Gartner predicts that by 2028, most organizations will view the cloud as a necessity. That’s due in part to IT modernization efforts and the migration of more business-critical applications. In five years, 70 percent of workloads will be running in the cloud, up from just 25 percent today.
To date, organizations have largely viewed the cloud as a cost-effective means of gaining additional compute or storage capacity for variable workloads. They have also migrated “easy” applications such as email, customer relationship management, project management and human resources applications. Shifting business-critical apps to the cloud will require a different approach.
Many organizations have implemented cloud services rapidly without upfront planning or a clear strategy. This often leads to management challenges and cost overruns. As organizations enter this new era of cloud computing, they will need to plan properly and exercise caution to ensure that cloud initiatives deliver the expected return on investment. An excellent starting point is a cloud readiness assessment.
A good assessment will give organizations a realistic view of the likely benefits and potential pitfalls of cloud migration. The process will require a thorough evaluation of the current IT infrastructure, application portfolio, workloads and bandwidth requirements to identify applications and services that are good fits for cloud deployment. An assessment will also help determine which deployment model — public, private or hybrid — is most suitable.
Verteks can help customers complete a rigorous assessment to prepare for cloud migrations. We have the experience, engineering expertise, technology tools and methodologies to guide cloud migrations that meet your strategic objectives. Here are a few considerations we help customers address:
Application Requirements. In the cloud, applications typically link with other cloud-based applications to deliver functionality. Given this interdependence, organizations must understand how the app handles data requests, how data is exchanged and how much data users can access. A profile of an application’s data usage is also important to ensure right-sizing of the app in the cloud.
Risk Factors. Organizations in highly regulated industries often have concerns about moving sensitive data to the public cloud. It is important to evaluate whether the cloud provider meets regulatory requirements and where data will be physically stored. Other risk factors can influence how — or if — an application should be migrated. For example, some legacy apps based on older operating systems and hardware may not be appropriate for the cloud until they have been re-engineered or rewritten.
Management Issues. Businesses need to determine what they are accountable for versus what they expect from a service provider. Most public cloud vendors do not provide administrative support. Organizations need to have the technical expertise in-house to design the right solution or seek the services of an outside provider. They should define what level of management their applications require and have an identified change management process.
Performance Levels. As with traditional hosting models, it's important to understand workload demands on the infrastructure and where there are potential bottlenecks. Organizations should perform their own testing to evaluate how a cloud environment affects compute, storage and network resources.
Level of Control. A cloud layer assessment will help determine the most appropriate service model — Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). This is largely determined by the level of control IT wishes to retain over the application.
A long-term cloud strategy requires careful planning to understand application requirements, infrastructure constraints and cloud platform options. Vertex engineers have a deep understanding of the various cloud models and experience with all forms of migration. Give us a call to discuss how we can help you prepare for a cloud migration that meets your business requirements while minimizing risk.
