Before you transition your database environment to the cloud, there are a few considerations you should consider first. Some of the touted benefits of the cloud also carry with them some risks or negative impacts. Let’s take a look at just a few of these.
First, consider whether or not you will face vendor lock-in. Many people choose Open Source databases precisely to avoid this. The interesting fact, however, is that you can actually get locked in without realizing it. Many cloud providers have their own versions of popular database platforms such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, etc. These versions may be utilizing heavily engineered versions of these database systems.
While it is often easy to migrate your data into the environments, applications are often modified to adapt to unique aspects of these database platforms. In some cases, this may be utilizing specialized features that were added while other times it can even be dealing with a lack of features with extra development. This can occur because often the cloud versions may be based upon older codebases which may not contain all of the latest feature sets of the DBMS. This makes migrating off the cloud more challenging as it may require changes to the code to go back. In this sense, you may pragmatically be locked into a particular cloud database without even realizing it.
Also, consider the additional cost of time and resources if you need to re-engineer your application to work with the cloud platform. It may not be as simple as simply migrating over. Instead, you will need to do extensive testing and perhaps rewrite code to make it all work as it should.
A common reason many migrate to the cloud is to save cost. Some cloud providers cite projected savings of 50% or more due to not needing so much infrastructure, staff, etc. While this is certainly possible, it is also possible that your costs could rise. With the ease of creating and configuring new servers, it is easy to spin up more instances very quickly. Of course, each of these instances is increasing your costs. Without proper oversight and someone managing the spend, that monthly bill could quickly cause some sticker shock!
Storage and networking are areas that can easily increase costs in addition to sheer server instance counts. Although storage costs are relatively cheap nowadays, think about what happens when teams set up additional test servers and leave large backups and datasets lying around. And, of course, you have to pay networking costs as these large data sets are transferred from server to server. The inter-connected networking of servers that used to be essentially “free” in your on-prem Data Center, is now generating costs. It can add up quickly.
Moreover, with the “cheap” storage costs, archiving becomes less of a concern. This is a real double-edged sword as not only do your costs increase, but your performance decreases when data sets are not archived properly. Databases typically lose performance querying these enormous data sets and the additional time to update indexes negatively impacts performance.
Also, consider the loss of control. In your on-prem databases, you control the data entirely. Security is completely your responsibility. Without a doubt, cloud providers have built their systems around security controls and this can be a huge advantage. The thing you have to consider is that you really don’t know who is managing the systems housing your data. You lose insight into the human aspects and this cannot be discounted.
In addition, if you have components of your application that will be either in another cloud or will remain on-prem, you must think about the effects of network latency on your application. No longer are the various components sitting in the same Data Center. They may be geographically dispersed across the globe. Again, this can be a benefit, but it also carries with it a cost in performance.
You also need to consider whether you will need to retrain your staff. Certainly, today most people are familiar with the cloud but is almost certain you will have some holdouts who are not sold on the change in the way you manage your servers. Without a doubt, the way they work day-to-day will change. Done properly, this shift can prove beneficial by allowing your DBAs to focus more on database performance and less on setting up and configuring servers, managing backups, monitoring, etc.
Moving to the cloud is all the rage nowadays and this article is certainly not meant to dissuade you from doing so. Instead, the idea is to consider some of the ramifications before making the move to determine if it is really in your best interest and help you avoid some of the pitfalls.
