Three Things to Consider When Opting for the Distributed Cloud Model

What is Distributed Cloud Computing? How is it different from Hybrid and Public clouds? Why is this cloud model hailed as the next generation of Cloud Computing? Why should an organization prefer the distributed cloud model? What are the things they need to look at when opting for distributed computing? If you are looking for the answers to these questions, you have landed at the right place.

Distributed Cloud Computing

When a public cloud infrastructure uses a distributed approach to store and process data sets, it is known as a distributed cloud. Put simply, any organization that uses the distributed cloud computing model can store and process data in multiple data centers that may be located physically at some other locations.

What makes distributed clouds more useful or better compared to the public and hybrid ones is a distributed cloud model provides the opportunity to locate the data in a way the business requires. Since distributed storage makes data access and transfers faster, it can promise a wider bandwidth and reliable tactics for disaster recovery and data protection.

Benefits of a Distributed Cloud Architecture

Distributed cloud computing promises the following advantages to a business-

1. Faster Data Delivery

The data in public clouds has to travel quite a long distance before reaching the user. The distributed cloud model eliminates this hassle and enables faster data delivery due to the closer physical proximity of the distributed data center.

2. Cost-efficient

In reference to the first point, the speed of data transfer is directly proportional to the amount of computing power the system needs to process the user’s request. More the power required, more would be the cost. Since the distributed cloud model consumes less computing power to create a request and receive a response, you have to pay comparatively less to the distributed cloud vendor.

3. Resilient

A distributed cloud environment is more resilient to system failures as a system crash on one server does not affect the other server. It can thus handle those system failures in the most effective way. Having smaller and decentralized units minimizes the impact of failures and also the need for allocating spare capacity, which in turn makes the organization more resilient to such uncertainties.

4. Scalability

A distributed cloud environment offers organizations the flexibility to scale up or down as per their needs or changing business demands. Since different applications operate on different servers, resources can be easily adjusted (added or removed) without disturbing the entire cloud infrastructure.

Adopting a Distributed Cloud? Here’s How You Should Prepare

To get started with a distributed cloud adoption and prepare yourself better for the same, consider taking the following steps-

1. Align your IT and DevOps teams so that they can migrate and deploy the applications across the data centers in response to the growing needs of the business.

2. Create policies related to data security and data storage transparency. These policies don’t just help in a more effective distributed cloud usage but also for ensuring compliance and gaining better visibility.

3. Reach out to a reliable cloud vendor. The process of distributed cloud adoption involves lesser risks and is more effective when your organization is supported by an experienced cloud development vendor.

Things to Consider When Shifting to a Distributed Cloud

Organizations deciding to move to a distributed cloud should keep the following points in mind-

1. Security

Security remains one of the concerns when you move to a distributed cloud model. Despite the myriad benefits it offers, it also possesses more security challenges in comparison to public, private, and hybrid clouds. The more the data stored in multiple data centers, the more the access options to employees from different departments. This would mean more sophisticated use cases and more dependencies.

The first step towards ensuring security in a distributed cloud environment is revising the legal framework for cloud data storage practices and making sure that the organization adheres to those compliances. Additionally, different industries can have different data usage and storage regulations (for instance, HIPAA in Healthcare) and should be strictly followed.

A distributed cloud infrastructure also calls for clear mapping as to how each application makes a request and transfers the data from the data center. Using RPA for data transfer and protection can minimize the data security risks.

2. Data location

An organization using a distributed cloud can locate the data across multiple data centers, and thereby achieve a data transfer speed that would prove quite effective for managing day-to-day tasks. For this to happen, the applications that need to transfer data instantly should store their data as close to the end-user as possible. Similarly, those with low latency that aren’t quite necessary for business operations can store their data in less proximity to the end-user.

Therefore, what’s important to consider before opting for a distributed cloud is the location of the data as well as data mapping, based on the application’s specifics, data transfer speed, and the level of data protection.

3. Transparency in Storing Data

We mentioned it before and we would mention it again, transparency is important. Be it businesses or customers, both want transparency in the data stored by the cloud. Both parties would want to know how their data is being stored by the cloud service provider across multiple locations.

Therefore, it’s important for anyone opting for the distributed cloud model to be transparent in the way they are storing the customers’ data and also ensure data protection.

Final Thoughts

Opting for a distributed cloud can put up several challenges in front of an organization if they aren’t aware of them. One of the major challenges revolves around the alignment of cloud services delivered by multiple cloud service providers. Other challenges, like we mentioned above, include data security and data storage transparency.

To overcome these challenges, you would require a clear strategy and professional support from a cloud vendor.