How to Optimize Your Cloud Service Performance Effectively?

Good hardware is not enough, and that’s before we examined the price. Do you want to maximize your cloud performance? Some suggestions from the experts

CTO’s DevOp/IT’s and other developers have encountered this dilemma in the past while debating their cloud services provider. How can we get excellent cloud performances, tailored to the organization’s needs, without breaking the budget?

The dilemma can be crucial. If we make the wrong choice, it will negatively affect the organization’s performance, and might lead to loss of data, or may be very expensive. In order to understand making the right choice regarding our cloud services provider, we have asked the help of Omri Oknin, Global Sales Director in Kamatera, a global leading cloud services provider, who also provides managed cloud services, migration services, and cloud services consulting.

Efficiency, Speed, and Simplicity

“The provider should have worldwide global services for ultimate availability and performance. The physical location can be crucial”, explains Oknin. “For example, Kamatera has 11 data centers across four continents, in Hong Kong, Amsterdam, London, Tel Aviv and in three key locations in the US”.

Apart from the physical location, the time that it takes to set up the server should be considered as well. The wrong choice can cause more time in having the server 100% functional. With the right configuration of the cloud management console, we can make this more effective. “Kamatera’s management console allows the customer to configure the servers in a way which is tailored to its organizational needs. The cloud experts have already looked after most of the configuration, so the customer just needs to log in to the interface which has been already set up”, Oknin says.

Vendor-Free Provider

One of the biggest problems in choosing a cloud service provider is the Vendor-Free Provider problem. That means that usually, the system is transparent. It means that customers can transfer their data and applications from one provider to another quite easily. However, in some cases, as Oknin explains, “developers are using various tools that were provided by the cloud service provider itself, with their own API’s, which is not accessible to the customer. Then, though they have a very convenient tool, they lack the option to migrate to another cloud provider”. This process might force the customer to pay a very expensive price and lose their flexibility.

This problem is not only theoretical and unfortunately, many companies have encountered it. A CTO from a major global company told us about the difficulties that she encountered while migrating to a new cloud services provider. “We found that we get low performances compared to the price we pay with our current cloud services provider. We wanted to transfer our data systems to a new provider”, she tells us. “However, we found out that it is impossible. Our developers’ tools were not compatible with the new provider’s system. So, we had to compromise on the current provider or re-organize all our data, in a very long and expensive process”. This, of course, does not have to be this way. “Kamatera provides standard solutions that can be used anywhere, through any provider and any type of cloud”, explains Oknin.

Low-Cost Services and a Fixed Price

One of the main advantages of using a cloud service is its affordability. Within most cloud service providers, customers pay by the hour of cloud use, based on the number of processors, memory, and storage they consume. “Every action on the server, such as reading, writing or a system check, can be charged by the day or month, in addition to the server’s price”, claims Oknin and also sends a warning: “If you have a large database, you might find yourself paying an additional cost of 150 USD on top of what you pay for the server”.

Scale and Modularity, according to Oknin, can make the cloud server an inexpensive and available server solution. For example, this could include the size and sophistication of the data centers that can allow the cloud provider to maximize resource efficiency and operate the servers at a lower cost. “In addition, the virtual environment of the cloud server means that the customer does not have to pay for the resources he does not need”, adds Oknin. “Kamatera’s servers are based on SSD storage solutions and we provide up to 5TB of monthly data traffic. There is no chance that the customers’ content system will need more than that package”.

Best Value for Money

Hardware is one of the most important factors in the cloud service efficiency and price. Last year, Intel launched their new Xeon Platinum (Cooper Lake) CPU Processors, with support for the highest memory speeds, memory capacity, and enhanced four-socket scalability – 30%-50% more than the previous series. “A good cloud service provider will immediately adopt the latest and fastest technology, with servers which are based on the latest models, with processors at a minimum frequency of 2.666 GHz”, insists Oknin.

Must the best hardware be the most expensive? According to Oknin, the price of a quality hardware does not have to be very expensive. “Most providers charge a fixed price for the hardware. In addition, they charge for the internet traffic”, Oknin explains. The providers compete among themselves on providing more services, without making the price more expensive. “Some providers, like Kamatera, do not charge more for additional traffic, but provide the best package which includes it”.

24 hours, Worldwide Global Support, and other services

What will you do if you have a technological crisis with your server, but when you try to contact your cloud provider, you reach a voicemail? “Big companies have better service deployments, with 24/7 NOC teams, in English, and in your local language”, Oknin says. “The console should also be easy to operate, with full and transparent access to the API, advanced information security systems, and if you need it, the Kamatera-managed cloud is an add-on service whereby we manage your cloud service for you”.

So, to conclude, when it is time to choose the cloud services provider, you should really consider these five parameters. It is important that your provider will give you exactly what any bare metal server will give you, along with even better performance.