Cloudification is the process of transitioning traditional applications, databases, and services (storage, network, and computing resources) from on-premises infrastructures to private or public clouds.
This process involves replicating existing network architectures (or designing new ones) in the cloud environment and using cloud-native technologies to manage workloads. It also involves the use of DevOps tools and techniques to automate tasks such as resource provisioning, software change implementation, and application and system performance monitoring, among others.
The benefits of cloudification
Cloudification increases the agility and resilience of applications, while reducing the costs associated with infrastructure lifecycle operations, as these responsibilities are transferred from the organisation’s IT staff to the cloud service provider, as we have discussed in previous articles.
The challenges of cloudification
We could group them as follows by “2025 State of the Cloud” of Flexera
- Costs. 84% of organisations face difficulties in managing cloud spending, with 27% of spending wasted.
- Security. Significant increase in daily security alerts due to targeted attacks or unauthorised access attempts, affecting 80% of companies.
- Complexity in multicloud environments. 89% of organisations use multiple clouds, both public and private, which creates significant integration challenges between them, as well as a need for resilience in communications.
- Skills shortage. A large percentage of organisations lack cloud experience, requiring investment in training.
- Regulation and sustainability. Regulatory requirements and the need for environmentally sustainable solutions are also barriers to cloud adoption.
The applications
We can use it for any type of application, from setting up an email platform, billing software as a service, a data processing flow, a hospital management environment, a streaming platform, etc.
How it affects the telecommunications sector
They offer more granular control, as well as more advanced, real-time metrics that allow the operator to resize the service in a matter of minutes if there is a peak in demand, or reduce the infrastructure if there is no peak, saving the company costs.
Customised services can also be offered to customers based on usage metrics, substantially improving the customer experience.
Its relationship with virtualisation
These are two different concepts, although they are minimally related. When we talk about virtualisation, we are referring mainly to IaaS services, in which we use one or more servers with many resources, on which we offer virtual machines. In this way, we offer efficient use of physical hardware, squeezing the most out of it. In the case of cloudification, we go one step further.
This virtualisation exists, but we also have PaaS or SaaS services, in which we can completely abstract ourselves from the infrastructure part, unlike virtualisation, where this part would fall to an IT group, rather than being managed by a provider.
How the advancement of new technologies influences cloudification
It has had a huge impact, for example, by allowing the infrastructure for a start-up or small business that cannot afford to pay for its own hosting to be deployed in a matter of minutes, enabling them to speed up their digitalisation.
On the other hand, as it is scalable, it has allowed companies to manage peaks and troughs in loads, optimising services and costs
Finally, it has also had a very positive influence by enabling real-time collaboration, which is very necessary in certain sectors.
The role of AI
As AI is a service as such, we could apply all of the above to it, although we can highlight that there is an improvement in decision-making, as AI in the cloud allows us to manage large volumes of data.
