Cloud Modernisation Roadmap: A Quick-Start Approach
Migrating legacy systems to the cloud can seem more daunting than it should be, especially when many organisations have been burned before by data and modernisation projects. There may be some reluctance, or colleagues might be aware that it is more or less inevitable, but fear it will be a painful process.
While it is a major project, there is no reason that it has to be difficult, slow, or stressful. Here is your introduction or a more reassuring and manageable migration.
What is cloud modernisation?
Cloud modernisation takes your existing data environment, and transforms it to take full advantage of cloud-native technology and data architecture:
- Faster time to value, with annual subscriptions rather than fixed investments for several years
- Longevity, with platforms that evolve and eradicate the need to future migration
- Seamless upgrades, because the Service Provider is responsible for all maintenance and updates
- Flexibility, through new modules that are quick and easy to add and explore.
- Scalability, with extra capacity that you can secure in weeks, rather than months
- Innovation, enabled by swift increases in capacity and experimentation without heavy or long-term investment
- Empowerment, as data and platforms become more accessible and manageable by a wider user base
- Security, with a platform that evolves continually in response to new threats, rather than waiting for a manual update
While Cloud Modernisation usually involves data migration, it is much more. It is not simply ‘lifting and shifting’ your data from one platform into the cloud, but restructuring it so that your platforms are fundamentally more agile and scalable with cloud technology, not to mention more user friendly, secure, and efficient.
Common blockers to cloud modernisation
Like any worthwhile project, Cloud Modernisation requires a mix of technical and administrative coordination. With those come some common hurdles:
- Cultural resistance: an ‘if it isn't broke, don’t fix it’ mindset might not appreciate the opportunity costs and security risks of not migrating.
- Fear: ‘Better the devil you know’ delays progress as leaders and team members prefer the familiar legacy system over making the leap to a new one
- Talent shortage: Those with the right skills and experience to handle a cloud migration are rare and expensive to acquire
- Obscure ROI: failure to properly calculate or communicate the expected ROI on the modernisation means colleagues don’t see the value, and there is no momentum behind the project
- Overwhelm: The scale of the project (real or perceived) puts off leadership, who wish to avoid disruption
Far from cumbersome and daunting a cloud modernisation strategy can and should be nimble and fluid. Here is how.
The quick-start approach to legacy modernisation
Like any data project, cloud modernisation should not become a rigid, complex, or slow to deliver value. That approach kills momentum, enthusiasm, and buy-in, risking the ultimate success of the initiative.
Instead, it should deliver value early, and often, with this ‘quick-start’ approach.
- Discovery & priorities
The first step is to identify what cloud modernisation is going to fix. Your organisation might be using a legacy system that is no longer supported, and your data is no longer backed up. Or you may be working with cumbersome programmes that not compatible, becoming slow and siloed. It may be something else entirely, but whatever it is, you must first establish the driver of the change, to find out what kind of cloud system you need, and what needs addressing first.
- Target architecture & landing zone basics
When your need is established, you can then decide what cloud infrastructure you need, and which vendor is best placed to provide it. With that, you can choose your ‘landing zone’, which is a framework for building your cloud platform. Rather than build an expensive infrastructure ahead of your migration, a landing zone allows you to begin with a ready-made system that is operational and secure, which you can scale as needs grow and requirements emerge.
- Migration waves & app rationalisation
Next, decide what you will do with each of your existing applications. Your options come in seven ‘R’s: Rehost (move to the cloud), Relocate (put workloads on the cloud without changing any code), Replatform (optimise slightly for the cloud), Refactor (rebuild for the cloud), Repurchase (buy a different product), Retire (stop using), Retain (change nothing).
Then, you prioritise your migration in waves. Wave 1 is for the low-hanging fruit, where savings are high, and risk is low. Wave 2 is for business-critical applications, which are more complex. Wave 3 migrates the complex applications that may need significant work to rebuild for the cloud.
Your quick-start guide for cloud modernisation
If you are considering cloud modernisation for your organisation, or you need to make the business case for it to colleagues or superiors, then the Agile Cloud Modernisation Quick-Start Guide will provide the benefits, timelines, challenges and potential return for your business, to help you make an informed decision.
You will find answers to questions like:
- Why cloud modernisation?
- Why is now the time to modernise?
- What are the steps on the road to cloud modernisation?
