When to Migrate

There are a number of reasons why companies consider migration:

  • Rapid expansion of existing infrastructure
  • Hardware refresh, upgrade, changing location
  • Free up resources in data center
  • Discontinuation of back-up data center
  • Relocating infrastructure between on-premises and cloud

Before Migration

Whatever the reason the organization may be migrating to the cloud it’s important to understand the process. First, you should assess where your business currently stands in terms of: Hardware, application portfolios and network architecture within your business. Then decide:

  • How to leverage the current infrastructure by deciding what is to be migrated
  • Who within your organization is allowed access to modify application settings
  • Which cloud deployment model works best for your business (Private, Public, Hybrid)
  • Who should be the service provider? (a good MSP should help you with what cloud model to choose)
  • The long term plan for your company (if you are expanding your business, you want a cloud that can grow with your company)
  • You don’t want to migrate to cloud services from the cheapest bidder only to realize they don’t align with your company’s long term vision

During and Post Migration

A migration of workloads and applications to the cloud by a company IT Department alone can most often spell disaster IF:

  • There isn’t a dedicated team of experts to monitor the entire migration process
  • They can’t do validation and optimization of a migration plan in a test environment
  • Can’t provide quick resolution or 24/7 problem resolution in case of any issues arising
  • They are not proactive or don’t have a contingency plan

Concerns

I. Risk and issues
The hardware, software, Internet connectivity, and other elements of the IT infrastructure are prone to risks and issues when maintained locally verses hosted in the cloud. With emerging cloud computing technology & security measures, these concerns are quickly becoming a thing in the past.

II. Unexpected Downtime
Unexpected downtime because of unavailability of network or inconvenient maintenance can cause problems for a company and its staff. Getting to know your providers and paying attention to notices of scheduled site maintenance to maximize your productivity.

III. Complexity of Migration
How to get the computing workloads onto the public cloud was one cause of concern for companies who have large data or workloads. With companies like Amazon developing solutions that is becoming less and less of a concern now.

In AWS re: Invent conference held in Las Vegas in Oct 2015, Amazon made announcements that were all aimed at helping companies move to the cloud. Their new Snowball storage appliance gives companies a secure way to ship massive amounts of data to Amazon’s cloud. Snowball is a large storage appliance that can hold up to 50TB of data and has a built-in, e-ink display that serves as a shipping label when the device is in transit, as a user interface when it’s set up for data transfer using its 10Gbps network connection. Snowballs provide other benefits beyond that, including a tamper-proof enclosure and automatic encryption with 256-bit keys that are managed by the AWS Key Management Service. Snowballs also generate a hash when they’re loaded and when their data is transferred to Amazon’s Simple Storage Service, so companies can be confident that their data is all in one piece.

In August 2015 at VMworld, VMware showed off technology that it says will move working computing jobs between private and public clouds provided all the
clouds involved run VMware software.

Benefits

I. Startups can benefit from cloud services because they can get their operations running quickly without having to invest in on-premises data center resources.

II. The two biggest savings for customers that are gained from a move to Cloud Computing come from economies of scale and a utility-based pricing model, provided these benefits are passed on to them by vendors.

III. A good service provider should help you consider and provide cloud solutions that have competitive services in terms of storage, capacity, pricing and also accessibility by multiple people. A combination of technologies, services, processes and expertise of service providers make them respond more quickly and effectively to meet the demands of enterprise cloud projects.

According to Rackspace, “While Cloud Computing brings unprecedented benefits to organizations and will be the dominant way of acquiring technology in the future, we also realize that IT decision makers are confused given the sheer number of vendors in the marketplace. For this reason IT decision makers need to be well appraised of the issues around price, performance and security of their chosen supplier. Due diligence process should be undertaken when assessing vendors and, where appropriate, independent advice should be obtained that matches the product offering with the business requirements.”

So there you have it!!

Have a firm migration strategy in place, decide who you are going to align with for the migration process, have a contingency plan on your side, review and keep on track of the changes happening in your organization as a result of migration and voila, you should be reaping the benefits of cloud migration.

We are more than happy to keep you informed and posted regarding migration, through our blogs and newsletters.

Check out our white papers and articles also.

Posted in IT Infrastructure Transformation