Data management is an absolutely crucial aspect of running a successful business in the modern era. Without data, most companies would struggle to keep up with the competition or even be able to effectively serve their customer base in ways that can guarantee repeat business and retain loyalty on any level.
With each passing year, data management evolves. According to this Forbes article, 76% of polled business leaders found it was difficult to understand their data. That same article continues to state that 82% of data management decision-makers reported that forecasting data costs was challenging and 80% of polled decision-makers said that a lack of talent was the biggest hurdle.
Source: Forbes
Another important number is 77.6 billion dollars which, according to Zipdo, is what the global data market will be valued at by 2025. This speaks for the increasing relevance of data management. With this valuation, one would expect that most companies acknowledge the power of data driven decisions, but it may come as a surprise to know that it isn’t the case. This 2017 Harvard Business Review study showed that, on average, less than half of an organization’s structured data is actively used in making decisions and less than 1% of unstructured data was analyzed or used at all.
How times have changed?
As data continues to serve as the lifeblood for so many aspects of your business, you must consider it an absolute necessity to stay on top of. Although your in-house data stores might be serving you fine for the moment, you must always be thinking a few steps ahead. Otherwise, you might as well consider yourself behind.
A great example of how BairesDev helped a client modernize their data infrastructure is this one. A leading insurance provider serving over 5 million policies hadn’t updated their quoting app in five years. Their legacy application was riddled with bad code and technical debt. Our team migrated the application to AWS and Kubernetes, improving code standards and management as it moved from on-premises infrastructure to the cloud. This move saved costs and allowed scalability to serve their expanding database.
As data continues to grow, many companies are doing the same thing, they are shifting from in-house data centers to the cloud. If you’ve not already migrated your data, it’s time you did. Such a migration might be daunting at first, but in the end, the challenges will be well worth overcoming.
But what are the advantages and disadvantages of making the transition from a traditional data store to the cloud? Let’s dig in and find out.
Advantages of Cloud Data Management
First off, let’s examine the advantages of cloud data management. Here are the top pros for making this move.
Security
When you migrate your data to a cloud management platform, you gain security improvements that can only be offered by a company that has a vested interest in the security of your data. On top of that, you’ll also find cloud data management platforms are superior at preventing data loss. Unless your company employs a team of data scientists and data security specialists, there’s no way your staff can meet the level of security offered by a cloud data management platform.
Scalability Can Solve a Lot of Problems
Your in-house data center is limited in its scalability. The only way around that is to purchase costly hardware and then deploy the new hardware in such a way that it will function seamlessly with the current servers. That can be challenging, depending on the database server you use.
Even better, with a cloud data management platform, you gain the function of automated scaling. That means not only will your data platform always be able to meet an increase in demand but also it can scale down when demand ebbs, saving you money (as you only pay for what you use).
Controlling Who Has Access to Your Data
One very important benefit of a cloud data management platform is that it allows you to control who has access to your data. Those who do have access will be able to work with that data from anywhere. That means you can hire teams from anywhere across the globe, grant them access to the platform, and trust that they will be able to successfully work with the data and even collaborate with other teams.
If you have data management challenges, learn more about BairesDev cloud computing services.
Backups and Recovery are Crucial to Continued Success
Like most cloud platforms, backup and recovery is not only considerably easier than it is with your on-premises data center but it can also be automated. And with most cloud data management platforms, you could even automate the downloading of your backed-up data to local storage. With a backup of your data housed within your company, you can rest assured that there’s always a working copy of the data to be used in case of an emergency. Of course, the chances of you needing that backup will probably be slim, as cloud data management platforms tend to be rock solid.
Clean Data Equals Reliable Data
Most cloud data management platforms work with data silos and a single source of truth for your data. That means your data is not only more reliable but it’s also cleaner and continually up-to-date. Because those platforms work to keep your data clean, you’ll be more empowered to use that data for multiple purposes (such as ML, AI, and external, third-party software).
Keeping It Green
If your company is concerned about keeping your carbon footprint down (and it should be), migrating to a cloud data management platform can go a long way to helping with that cause. Most cloud data management companies have to function under certain climate laws and legislation, which means their carbon footprint is already much lower than it might otherwise be. And when you make the migration, you are doing your part to follow suit.
Disadvantages of Cloud Data Management
There really aren’t many disadvantages to migrating to a cloud data management platform. Even so, here is the shortlist of the key cons.
Third-Party Access
Even with all of the advantages, some businesses don’t like the idea of hosting their data on a third-party service, where non-company staff might have access to sensitive data. Although the chances are slim that someone within a cloud data management company will use your data against you, it is still a risk. If data privacy and security are at the top of your list, this is something for you to consider.
Vulnerability to Attacks
Although the security of cloud data management platforms tends to be considerably better than your in-house data center, those services tend to have targets on their backs. Hackers know that cloud data management platforms offer a veritable treasure trove of information, so they are always looking for new ways to infiltrate those systems.
That doesn’t mean they will succeed, but it does mean they are regularly under attack. If those hackers find a vulnerability to exploit, they could gain access to your data.
Could being the operative term.
Vendor Lock-In
Finally, when you migrate to a cloud data management platform, you could find yourself locked into the tools that the platform uses. If the company doesn’t offer the tools your admins are accustomed to using, there could be a learning curve involved. And if your developers find tools they’d like to employ, that cloud data management platform might not support them.
This can be especially problematic if your developers have built custom apps to be used. If the cloud data management platform doesn’t have APIs to connect those custom apps, you could find yourself out of luck.
Best Practices
Now that we have the pros and cons out of the way, let’s mention a few best practices your company should follow for a successful cloud data management experience.
Have a Plan and Stick to It
From the very beginning, it’s crucial that you begin the migration process with a plan that will ensure your migration is successful. When devising this plan, ask yourself these questions:
- Will you need a public, private, or hybrid cloud environment?
- Who will need access to the data?
- What processing tasks will your data require?
- What type of database does your data work with?
- What tools do you need for a successful migration?
- Can you do the migration while keeping your company up and running before “flipping the switch”?
Answer those questions and formulate a solid plan before you make the migration.
Maintain Healthy Data
No matter where you store your data, it must always be healthy. That means it must be valid, complete, and follow the best practices for the database server software you use. You should look into the cloud data management platform you’ve chosen and make sure it includes a data cleaning tool. If not, you might have to work with such a tool before making the transition. Remember, clean data equals healthy data.
Backup, Backup, Backup
Although you have 100% trust in your new cloud data management platform, it is still absolutely essential that you make regular backups of your data. Your chosen platform most likely includes backup tools, but you’ll want to make sure to configure them such that your data is getting backed up on a daily (at best) or weekly basis. Remember, if your data backup isn’t up to date, it’s out of date, which means you could be missing crucial information.
Data Governance
You must develop a solid data governance policy, which will include necessary compliance issues. If your data is related to healthcare, there are very specific compliance needs. If you’re working with government entities, the same thing holds true. It’s important that you fully understand any and all compliance issues related to your data and to make sure you are always in compliance. And because you are moving your data to the cloud, there are probably added compliance issues you must deal with.
On top of all that, compliance isn’t a static issue. Compliance laws are always changing, so it’s imperative that you keep up-to-date on those laws so you don’t have to worry about falling out of compliance.
Conclusion
Migrating from an on-prem database solution to a cloud data management platform can be tricky business. But with the benefits gained, the headaches you might suffer before and during the migration will be well worth it.
Have a plan, keep up-to-date, back up your data regularly, and stay up on your compliance and everything should go off smoothly.
