Fortress in the Cloud

As modern applications grow more complex and valuable, their security becomes increasingly critical. Yet many organizations still operate with a flat security model—one breach and attackers gain access to everything. This approach is like building a house with a reinforced front door but paper-thin walls. How can you improve your application security to reduce your risk of attack? Use isolation zones. Isolation zones aren’t just a best practice—it’s the difference between

Managing Complexity in a Cloud Migration

Migrating to the cloud can be daunting, especially when dealing with complex applications, which can have a life of their own. These applications can act in seemingly random ways when exposed to unexpected stimuli, such as moving from a stable data center environment to a more chaotic cloud environment. This inherent complexity makes migrating to the cloud risky, but there are ways to mitigate the risk. Piecemeal Migration Proper pre-migration preparation is critical to a successful cloud migrat

The Big Cloud Migration Misstep

In all the different ways we know in order to migrate an application to the cloud, the lift-and-shift strategy is often the first method organizations attempt. It’s a simple concept: take your existing applications and move them, as is, to the cloud. But simplicity can be deceptive. I’ve seen firsthand how this approach can lead to a host of issues, particularly when it comes to the underutilization of dynamic cloud resources. Migrating to the cloud using lift-and-shift may be the most expensive

You can’t afford not to be in the cloud

Consider the following story: “I went into my CEO’s office. Our CEO is a very driven, technical, hands-on CEO. All technical decisions have to go through him before the company goes forward with a plan. Today, the discussion was the cloud. The problem? The CEO said we couldn’t move our application to the cloud because it was too expensive. His evidence? ‘If you compare the cost per hour of a cloud-based server instance, to the monthly costs we pay for our servers, the cloud-based servers are

Don’t stop your migration!

Are you planning an application migration? Perhaps you are moving your on-premise application to the cloud, or perhaps you are modernizing an older application to a more appropriate application architecture. Migrations such as these are commitments. Commitments of time. Commitments of resources. Commitments of mindset and corporate energy. They can involve long and evolved transitions. They involve lots of effort—an effort that does not directly, immediately correspond to a realized benefi

👻🏚️🎃 ScaryOps: The 3 Scariest Mistakes Companies Make in the Cloud

.button-table { padding: 12px 0 } First, there was DevOps. Then, ModernOps and CloudOps. Now, there is ScaryOps. Welcome to the special Halloween Edition of the Modern Digital Business podcast. In this episode, the 3 Scariest Mistakes Companies Make in the Cloud. It's time to turn our attention to scary things…scary movies, scary TV shows, scary home decorations, scary costumes. But when it comes to working with customers and clients on their cloud projects, sometimes I get quite scared…and not

The Fatal Mistake Companies Make with Their Cloud Migration

Migrating to the cloud is a commitment. It’s a commitment of time, resources, and corporate energy. Perhaps you are migrating an on-premises application to the cloud. Or maybe you’re moving a monolithic application to service-oriented or microservice architecture. Migrations are not easy to pull off, and can involve long transitions. Because the benefit is not always immediately obvious—and, in fact, sometimes things get worse at the beginning—it’s tempting to want

What is the color of your money?

Consider the following story: “I went into my CEO’s office. Our CEO is a very driven, technical, hands-on CEO. All technical decisions have to go through him before the company goes forward with a plan. Today, the discussion was about the cloud. The problem? The CEO said we couldn’t move our application to the cloud because it was too expensive. His evidence? ‘If you compare the cost-per-hour of a cloud-based server instance to the monthly costs we pay for our servers, the cloud-based server