6 things to consider before migrating your business to the cloud in 2021
Cloud is a key enabler for digital transformation, allowing companies to embrace big data analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, Internet of Things, blockchain and edge computing.
However, the reality is that for many businesses, the path between the 'here and now' and a cloud-enabled future can be unclear. Research conducted by cloud migration company Next Pathway, which surveyed nearly 1000 IT decision makers, found that more than one-third of companies are at the very beginning of their migration journey and are looking for help, while many companies are yet to take their first steps.
So, if you're a business looking to embark on the cloud journey, here are some of the key things you need to consider as part of your migration plan.
Public cloud vs. private cloud vs. hybrid cloud vs. multicloud
Research shows that many businesses are getting cloud migration wrong by putting the wrong workloads in the wrong clouds, with IDC's 2019 Cloud Pulse Survey finding that 85% of companies will be moving half of their public cloud workloads back to a private cloud or on-premises non-cloud environment.
Investment firm Morgan Stanley noted that "one of the biggest detractors of growth hasn't been the actual migration of computing to the cloud, but rather decision-making around the cloud".
Experts such as Ed Featherston, Distinguished Cloud Technologist with Cloud Technology Partners, said that "when workloads are being moved back to on-premise, it is usually an indicator of workloads being moved to the cloud for the wrong reasons, mis-set expectations, poor planning and design, or a combination of all of the above."
Featherston's claim is supported by a recent survey of 350 cloud decision-makers commissioned by Virtana and fielded by Arlington Research in November 2020. The research found 72% of organisations required applications to be repatriated as a result of insufficient planning, with almost half of respondents stating they repatriated applications to the public cloud that should have stayed on-premises. The report found that these organisations had insufficient information to make the right decisions about which applications to migrate and which should remain on-premises.
It's important to understand that not all apps are cloud friendly and that some might perform better on private or hybrid clouds than on a public cloud.
If you're an organisation with standard service offerings that have relatively repetitive or straightforward workloads, then shifting to a third-party managed public cloud where you no longer need to carry the infrastructure may be an appropriate business decision. If, on the other hand, you're an organisation running applications that store highly sensitive data with a focus on governance, security and compliance, then you may want to consider looking down the path of a managed private cloud.
However, if you're a large organisation that has a mix of custom in-house applications and standard applications, then it is more than likely that you have already invested quite a bit in bare metal infrastructure with your own data centre. Moving to the cloud doesn't necessarily mean you need to forfeit past investments.
Hybrid cloud models allow organisations to benefit from the automation of public clouds while reaping the security and privacy benefits of the private cloud. It also enables organisations to run their custom applications in their existing data centre with the option of leveraging a number of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications in the public cloud.
Multicloud is where you use multiple public clouds and perhaps a private cloud and those clouds essentially work independently of each other hosting their own workloads. This is distinctly different to a hybrid cloud, which, by definition, means that you have at least one private cloud and at least one public cloud, and processing of applications can span both of those clouds – hence the hybrid terminology.
While multicloud models can be complex, they can be leveraged, along with hybrid models, to gain greater agility and may assist in integrating legacy systems.
There are plenty of cloud models for enterprises to consider, but it is important to understand that there is no silver bullet. The cloud often acts as a catalyst for IT maturity. This means that it is necessary to understand your own processes before thinking of using the cloud.
Avoiding the lift and shift mentality
Does your company have a well-defined application or service catalogue? Having a clear understanding of your organisation's service catalogue can help you make a more informed decision as to the applications or infrastructure layers that can be moved to the cloud.
It's important to understand that simply moving or rehosting applications to the cloud doesn't magically make them more agile. While a 'lift and shift' approach can speed up cloud migration, applications need to be redesigned to take full advantage of native cloud features. As such, identifying the interdependencies between applications and how they interact with other systems is crucial. Some considerations include user authentication, access control, queries, latency sensitivity and the volume of data moving between systems.
With some good fortune, there will be a few discreet applications, which generally make for ideal candidates to move to cloud infrastructure first, as they tend to be less mission-critical applications with considerably lower system dependencies.
Design for resiliency around cloud failures
The recent outages of AWS and Azure were only a problem for businesses that had not designed around the possibility of that cloud failing.
A backup strategy, such as storing copies of your server instance in multiple regions and data centres, can help reduce the chance of data loss even if multiple regions or cloud service providers experience outages.
A disaster-recovery strategy should also be part of any contingency plan. A number of cloud service providers offer cloud disaster recovery where they can recover physical or virtual machines in a cloud within minutes. However, it is important that you have the backup server processes in place to help avoid unnecessary downtime.
Understand vendor risk management
Businesses today may tend to view cloud companies with rose-coloured glasses and not ask the hard questions that would otherwise be the norm for any vendor qualification process.
What's the history of outages? How can I get my data out if I stop using your services? What format is that data in? Is the service extensible with its own APIs? What happens in the event that the data is leaked or lost? What processes does the cloud provider have to mitigate this risk? What level of support can it provide throughout the migration process? Can it support public, private and multicloud environments at any scale?
These questions should carry a lot of weight in the overall criteria of selecting a suitable cloud provider.
Partner with a proven cloud-oriented consultancy or hire a cloud admin
Partnering up with a proven cloud-oriented consultancy or hiring a dedicated cloud admin to act as a coach to senior management and the internal IT teams is key in driving the transition process.
The value in having a developer or architect, who approaches the cloud not from a traditional IT infrastructure perspective, but as a service, will go a long way in aiding your organisation's transition to the cloud. Do not assume your existing ideas, processes and tools for monitoring, backup, configuration management, licensing and availability are appropriate for the cloud. They will likely need to change towards an agile, service-oriented approach.
Ensure your network is up to scratch
Ensuring your business's network connection can keep up with the data demands of your cloud operating model is critical in extracting the full value from the applications and services. Whether it be at the infrastructure layer (IaaS) or software layer (SaaS), working on the cloud has the potential to put substantial strain on the speed, bandwidth and reliability of the supplied internet infrastructure.
The by-product of this increased stress – such as high latency levels – can have a drastic impact on business productivity, so it's important to consider the role of internet connectivity in any cloud deployment plan.
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