Behind every cloud, the network is a team, and each faces the same challenge: getting the best out of your cloud network. But how do you achieve this goal? Well, five things make successful cloud networking teams do differently. Some companies use a cloud network that is far from excellent while serving its purpose. Tedious administration workflows or impatient developers who take days to make changes are just two examples of possible trouble spots. Questions about usage and performance are also tricky to answer in detail with suboptimal cloud networks. But how do you manage to build a cloud network that exceeds expectations regarding simplicity, speed, and visibility?
Table of Contents
Plan For The Multi-Cloud
If an organization isn’t already working in multiple clouds, it’s fortunate to prepare ahead of time to make the transition faster, smoother, and more effective. Because multi-cloud is coming, whether you are ready for it or not. Defining a multi-cloud network architecture early on helps avoid missteps that lead to regressions or detours.
Enterprises can build consistency across all clouds from the start, paving the way for efficiencies in automation, reporting, and more. An excellent way to get started with multi-cloud is to learn Terraform and set up a multi-cloud architecture in a test environment. With a small budget and a small amount of time, you can create a cost-effective sandbox that helps with practice and preparation.
Complete Operational Visibility And Control
It’s hard to optimize what can’t be seen or changed. Complete visibility of the network provides access to meaningful information, not just about the network itself but also about the organization. It becomes clear which areas are growing and where there is a need to scale.
Individual cloud providers have basic dashboards and native tools. However, since these are not designed for multi-cloud, they will never be as valuable as a purpose-built cloud networking platform.
Organizations should be armed with both raw and visual data to demonstrate how well the network is performing. Transparency allows us to be more proactive and earn the trust of executives and users. Rather than reacting immediately when someone outside the IT department reports a network problem, admins see the problem first and then say that they’re already working on it. The company can act more flexibly and thus expand and grow more efficiently.
Also Read: Five Cloud Security Concerns To Watch Out For This Year
No Compromise On Performance And Security
The cloud provider’s basic VPN features provide adequate security and performance. The native constructs for traffic ingress and egress (ingress/egress) do the job. However, they result in a complex configuration, and organizations lose context about where the traffic originated.
But there’s no reason to settle for that when advanced solutions are available. High-performing networks that meet the business’s security needs are easily possible in the cloud, so companies don’t have to compromise between protection and productivity. Centralized policies for ingress and egress traffic provide visibility through policy-based firewall injection at a single point.
Administrators don’t need to enable network address translation to keep everything symmetric. A cloud networking platform manages all data streams and ensures that every data stream goes to and from the same firewall to prevent data streams from being interrupted. Embedding security within the network eliminates the additional latency and bandwidth requirements of routing all traffic through a security device. Aviatrix features patented encryption technology that integrates multiple VPN tunnels into a single logical connection, providing significantly better performance than a cloud provider’s default VPN.
Anticipate Real Challenges
Even if a company has its current network well under control, it is also essential to think about the future. What’s coming up in six months or two years if something changes that you have no control over? The team may have decided to stick with one cloud, but partners, acquisitions, or other decision-makers could force them to rethink. For example, when a company acquires new customers or adds new clouds, conflicts caused by overlapping IP addresses can arise. Administrators might encounter network restrictions set differently by each cloud provider.
These limitations can affect the number of routes they can forward from their cloud network to their on-premises system or the number of ways in a VPC route table. After an acquisition, the company may need to isolate a customer from the production environment due to enhanced security requirements. Aviatrix minimizes the restructuring required in response to these real-world challenges. The cloud networking platform is designed to handle both the organic and inorganic growth that a multi-cloud environment requires.
Hooking Up With Management
Administrative support helps cloud teams get the resources to build a high-performing cloud network. A great way to garner this support is to tell a compelling story about the value of network improvements. This starts with a demo of the sandbox environment and dynamic topology mapping that is possible when connecting two clouds using a cloud networking platform like Aviatrix. Another argument is that Aviatrix helps small network teams achieve more with their human resources.
Cloud complexity can be abstracted instead of hiring an industry expert for each cloud or massively training tier 3 architects and tier 1 support. The team can be kept lean and agile. Cloud leaders can regularly contact senior management for review once deep, and comprehensive business information is available through the Aviatrix platform. It’s vital to grab their attention by showing the cloud team what happens after a new application is launched or modeling network performance’s impact on crucial business metrics.
Also Read: What Is The Cloud? What Advantages For SMEs?
