you need tools there to help you turn such settings on by default. Organizations that enter the IaaS space without standards established open themselves up to immense risk exposure in the short and long-term. Get it right before you scale!
IaaS Working With DevOps
In the ideal state, IaaS is going to be working with DevOps. Your IaaS solution should give you an infrastructure environment where you have a great deal of flexibility, transparency, the ability for teams to work together whether their apps are on-premises or in the cloud. It should help DevOps do their job better, bringing forth information technology solutions as a service, in an agile fashion.
Infrastructure as a Service is important as it should be able to help you automate the spinning up of new architecture. It should also support DevOps along the way. It is all about collaboration and making sure that those with on-premises applications and cloud-based applications remain in sync. If you want your organization to deliver speed and value, in a changing environment, automation of your Infrastructure as a Service pipeline is a must.
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