The Cloud Journey, Part 1 – Evaluate

Getting started with cloud often causes challenges and risks. SoftwareONE can help you adjust and plan your cloud strategy. In this series of posts we’ll cover the different aspects of a strategic approach to cloud:

1. Evaluate
2. Migrate
3. Manage
4. Secure
5. Innovate

In this first part – Evaluate – we’ll show you how to evaluate your options and prepare to begin your cloud journey. We'll be looking at some of the common questions and challenges organizations are facing as they think about moving some or all of their on-premise workloads into the cloud.

People often think the concept of the cloud is new and that their organization may not be ready. But the reality is that cloud is already being leveraged almost everywhere. Several statistics and surveys speak for themselves: According to Flexera’s 2020 State of Tech Spend Report cloud spend already surpassed on-premise software spend and organizations worldwide are expected to increase cloud workloads by 21 % in 2020. Research about the actual usage of the cloud – as covered in the 2019’s State of Cloud Report – 94 % of businesses are already using cloud, with 91 % adopting public cloud solutions. Adding to this is McAfee’s Cloud Adoption and Risk Report saying that 87 % of companies experienced business acceleration from their use of cloud services.

As the most popular models of cloud computing services, public cloud providers such as Microsoft Azure and AWS offer a vast array of solutions, resources, and services to address the growing needs of organizations, no matter their size, industry, or geography.

That immediately raises legitimate questions about why you should leverage public cloud. One of the key drivers is becoming more agile and putting digital transformation into action!

One of the roadblocks that prevents organizations from moving more of their mission-critical applications and servers to public cloud is concern about availability, management, security and costs. But the truth is that leveraging public cloud will bring significant advantages such as:

• Tackling big challenges with small budgets
• Saving time & hassle for IT teams
• Driving collaboration & engagement
• Improving security
• Staying agile in an ever-changing market

Although there are plenty of advantages in moving to the cloud, it also brings some complexity to organizations. We have developed a list of requirements that should be met when planning most moves to the cloud:

• Knowledge – new technologies require constantly updated knowledge
• Cloud Roadmap – defining and maintaining your own cloud strategy & roadmap
• Migration Expertise – ensure a successful migration with support and minimal downtimes
• Governance – defining the rules and policies for managing cloud resources
• Cost Optimization – cloud cost control and proper ROI calculation

At the start of planning a cloud strategy, modern businesses can find it quite overwhelming to identify exactly where to begin. Embracing all of the benefits of the cloud means avoiding a “one-size-fits-all” solution and instead finding the proper framework that meets your specific business needs. Those requirements certainly differ depending on your industry, size, and maturity.

Let’s look at an insurance provider who is about to embark on a migration project to get to the public cloud. This customer needs to be out of the existing on-premises data center before the next renewal which is in just 12 months’ time. Now the insurance provider has to cope with a complex set of challenges such as how to implement a migration projection within such a short timeframe and how to avoid business disruptions during the data center migration. This requires deep expertise and knowledge about migration projects and also requires a stable technical foundation upon which to migrate onto. A trusted cloud expert like SoftwareONE can help turn a business case like this into a success – with advisory and knowledge sharing and tailored migration services.

Our expertise can also be of help if you are not looking for a migration strategy specifically, but rather for a way to optimize your costs. If your migration itself is already done, you might be in danger of losing control of who has access to your data or how costs are developing through the use of on-demand services. Here we can support with structured guidance and advisory on governance and optimization.

To get your cloud journey started there are two important questions to ask – what do you want to accomplish and what challenges do you see in getting there? Once you understand why you should be moving to the cloud, where you are in terms of business needs and requirements, and what your capabilities are, you'll need to decide which cloud is the best fit for you. We will take you along this road ensuring all questions are answered and guide you towards the best-fit strategy.