Cloud and hosting

This topic is for the person with a business system running on a server in the office, or in a cupboard, who is deciding whether to move it to the cloud. The decision has two parts: whether to move at all, and if so where to and at what monthly cost. The articles here take each part in turn, and the last of them is for after the move, when the first bills arrive.

Where to start

• Self-hosted or cloud hosted? is the decision itself: keep your own server, rent one in a data centre or move to Azure or AWS, with a five-year comparison of what each costs.
• Pros and cons of moving your business to the cloud says what gets better, what gets harder and which systems suit a move.
• AWS vs Azure answers the next question for a system built on Microsoft technology: which of the two providers fits it and where licences tip the balance.
• 8 tips to reduce your cloud hosting costs is for when the system is running and the monthly bill needs looking at.

What people get wrong

The first mistake is copying the server to the cloud as it is and expecting the bill to fall. Cloud providers charge for what you run, by the hour. A server sized for the busiest day of the year costs that much every day, and a test system left running at the weekend costs the same as the live one. The cloud is cheaper than a server in the office when the system is sized from real use and switched off when idle, and dearer when it is not. Sizing from real use needs someone who knows the application, not just the server.

The second is assuming the provider looks after the application. Under the shared responsibility model the provider looks after the building and the hardware. Backups you can actually restore, user accounts, the patches on a plain virtual machine and the application itself remain your job or your supplier’s. The article on cloud security covers what the NCSC and the ICO say about where that line sits.

The third is moving because the server is old without first asking whether the application can run anywhere else. Some can be moved as they are. Others depend on a particular version of Windows Server, a database that needs upgrading first, a file share, a printer or a piece of hardware plugged into the box. Finding that out is the first step, and the end of support for Windows Server 2016 on 12 January 2027 is a common reason to take it this year.

How this connects to our work

CodeFirst moves business systems it maintains or takes over, and a move follows the same rule as a takeover: nothing changes until there is a way back. The system is mapped and measured, the target is sized from real use with its monthly cost forecast before you commit, and the cut-over is rehearsed with a copy of the data while the old environment stays intact until the new one has proved itself. The cloud migration page describes what that involves, and the Windows Server end of support page sets out the dates that usually start the conversation.