Top Mistakes Cloud Architects Can Make with Their Cloud Architectures
Cloud computing continues to transform the way companies share, store, and use data. Behind those Clouds are Cloud Architects and a whole array of IT personnel who work hard to ensure data can continuously be shared and threats are illimited before they happen. A Cloud Architect is no stranger to architecture diagrams and technical documentation, the keystones of a secure Cloud.
What are mistakes Cloud Architects can make without even realizing it?
Creating Your Architecture Diagrams by Hand
Drawing your own Cloud architecture diagrams by hand can be an extremely daunting task. Depending on the size of your Cloud, you could spend hours to weeks creating your diagrams. By the time you find all of the proper shapes from your provider(s), tabulate all of your hardware, virtualizations, storages, and network components, you might have to start over. Additionally, IT departments often do not have enough manpower or resources to dedicate weeks of work on a single task.
Missing Information in Your Cloud Infrastructure
In the process of creating your own Cloud diagrams, it is easy to forget important components. A small oversight could entangle a series of problems in the future, or worse, cause security concerns. Moreover, having full administrative access to all parts of your Cloud can be a nightmare in a large bureaucratic company.
For example, in Azure RBAC, there are 3 main types of roles and the opportunity to create custom roles. The owner of the Cloud can then give different permissions to resources to employees. An employee could have contributor permissions to virtual machine A and reader permissions to virtual machine B. This can easily create headaches when trying to fully understand the depth of your architecture.
Not Seeing Changes Made by Other Employees
As you draw your Cloud architecture diagrams by hand, you will not be able to see the changes being made by other employees. For example, if you work for a small company where the entire IT team has editor permissions, resources can easily move around, or even disappear. As you work on your diagrams, you might not have the updated information in time and might even have to start over.
The Cloudockit Solution
Cloudockit’s auto-generated editable diagram tool offers an efficient solution. The tool, compatible with AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and on-premises solutions, creates an automated view of your current cloud architecture.
Cloudockit will let you select the level of details you wish to see in your diagrams. Choose from simple diagrams at the VM level to a complete detailed view of all the available properties in your cloud. Cloudockit can document more than 500 types of links.
With Cloudockit, you will never miss important information, including components where you only have read access. Moreover, as soon as you hit refresh, the tool will automatically document any changes made within the cloud, never having to worry about changes others are doing.
Not Updating Your Cloud Diagrams Often Enough
As mentioned previously, you are not the only employee working within the Cloud. Your Cloud infrastructure is constantly evolving. As a Cloud Architect, are you able to update your Cloud diagrams often enough to have an accurate view of the architecture at all times?
Most companies are not able to allocate a full-time employee to continually update the architecture diagrams of their Cloud. This results in inaccurate information, which can be fatal when trying to understand the infrastructure layout during a breach.
The Cloudockit Solution
Schedule Cloudockit to generate your diagrams and documentation on a regular basis and get a highlight of the changes in your accounts.
Specify the options you prefer in the REST API. Using this generic technology allows you to include your own conditions, specifications, and integrate Cloudockit in your processes and applications.
Your company will not have to allocate a full-time employee just to create diagrams. You will also be able to focus on other more important tasks.
Not Following up on Security Best Practices
Cloud security threats come in many forms and are often difficult to pinpoint. Obviously, the bigger your Cloud infrastructure, the more threats to monitor.
One of the leading security issues is misconfigurations. Since Clouds were designed for easy data sharing and usage, it can be difficult to ensure data is being used by only the appropriate persons. Furthermore, since every Cloud provider has its own security controls or lack of, it is easy to perform misconfigurations when companies have a multi-cloud deployment.
Another common threat with Cloud computing is inadequate access management and control around data and systems. IT personnel need to constantly change practices related to identity and access management (IAM). Failing to do so could result in inadequately protected credentials, lack of scalability, or failure to use strong passwords.
The Cloudockit Solution
Cloudockit comes with hundreds of built-in compliance rules. The rules are taken from AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, plus many creating by Cloudockit. With the software, you also have the option of creating custom rules.
With this tool, you will be able to easily monitor misconfigurations or security threats within your Cloud.
Creating Incomplete Cloud Documentation
Does anyone actually like writing technical documentation? Depending on the size of your Cloud infrastructure, creating technical documentation can be a grueling task. Even though it is a difficult task, it is as important as the diagrams.
The Cloud documentation will house all of the details of each component in your Cloud. It becomes a reference guide for you, your team, and management.
Since Cloud documentation can be hundreds of pages long, it is easy to forget important parts. Furthermore, like mentioned before, not having the proper roles can also bring difficulty when wanting to document certain aspects like spending or certain geographical areas. In the end, the more information missing in your Cloud documentation, the less it is reliable.
The Cloudockit Solution
The automated technical documentation tool is one of Cloudockit’s most popular tools. Cloudockit automatically creates Word, PDF, and. HTML documents of your Cloud or on-premises environments.
The technical documentation will allow you to easily look over all of the components in your Cloud infrastructure. The documentation also includes billing, compliance rules, and enables you to track changes made in your Cloud from the last document generated.
Lastly, you can even use your own template(s) to reflect your company’s branding and have Cloudockit automatically send the document to your team members.
As a Cloud Architect or part of an IT crew, Cloudockit will become an integral part of your work. You will no longer have to create architecture diagrams or technical documentation by hand. Most importantly, Cloudockit will enable you to get a full grip on your Cloud’s security, which will benefit your whole enterprise.
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