How to get cloud migration right in the rush for digital transformation

Cloud technology was vital for organizations disrupted by Covid-19, allowing them to quickly build and scale their remote services and operations. During the crisis, cloud is seen to be a path to more agile business models, faster speed to market, and even greener operations. But in fact, only 37% of companies get the full value expected on their cloud investments.

A point issue is that narrowly focusing on migration in the rush to ‘do more digital transformation’ organizations can trap in moving greater volumes of workloads and expecting the results to follow. Enterprises must first set out the business strategy and value behind their migration, including clear definitions of where they are, and where they want to be. Migration strategies that look at how the cloud can enable the business to operate differently with the new tools, services, and capabilities on offer are far more successful.

Execution is what brings strategy to life. Cloud migrations are incremental and influenced by factors such as value, complexity, and risk. Each area of the business will need to be considered and mapped by requirement. For example, are certain applications interdependent? Would other workloads benefit from cloud bursting? Also, it’s essential to consider the interdependencies between architecture, data, and applications. As enterprises must build modern data platforms into their strategic migration plans, creating bundles of related workloads which can be migrated together. The practical implementation of a cloud strategy isn’t always easy, but creating a systematic plan will enable sustained progress.

When it comes to executing the strategy, security teams need to be deeply involved in migration from the planning and onset too, defining platform-level and application-level controls, approving cloud architecture choices, and identifying the best candidates for native security automation. And finally, employees and external customers will need to adapt to new systems and receive training to ensure they can make the most of the new tools, platforms, and services available to them in the cloud, and all in all, think like a technologist. So choose the right partner and don’t go on this journey alone.