#1 – Naming and Tagging
What is it?
Naming and tagging is a way to assign metadata to AWS and Azure resources
in the form of tags. A tag is a label consisting of a key-value pair that enable the
management, searching and reporting of resources. Tags enable categoriza-
tion of resources by user-defined categories such as owner, environment (dev,
QA, or prod), and business unit.
Why is it important for speed?
A big challenge new organizations face when starting their cloud journey is not
knowing what controls to place on the system. Tags are ubiquitous in the cloud
eco-system of tool vendors. Therefore, having a solid tagging structure Day-1
is critical. It enables the rapid inclusion of tools without having to sort out how
they interact with each other. Remember, unless you know how the tags are
used, you could create quite a mess in a very short period of time. MVC Naming
and Tagging Best Practices provide insights into effective tagging strategies.
Using these practices will fast track the implementation and standardized
metadata consistently across cloud platform resources.
#2 – Tool Selection and Strategy
What is it?
Tools are different in the cloud. On-premise tools rarely make the trip to the
new agility model. Therefore, teams must consider a new array of tools for
building a secure and robust cloud environment that meets their needs. These
may include IAM, IPS, IDS, directory services, endpoint protection, monitor-
ing, backup, incident management, logging and monitoring, and a whole host of
functions. Without the knowledge of how these tools interact, handle scaling,
and auto-recover from a failure, you’ll waste a solid year of time.
Tool strategy is a prescriptive list of tool providers that solve specific functions
in a highly agile, highly available manner.
Why is it important for speed?
Your cloud tool strategy must be road tested, and comprised of a preselected
set of tools proven to work together to provide all the services we outline in
this article. If you’re baking off the vendors for each service, you’re missing
critical ecosystem behavior that dictates success as speed. Using this strategy
will accelerate the cloud adoption journey by leveraging fieldwork without
having to go through a lengthy and expensive learning process, thereby achiev-
ing objectives significantly faster and cheaper.
54 | THE DOPPLER | FALL 2017