The many possibilities and opportunities that the cloud offers organisations is fast-tracking cloud migration projects at an incredible rate. However, migration projects require specialist knowledge, detailed planning and flexibility to bring business processes, applications and workflows from a local physical network to one (or more) public cloud network(s). Having an awareness of some of the main considerations to bear in mind when migrating to the cloud will ensure your cloud migration strategy yields the desired business results.
6 considerations to be mindful of when creating your cloud migration strategy
Whether you are fully migrating to a cloud environment or implementing a hybrid model, you need to ensure you are building an architecture that is entirely fit for purpose. That’s why we’ve outlined six of the most important considerations to be aware of, so your cloud migration strategy is fully aligned to your business’ needs.
1. Do you know what you want from the cloud?
Before embarking on your journey to the cloud you should first be completely clear on what you want to achieve with the cloud. For example, are you looking to replace on-premises or data centre applications to cloud equivalents to save money, increase security, improve operational performance and agility? Once you know what you want your outcomes to be from your cloud migration you can strategically map out the best way to use the cloud and how to migrate to it, whether this be re-architecting applications so they can be cloud native, a lift and shift, an SaaS model, or a mix of all of the above.
2. What is your current security baseline?
Having a thorough understanding of your current security baseline will mean you can work out what you will need to change, implement, or set up to ensure current levels of security when you’re on the cloud. The likelihood of cyber attacks will change when your processes, applications and workflows are cloud-based compared to your original system.
For the best security outcomes, you will need a full strategy for cloud security, plotting out which cloud networks will be restricted and which applications you’ll need on private cloud networks, whether you’ll need role-based access and control, etc.
3. Changes in risks and controls for compliance adherence
Linked to your security considerations and strategy above, migrating to the cloud could create new GDPR or PCI requirements, among many other compliance needs. Your current environment and tech stack may encompass these compliance requirements; however, the cloud poses new risks to be aware of which will require new controls. To achieve the optimal results, create a process that maps your risk and compliance needs before and after the cloud migration.
4. What vendor, environment or resource will you use?
When thinking about what cloud vendor would be most useful to your business needs, it can be tempting to aim for one of the three big players, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform. However, you need to think strategically about how your vendor can best meet your business needs long-term. This means considering:
- Which vendor’s product(s) is most aligned to my business needs?
Consider whether you need Microsoft Azure’s software as a service model, Google Cloud Platform’s big data and analytics workload capabilities, etc.
- What environment would work best to meet your needs?
Options include a public cloud, private cloud, multi-cloud, hybrid cloud, community cloud environment, etc.
- What resources do you have now, or in the future to develop and maintain your cloud environment?
During the planning and migration stages, what access do you have to specialist knowledge and industry insight? You may want to consider engaging a technology consultancy to help you manage your cloud migration project. When considering consultancy options, it may be more useful to engage a smaller, more agile consultancy, particularly if their service model is outcomes based. At Fruition Consulting, we ensure that we use an outcomes-based approach to remain flexible to achieve the right business goals rather than push industry standardised agendas that may not be relevant to the local markets you operate in.
When thinking about future maintenance and development, what vendor and skills do your local cloud engineers have experience in? Ensuring you build a cloud environment that you can recruit top talent to maintain will be crucial to your business down the line.
5. Outline priorities within your roadmap
Have your internal or external change programme manager do an assessment on key business processes, the quick wins and commercial leavers, to create a roadmap with clear KPIs. This will mean you can create a technology architecture that is cross referenced against your enterprise architecture, and ensures that your migration project culminates in a cloud environment that is fit for purpose and can be developed further as your business needs adapt.
6. Future employee training
Interestingly, the best strategy for employee training to support a cloud migration starts well before the transformation project begins. Your teams need to be aware of the planned changes before project commencement and be committed to the idea of change and learning to do tasks in a different way. This usually means some attrition; however, it also means there is a huge opportunity for your remainers to upskill and learn new technologies. There is a lot of training available from the three main vendors that will allow you to organise training around your technology and enterprise architecture changes.
See, a successful cloud migration isn’t too difficult! Get technology consultant support today
Fruition Consulting provides the digital expertise you need to help your business thrive. With an extensive associate network of 200+ specialists, we put some of the best tech talent in the country at your disposal, our mission is to help you unlock the power of the cloud and get set for future growth. We will support and guide you on that journey, find solutions to whatever challenges you face and make the complex straightforward.
Through our sister company, Fruition IT, we can also ensure that our outcomes-based approach is sensitive to the skills and expertise available in your local talent market, allowing you to shape a tech stack you can maintain, enhance and develop for years to come.
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