The right IT infrastructure does not have to cost a lot

In today’s world, it is increasingly important that applications run reliably, whether on-premise or in the cloud. But what if there are problems? This is usually associated with high costs in the area of ​​disaster recovery and the like. This article is about how to avoid such pitfalls.

The planning

The right planning of a solid infrastructure is basically the first and most important point when it comes to saving costs and trouble in the long term. Unfortunately, this process is often not taken too seriously and problems arise as a result. However, we can already put this into perspective in three important points:

• What is our budget?
  – Based on this question, the people involved can determine to what extent they are willing to take certain risks, such as the deployment of monoliths (which fundamentally harbors dangers) or the use of monitoring systems.
• How do we scale? (Do we even want that?)
  – This question already implies the vulnerability of the future infrastructure.
  Because a scalable infrastructure can and ensures that the application is not immediately affected in the event of any errors or problems.
  If one node fails, the other nodes continue to work as usual and you have time in the meantime to take care of the problem and fix it.
  However, this in turn can lead to costs if the concept of scaling is not implemented carefully.
• Do we have a partner by our side?
  – In order to be able to save costs in the long term, it is always advisable to get a partner to help you.
  At cloud37, we specialize in building and operating highly available infrastructures.
  But also when it comes to solving any problems at short notice.
  This allows our customers to focus on the important things in their business.

Cloud or on premise?

It is just as important to have the right provider for the cloud.
There are many different providers on the market and they all have different feature sets and pricing.
However, it is important to consider what you need in the end and how you get the best possible benefit from all the offers.

With an on-premise solution, it is often more difficult to save costs.
Because you always pay for the entire runtime of the environment (regardless of whether you need some resources or not). It’s easier with the cloud. You only pay for what you actually use.

For example, if a resource is not constantly required, it can simply be switched off.
Either by hand or fully automatically. This can result in massive cost savings.
In addition, the maintenance effort ist significantly lower with a cloud-based solution: You simply transfer your load to a temporary destination while you upgrade the actual instance. Once done, you switch back.
Maintenance with no downtime significantly reduces your operational costs.

The implementation

When it comes to implementation, it is important to use the right toolset.
This may sound strange now, but it is crucial when it comes to building a uniform environment and maintaining it in the long term.
So it is crucial how many people work on a project and whether the work can be simplified by certain tools in the team.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is a good example. Here all employees use the same tool chain to make changes to the infrastructure and ensure that individual changes do not have a major impact on the overall structure (in the form of code reviews).

The right monitoring

Monitoring is important when it comes to mission-critical infrastructure.
There are solutions for load monitoring, notifications and scaling.
Put everything together and you have a solid basis for safe operation of a fail-safe infrastructure.
And the best thing about it is, of course, that you can react as quickly as possible before you generate unnecessary costs.

We can help!

cloud37, a company founded in 2018 with headquarters in Switzerland and a branch in Germany, has more than 200 years of product and project experience.
Independent consulting is the basis for sustainable successful projects – that is what cloud37 stands for.

Cloud services are our core competence.
Together with you, step-by-step, we plan your technical migration to AWS, GCP or Microsoft Azure – providing as much cloud as you want.
We help you to decide on the right provider based on your specific requirements.
In doing so, we support you in fully exploiting the technical and economic potential of the cloud with the best architecture for you and the concepts developed with you, so that you benefit sustainably from the variety of cloud services offered.

We offer architecture reviews, design creation and improvement, migration concepts or development – all topics you can talk to us about.