The Importance of Flexibility in Cloud Migration

Startup companies face difficult decisions when choosing technology vendors, and migrating to the cloud is certainly one of the trickiest choices to make. When Tracky, a Las Vegas-based startup, decided to move to the cloud, it opted to select CloudSigma due to its flexibility. This decision was the topic of a panel at Cloud4SMB this year, and attendees were interested in hearing this story.

David Longnecker, vice president of development for the social collaboration company, presented about the decision making process. Also on hand was Robert Jenkins (News - Alert), CEO of CloudSigma, to speak from the provider point of view.

Tracky has a small, rapidly growing SaaS platform with frequently changing needs. Fixed hardware was too restrictive, so it needed to migrate to the cloud. It hoped to find an enterprise-level experience from a cloud provider, and the company auditioned many different providers, finding that locating the right provider was a challenge.

Longnecker pointed out that physical infrastructures lead to a lack of flexibility, configurability and performance. Providers came to Tracky with different plans, but little guidance as to which plan to select and why. And these providers were also difficult to work with in terms of scale.

Ultimately, Tracky needed some control over the process. It wanted to work within its own rules, not be at the whim of the provider. For example, user expectations rise with success, and this is a dilemma for small businesses that need to meet and exceed expectations.

CloudSigma was the choice for Tracky, and Jenkins spoke more about this relationship. The company dates back to 2009 and has offices in both the U.S. and Europe, expanding to other continents soon. Jenkins recommended that SMBs look closely at potential cloud vendors, determining what levels of flexibility and control are offered.

Jenkins described the CloudSigma model, which eliminated the over-provisioning often seen from other providers. CloudSigma allows companies to port their data into the cloud quite easily, and it boasts many huge, prominent customers. Jenkins stated that the smaller companies should seek out a provider that is collaborative, helping SMBs make plans for the migration and future of cloud deployments.

To solve issues of unpredictable use in a multi-tenant environment, CloudSigma relies on 10G and 40G, software defined networking and SSD storage (which is priced at the same levels as magnetic storage). Jenkins said that SMBs should learn these types of facts about providers, and really do their due diligence when making the choice, since it could be one of the most important partnerships that SMBs make.