More and more organizations are making the decision to move their data and infrastructure into a public cloud provider. If you’re in the position where you need to provide the insight to determine if going to the cloud is the right move for you or not, then it is crucial to be as educated as you can on important cloud concepts.

What Even Is Public Cloud Computing?

Public cloud computing in simplest terms is utilizing compute, storage, network and other resources provided by a cloud provider over the internet. The main selling point that cloud providers will tell you is that you only pay for the resources you use. At face value that sounds pretty good to me. Instead of having an on-prem datacenter where you have to pay upfront for all of the estimated resources you think you’ll need and potentially overspend or underspend, with the cloud, you can have the ability to scale up or scale down. So, you’re paying for the compute needed based on the demands of your workloads.

So Who Owns What?

With any type of infrastructure there’s going to be a shared responsibility model. That is basically multiple teams sharing the responsibility to host and manage the dependent resources. Whether in a managed platform or privately hosted, the shared responsibility is still there. It just shifts and changes depending on what kind of model you choose.

IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, Oh My!

Generally speaking, there are three service models to choose from. And depending on which one you choose will determine who owns what. If you’re in an on-prem environment, the ownership falls entirely on you and your organization. But as you shift to the cloud, that ownership is shared and shifted more towards the provider. IaaS stands for Infrastructure as a Service. Provider takes care of the infrastructure and physical hosts, but you take ownership of your data, security, apps, network, and OS. PaaS stands for Platform as a Service. In this model the provider owns OS, infrastructure, and datacenters, while you are responsible for the data, security, and apps. SaaS or Software as a Service is the most abstracted. The provider will take care of everything while you manage the data and security. In short, you’ll always be responsible for your data and managing security, but the shared responsibility model will shift as you move from an on-prem solution to a SaaS model.

It’s Not All Or Nothing

If you’re thinking to yourself that you have to either stay privately hosted, or go with a specific cloud provider, you don’t. There are several industry standard cloud models you can go with that make the most sense for your specific environment. Private cloud (most aligned with on-prem) is a single hosted environment. You don’t share resources with other tenants. Public cloud (like Azure or other providers) gets you your compute resources that anyone can publicly buy. Hybrid cloud puts you in the category of an infrastructure that is both privately hosted as well as in a public cloud provider. Lastly there’s Multicloud. This is where your infrastructure spans multiple cloud providers (Azure, AWS, GCP, etc.).

Is This Going To Be Expensive?

This is what makes a lot of organizations pause before jumping into the warm embrace of any cloud provider. The question that all of these decisions boil down to is cost. The answer to how expensive it’s going to be is always “it depends”. How big is your data footprint? How much compute do you need? Is your data going to be egressed out of your cloud provider, or is it going to stay within their ecosystem. All of these and more are going to influence your organization’s decision if the cloud is a good move or not. As a DBA or Architect, I’m realizing now more than ever it is not just about the tech. Business decisions and finances play just as important a role as finding a technical solution. There are two terms I learned recently. I’ve heard them in conversation, but it was never really my concern or department to consider them into my decision making until now. Capital expenditure (CapEx) and operational expenditure (OpEx). CapEx is up-front spending like paying for all of your physical infrastructure now. OpEx is spending on services over time. Many cloud providers offer a pay-as-you-go model. That would fall more in line with OpEx.

The right answer is up to your organization. Some like the flexibility of a pay-as-you-go model. But you better make sure that your CFO doesn’t see a surprise bill of 80k that month when the usual expenses are 10k. If you choose to go with a CapEx model, you’re locked in to whatever resources you paid for, and that may be for X number of years before you can have the opportunity to re-evaluate and renegotiate your deals.

TL;DR

Tons of organizations are going to the cloud. Some are in a hybrid or multicloud model. If you’re coming from an on-prem infrastructure and you’re trying to make decisions to determine if the cloud is right for you, understanding spending models, service offerings, cloud models, and knowing what you’re going to be responsible for owning are all vital things to have a handle on when you’re being called in as the trusted DBA or Architect to help direct your organization’s next move.