Why your organization needs cloud

Moving to the cloud is now essential for any business to thrive. Cloud has brought significant shifts by changing how business is conducted by becoming an enabler for organizations to go global with ease. There are plenty of reasons to migrate your applications to the cloud and reshape how IT is delivered across the company. For most companies, the cost reduction is enticing enough; however, the true impact of the cloud is that it increases business agility, staff productivity and promote operational resilience.

Most companies are now focusing on having a defined cloud migration strategy to address their digital journey. In addition, they are modifying their business models to be more innovative and agile through several cloud solutions and tools. But while diving into cloud migration may have great value, it also has its share of roadblocks and complexity if not following the right approach. Knowing the best practices learned from such companies can help in reducing the time and effort required to have a successful cloud migration strategy.

Six Types of Cloud Migration Strategies

Before delving deeper into the best practices to achieve real-time success in cloud migration strategy, let's have a quick look into the different type of migration strategy.

Known as the "six R's of migration," these are the six most common approaches:

Re-hosting ("lift and shift")

As the name suggests, this includes lifting the stack and shifting it to the cloud. You send an exact copy of your existing environment without making any significant changes for the quickest ROI. This strategy is well suited for companies with no long-term plan or traditional culture.

Re-platforming

This involves making several further adjustments to streamline the process and your landscape for the cloud. However, the core architecture of applications will be the same. This is an excellent strategy for traditional organizations that wants to harness cloud capabilities.

Retiring

This strategy is helpful to get rid of obsolete apps for your business. Once you have evaluated your application for cloud readiness, you may find some obsolete apps. In this case, you have the option to turn them off. This will help in shifting your focus to the apps that are crucial for meeting business demands.

Repurchasing

This cloud migration strategy involves shifting your applications to a cloud-native product such as a SaaS platform. Here, the challenge can be training your team on the new platform. Even then, this is one of the most cost-effective options.

Refactoring

Refactoring is re-creating your applications from zero. This is generally lead by a business need to maximize the cloud capabilities that are not yet available in the current environment, such as serverless computing. In general, refactoring is considered the priciest option and the most compatible with the subsequent advanced versions.

Retaining

This cloud migration strategy helps know which applications aren't yet ready for shifting to the cloud, but that might need a quick revisit after completing your cloud migration process. In this case, you can retain the particular aspects of your IT solutions for the time being before they are ready for moving to the cloud.

Best Practices for Delivering the Future Benefits

Cloud is no longer a technology that is "nice to have". It is an urgent mandate for businesses right now for digital transformation. The recent global disruption has refocused on the intrinsic value of systems agility, scalability, adaptability, and resilience. Companies have no choice but to try to beat the uncertainty by managing the road blockers in volatile customer demand. But it needs to be done correctly, securely, and rapidly.

Take ASTM International as an example. Known as a heavyweight in the standards industry, ASTM saw a shifting landscape, that prompted them to rethink their approach to business, to best confront the new future. They wanted to keep their value intact by deciding to become the SaaS solution for all standards industries. With Icreon's unique view into the cloud technology and business, ASTM redefined their business operating tools to be more innovative and agile with an increased focus on end-user experiences.

A Cloud migration service can't be a one-size-fits-all solution. Depending on specific business objectives and demands, your cloud migration can change. Through our vast experience of helping several brands migrate to the cloud, we have shared six best practices to make your cloud adoption strategy a success.

Best Practice #1 Take the Initial Step – Cloud Readiness assessments

Don't simply move an application to the cloud without any specific reason. This may not result in anything significant. Hence, each application has to be assessed meticulously to understand what its cloud migration path looks like. This level of precision will bring the blind spots that will deliver a faster return on investment.

The steps of a cloud readiness assessment should consist of -

• One-on-one information gathering

• Identify goals and opportunities

• Determine cultural readiness

• Determine what will be migrated

• Calculate current TCO

Best Practice #2 Have a Cloud Migration Plan in Place

The next crucial step is to create a detailed plan that should contain the following elements:

• Workload Assessment and Prioritization

• Platform Selection

• Macro Execution Plan

• Micro Executions Plan

• Foundational Architecture

Best Practice #3 Implementation is What Brings Strategy to Life

Once a carefully crafted plan is in place, it is time to implement the migration. A number of factors should be considered to expedite the transition to the cloud while improving the value. This means Maximizing experienced partners and industrialized proficiencies, tackling security from the beginning, and having the right skills needed for long-term success.

Best Practice #4 Operate and Optimize Your Cloud Environment

Once in production, it is essential to keep optimizing your environment. These are performed consistently -

• Cost Optimization

• Process Automation

• Improve Operational Efficiency

Best Practice #5 Start with Small and Spot the Quick Wins

Accomplishing a few quick wins can have plenty of meaningful purposes, such as you will become confident from these successes as you get to learn more from experience. Eventually, this makes the opportunity for your ongoing transformation efforts.

Best Practice #6 Keep Data Integrity and Operational Continuity Intact

Managing the entire process of cloud migration strategy involves high risk as critical and sensitive data can be exposed. Ensure that automated controls are delivering similar outcomes with any disruption.

Conclusion & Next Step

A successful cloud migration strategy will need the right expertise to move workloads to the cloud with tried and tested best practices. It demands intrinsic knowledge, relevant skill sets, deep experience, and a dynamic plan that is detailed and carefully crafted. To ensure cloud capability is infused throughout your organization, it is essential to start for a reliable cloud migration service provider.

If you have questions about cloud solutions in general, we’re here to help. Feel free to request an inquiry.