The Complete Guide To Cloud Migration

“The Journey of a 1000 miles starts with a single step” – Lao-Tzu

As the public and private cloud become increasingly more popular, enterprises' will be soon faced with the questions of why they have not yet made the move to the cloud. However, as anyone who as been around to see technology revolutions in the past, migrating to a new technology at an enterprise scale can be daunting and problematic.

Cloud migration is yet another one of these challenges that companies will face in this modern era of distributed computing. The question then becomes how to effectively plan for a cloud migration and the appropriate steps to take to achieve this goal.

In this guide I will be providing both a strategy and in-depth instructions on how to perform a cloud migration and what challenges to expect along the way. As this is a complex topic and my intention is to dive deep, I will be posting this article in a series with self contained thoughts which hopefully will be easier to read and digest.

The Real Cost of a Failed Cloud Migration

Before describing the ideal cloud migration it would be beneficial to outline the true hazards of a poor migration strategy and the true cost of failed migration.

Success or failure are inherently not so black and white and therefore can manifest itself in many different forms. However, there are some tell-tale signs that your migration to the cloud was unsuccessful.

One clear example that your cloud migration is going down the wrong path is the inability to meet project migration deadlines. Even though project estimation is extremely difficult to get accurate it becomes wearisome to both the management team and the employees when they are continuously missing deadlines. Regardless if it is due to the teams' own inefficiencies or because management expectations are unrealistic, missing deadlines has a clear impact on project timelines and ultimately increases your overall cloud migration cost.

Another example can be found in the form of employee morale. Do you notice that your workers are less engaged then when the migration project was first announced? It is a sign of a good leader to notice the employee sentiment and to encourage employees through positive action. Nothing can be worse than discouraged workers and being that migration projects are inherently more stressful, requiring more work and learning with the same resources, it is important that the leadership team keep employee moral high. There are many ways to achieve this goal that are outlined in detail in a future article.

Lastly, a failure can be depicted as a decrease in software development productivity. One of the greatest advantages of cloud computing as a service is the shift to a truly agile manifesto. Employees should be encouraged to experiment and test out product ideas to see what works best. There is no need to be stuck in a phase of paralysis by analysis but instead actively work through ideas through action and experimentation. When the agile manifesto is truly harnessed this will have an exponential impact on workplace productivity and culture. If your migration has not lead to an agile product development methodology you are not taking full advantage of what the cloud has to offer.

Now that we have outlined some of the examples of what a failed migration may look like and its implicit cost to both the company’s bottom line and culture. We will dive deeper into the Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) created by Amazon Web Services to better understand the various stages of the cloud adoption life cycle.

Cloud Adoption Framework

Before you begin a journey, it is important to take stock of where you are currently and where you would like to be in the future. Applied to cloud computing it is important to first establish where you find your company along the Cloud Adoption Framework (shown in the picture above).

Enterprises will find themselves in varying stages along the cloud adoption framework, with some dabbling with cloud computing as a platform for the first time or enterprises that employ a cloud-first culture for all new projects.

Before you begin to develop your migration strategy it is important to understand that the speed at which you progress through these stages of cloud adoption vary based on the size of the institution, level of application complexity and resource allocation. Cloud adoption is a continuous process which requires learning and fine tuning every step of the way.

Netflix, a technology giant took 7 years to fully migrate to the cloud and they are still actively working to optimize their cloud deployments as they go. Your mileage may vary but it is important to have a long-term vision for your organization’s cloud adoption strategy and have the patience and perseverance to see it through. 

In the next article we will discuss the importance of creating a business case to capture the business values of moving to cloud and how it will become your moral compass as you begin to make strategic migration decisions.

If you are just joining me on this new series entitled "The Complete Guide to Cloud Migration", you may also be interested in the other articles listed below:

Introduction To The Complete Guide To Cloud Migration

Part 1: Building a Business Case

Part 2: Adopting The Right Cloud Culture

Part 3: The 5 Phases of Cloud Migration

Part 4: Portfolio Discovery & Planning

Part 5: Six Cloud Migration Strategies (The 6 Rs)

Part 6: The Migration Factory

Part 7: Operate and Optimize !