The corporate world has been shaken by a series of high-profile technical mishaps. From an airline leaving thousands stranded due to scheduling system failures, to a popular streaming fitness class crashing during a highly-anticipated event, the repercussions of these incidents on customer loyalty and corporate reputation have been significant. 

These incidents underline a crucial lesson: The need for robust, scalable, and resilient cloud infrastructure is more critical than ever.

As companies continue to digitize, they increasingly depend on their websites or mobile apps to reach and meet their customers’ needs. Streaming platforms, software providers, and even companies with physical products all lose money when their digital properties go down.

Beyond their immediate financial impact, such technical hiccups can erode customer loyalty and significantly tarnish corporate reputations. This dependency on digital resources is one reason so many companies have migrated to the cloud. The cloud is often more scalable, cost-effective, and agile than on-premise databases.

However, moving to the cloud is not without its challenges. Since businesses are “renting” space, they can quickly go offline if usage surges and they don’t have the right scaling in place.

The following incidents underscore the need for robust cloud infrastructure and the profound, extensive impacts that result from its absence.

A Major Airline’s Scheduling Crisis

At the height of a busy holiday season, a major airline grappled with an unexpected crisis – its legacy crew scheduling system gave in. Faced with a severe winter storm, this inflexible system failed to adapt to the disruptions, making it difficult to manage crew assignments and flight schedules effectively.

The result was a cataclysmic cancellation of over 15,000 flights over several days, trapping thousands of passengers in travel chaos, and leading to a substantial loss of over $1 billion. The fallout from the failure didn’t end there. The airline faced substantial regulatory fines and a serious dent in customer trust.

This event and its repercussions showcased the critical need for modern, adaptive, and robust technological infrastructure capable of handling unexpected challenges and maintaining operational continuity under stress.

As a result, the airline has committed over a billion dollars to modernize its technology stack and move many workloads to the cloud.

An Online Fitness Company’s Attempt for a World Record

Seeking to achieve a world record for the largest online exercise class, an online fitness company encouraged a massive audience to join a live event. However, their digital platform could not handle the surge in traffic, leading to service disruptions and leaving participants unable to access the class.

The company had underestimated the infrastructure required to support such an ambitious undertaking, highlighting a critical oversight in capacity planning and scalability. An analysis revealed that the peak traffic was ten times the platform’s maximum capacity, a scenario the company had not fully anticipated.

Aside from the financial cost to the company, this misstep also negatively impacted its brand reputation, emphasizing how vital it is to ensure that cloud environments are not just scalable, but also able to handle exceptional traffic volumes to maintain customer satisfaction and quality of service.

Following the debacle, the company implemented rigorous stress testing procedures for its infrastructure, ensuring that future events could accommodate unexpected surges in user traffic.

Exploring the root causes of cloud vulnerabilities reveals a complex array of factors, each with the potential to trigger far-reaching impacts on business operations and customer trust.

Overwhelmed technical infrastructure

An overburdened technical infrastructure frequently lies at the heart of operational challenges. For instance, the online fitness brand’s ambition was met with a stark reality when its infrastructure collapsed under the sheer weight of increased traffic. This incident underscores the vital importance of a robust and scalable cloud setup, designed to withstand surges and ensure continuity of service during peak demand periods.

Without adequate scalability and elasticity in the cloud architecture, businesses are at risk of not only service disruptions but also long-term reputational damage. It’s a harsh reminder that in the digital age, infrastructure robustness is a critical business imperative.

Misconfigured cloud storage

Misconfigured cloud storage stands out as another frequent stumbling block. A minor error in configuration settings can escalate into major outages, impacting businesses severely.

The blurred lines of responsibility between cloud service providers and clients further complicate the situation. Each party’s roles in maintaining, securing, and configuring the cloud environment must be crystal clear to prevent such pitfalls.

Third-party mistakes

Third-party errors can also have far-reaching consequences, as illustrated by the airline outage, whose network firewall was supplied by a third-party vendor. This event not only disrupted the airline’s operations but also had broader economic ramifications and profoundly affected people’s lives, demonstrating the extensive reach of third-party mistakes.

It highlights the importance of thorough vetting, continuous monitoring, and having robust contingency plans in place when relying on external vendors for critical services. Additionally, it underscores the necessity of transparent communication channels both internally and with third-party providers to swiftly address and rectify such issues when they arise.

The monumental task of navigating the cloud’s challenges requires a measured and strategic approach. Here’s how businesses can respond methodically to these challenges. 

Adaptive scalability

It’s a modern-day conundrum. Using too many cloud resources can cause a company’s cloud bill to skyrocket, but not securing enough resources can lead to an outage like the one experienced by the fitness brand above. Solving this puzzle requires a dynamic and proactive approach to scalability.

Businesses should partner with cloud experts proficient in analyzing usage metrics and crafting a cloud scalability strategy. This strategy should not only meet the current business needs but also anticipate and prepare for future growth and demand spikes.

Comprehensive configuration management

To achieve success with cloud adoption, organizations must prioritize comprehensive configuration management. This involves meticulous oversight, ensuring systems are correctly set up to perform optimally and sustainably. Effective configuration management aligns with the best practices for deploying and maintaining cloud services, enabling businesses to respond swiftly to market changes and customer demands.

However, effective configuration management is not a one-time task—it requires constant vigilance and the ability to adapt to new challenges and technologies with agility. To achieve this level of proficiency, partnering with experienced cloud service providers is key.

Vigilant third-party management

Incorporating third-party services into your cloud environment, like independent software vendors (ISVs), necessitates a rigorous partner selection process. They need to be meticulously vetted to make sure their performance, security protocols, and reliability align with your business standards.

This process requires transparent communication and clear demarcation of responsibilities with third-party providers. It’s also beneficial to leverage managed services providers who specialize in third-party management. They can assess potential partners objectively, manage relationships effectively, and provide insights into navigating the marketplace.

Choosing the right cloud partner

Partnering with the right cloud service provider can enhance your internal capabilities, providing you with a flexible and robust cloud environment that scales as demand increases. Successful partnerships thrive on transparency, effective communication, and a shared vision for success. 

Choosing the right cloud partner is more than a decision; it’s a strategic move towards safeguarding an enterprise against unforeseen disruptions and aligning for sustained growth in the cloud ecosystem.

An AWS Advanced Partner, Deep Blue Cloud Computing aligns its services with the unique goals and needs of each business.

Expertly managed services, scalable infrastructure, and cloud migration strategies ensure that customers’ compliance postures are fit-for-purpose and continually up-to-date with changing regulations.

Deep Blue Cloud also partners with leading industry ISVs while identifying ways to reduce overall spend.

Don’t let your business be the next casualty of ill-prepared cloud infrastructure. Get a cloud readiness assessment today from Deep Blue Cloud to prevent potential cloud issues or failures.