A Google Cloud Platform strategy that delivers? The 4 key steps to success

The cloud allows you to scale to a level of computing, networking and storage that you could not otherwise achieve. It enables continuous innovation and ease of collaboration. But to achieve these benefits, it’s important to design your cloud solution with high availability, security and governance. In this blog, we explain how to achieve this with Google Cloud Platform.

While there may be specific circumstances in which it is advisable to opt for a hybrid cloud strategy, expert advice is increasingly focused on moving to public cloud. There are several reasons for pursuing a public cloud strategy including:

1. CapEx vs. OpEx. Cloud computing moves organizations from a CapEx (capital expenditure) model to an OpEx (operating expense) model, with OpEx offering low or no upfront costs, and tax deductible benefits. It also provides lower risk and exit costs.
2. Lower TCO (total cost of ownership). You save money as you don’t need to build out your own data center with all the ongoing associated maintenance and running costs.
3. Pay-as-you-go philosophy. Only pay for what you use, unlike an on-premise data center that requires overprovisioning, which means you pay for computing resources regardless of whether you use them.
4. Flexibility and agility. Public cloud makes it far easier to adapt your IT projects as needed, with almost immediate provisioning and the ability to scale up or down rapidly. Over and above these, CIOs want a solution that provides security and governance. To achieve this, it’s best to follow a proven methodology and to go slowly.

Designing a step-by-step Google Cloud strategy that delivers

At SoftwareOne, we follow a well-practiced step-by-step process to ensure all the benefits and requirements of a Google Cloud project are met.

1. Discover. We start by understanding what a customer’s business outcomes are and then establish the scope of the IT project to achieve these outcomes. We analyze the client's services and/or applications, evaluating their cloud maturity and various scenarios available to them. In this phase we carry out data collection, we interview the personnel involved (both IT and business), and then identify and group the infrastructures by dependencies.
2. Execution planning. Here we define the design and architecture model, following the standard and proven Google Cloud methodology. We determine what needs to move and how this can be moved. This could include computing, networking, storage, databases, serverless scenarios or containers. We prepare the landing zone, clarifying the aspects of identity management, networks, security and billing. And we prepare for the kickoff, specifying tasks and workflows.
3. Project start. We subdivide the project into the phases of adoption, migration, transformation and obtaining results. The plan designed in the previous phases is executed, always iteratively, and decisions and improvements are made based on the results of the ongoing analysis.
4. Optimize. Here we monitor and operate the migrated services and infrastructures, providing centralized management. We give advice on continuous improvement, through the study of new services and/or products, as well as advice for cost optimization and control of resources and billing.

What projects can be tackled with Google Cloud Platform?

Examples of projects we have done with customers are:

• Workload migration
• Transformation and modernization
• Workstations virtualization
• Datacenter extension
• DRaaS, backup and continuity management
• Microsoft Active Directory Managed Service
• Remote and easy access for internal web applications with BeyondCorp
• Virtualization based on VMware

For each scenario we apply a decision model that, after discovery and planning, consists of deciding whether to migrate (rehost or replatform) or change (refactor or rebuild). Then we enter a continuous cycle of improvement and optimization.

To undertake each project with customers, we have total flexibility to adapt to their needs. We provide turnkey projects, where scope, time and price are agreed up front; an agile model with an agreed bag of hours for development and maintenance; a baseline approach in which we provide skilled resources, consulting or training; or a combination of any of these depending on requirements.