Three ways to improve your cloud performance right now

Time is money. I’m sure that’s not the first time you’ve heard that expression. One of the reasons it’s such a common expression, though, is that it’s true—especially when it comes to the performance of your applications and data. The cloud offers unique challenges and you must pay particular attention to a handful of factors that can seriously impede your cloud performance.

If you’ve migrated to the cloud you need to pay close attention to your resources. Cloud computing can quickly consume processing capacity, storage, bandwidth and other resources. An organization with a dozen employees running several different applications simultaneously, for example, might be surprised at how much bandwidth is being tied up and how that affects overall cloud performance. Factoring in additional services such as VoIP, cloud backup or lax network security policies that permit employee access to content streaming or cloud storage/sync sites can also adversely affect cloud performance for the entire organization.

1. Application Performance Management

Leveraging third-party APM (application performance management) tools to help monitor and manage cloud and application performance can be helpful in identifying bottlenecks or issues before they spiral out of control and sink a public cloud deployment.

2. Monitor User Data Footprint

Organizations should monitor their employee’s data footprint closely in a public cloud deployment model. Users that create hierarchies in file databases and message structures could be hurting an organization’s cloud performance. In some cases, considering a hybrid data storage approach with a cloud deployment is also necessary. Implementing a CSG (cloud storage gateway) that can cache/store/serve files locally, while keeping them replicated to the cloud, can also help abstract cloud/WAN performance limitations, especially for organizations with limited bandwidth.

3. Choose Tools Designed for the Cloud

On the WAN front, as last mile bandwidth becomes more ubiquitous and continues to increase in speed and quality, and cloud providers and customers find more ways to leverage CDN’s or other WAN optimization technologies to deliver services effectively from cloud-based architecture the line will continue to blur. An increasing number of software developers will design and architect software to work in a more decentralized fashion and the assumed default delivery mechanism will be public internet or VPN connectivity into a public cloud provider.

It is absolutely essential when designing or migrating to a public cloud solution that proper performance metrics are identified and load testing is performed to properly simulate end-user experience. Ensuring that remote workers have adequate resources at their disposal (WAN and wireless bandwidth, adequate laptop/desktop horsepower) to connect and leverage public cloud-based resources can oftentimes be overlooked in both small and midsize organizations. Make sure you pay special attention to the factors listed here to ensure and maintain optimal cloud performance.