BSIT400 Cloud Computing and Governance

As a wrap-up to this semester, I think I have enjoyed getting my thoughts out on some topics I have used as well as new topics that can be useful. It is a little cathartic and helps with processing things when writing in these blogs. It gives me an opportunity to think through the concepts and how I could be applying them more in my day-to-day.  I don't know that I will use this type of writing at my job, but I always see Yammer and things in Microsoft that encourage posting short thoughts. I think it might help with some of the updates I provide to the team though, and maybe short posts or updates can assist with getting useful information out to others.

One of the things I like about the prospect of using cloud systems is the ability to build infrastructure from code. Typically, it can take infrastructure teams days or weeks to provision systems for development teams to use. With infrastructure as code, this can be built in minutes! With infrastructure as code, using standard written configs, a set of servers to assist the teams can be brought up or destroyed as needed. This helps teams that are trying to be more agile. When looking for bottlenecks in a process, infrastructure is usually part of the problem. With infrastructure as code, this is solved and gives infrastructure teams a new skill to help with on-premises management as well.

There are a couple of reasons why monitoring systems in the cloud is important. The first, and most obvious, is to ensure systems are still up. Sometimes, building systems in the cloud doesn't get the same attention as physical datacenter systems. It is important, even in the cloud, to make sure the resource allotments are right and systems are up. The other thing that needs to be monitored is utilization for billing. In the cloud, when services are built to be billed by consumption, those costs should be monitored. This is different from on-premise systems, where the resources are bought in advance and no further unexpected utilization costs are incurred. To make sure the enterprise doesn't incur surprise costs, the services should have a quota or limit. The other thing that this helps with is turning down underutilized systems so that no additional costs are incurred.