Three Considerations for Your Next Hyperscale Project

Recently, I had the opportunity to participate in a panel discussion of leading service providers at the Hosting and Cloud Transformation Summit presented by 451 Research. It was great to share ideas with peers and hear different perspectives on the industry.

Of all the stats and information shared at the summit, one, in particular, stuck with me: 63 percent of companies felt their infrastructure could not scale to match future demands without significant changes (Source: 451 Research’s Voice of the Service Provider: Infrastructure Evolution 2019). It shows not only that organizations lack the processes and expertise to scale their applications to meet future demands, but also reveals the opportunity to take advantage of hyperscalers.

Are you ready for hyperscale?

Organizations are feeling the pressure of the increasing cost of technology and hyperscale computing represents not only a way to save money, but a way to meet future demand without significant investments in infrastructure. Companies that decide to begin using hyperscalers, need to start by looking inward and asking two (often difficult) questions.

• Where are we today? Organizations should first take stock of their current IT environments to understand what will be required from hyperscalers. With the distributed nature of IT services, it’s beneficial to get a clear picture of a company’s entire IT footprint.
• What do we want to accomplish? This question is typically easier to address but getting it right is just as important. Before beginning any hyperscale project, IT needs a clear goal of what they need to accomplish in order to set priorities and guide the solution.

Understanding where you are and what you want to accomplish is critical, but companies must also consider their capabilities and plan before they can make their vision a reality.

Consideration 1: Do we have the right security expertise?

Security is extremely important when migrating applications and workloads to the cloud, and it’s tempting to think hyperscalers come pre-configured to be as secure as possible.

Hyperscalers are extremely secure platforms but they require knowledge of their security tools and configurations in order to be set up correctly. If an environment is not configured properly, organizations risk leaving themselves susceptible to a breach.

Consideration 2: Are we over-engineering?

When building a hyperscale solution, the costs can mount quickly without the right expertise. The sheer size of the undertaking highlights the risk of developing a plan in-house. Over-engineering a solution that should operate more efficiently than previous legacy implementations is a real possibility in cases where teams have no previous experience. MSP partners can act as a guide for internal IT teams navigating their first hyperscale project.

Consideration 3: Where should we start?

Typically, the first place to start is a lower-risk area such as test and development, but it can also help to look at newer applications or solutions that do not require heavy database usage. Applications that make good candidates for initial hyperscale projects are built on new technology standards such as HTML5.

Going back to the stat I shared earlier, a majority of organizations feel their infrastructure cannot scale to meet future demand. Hyperscale computing can address those infrastructure needs, and answering the questions laid out here should provide a strong starting point.  MSP partners like Aptum can take hyperscale projects even further, working with customers and provide the necessary expertise and developing solutions that bridge the gap from where an organization is today, to where it wants (or needs) to go.