Migration to the Cloud - What does it look like?

The Era of Cloud

Moving to the cloud can be a daunting task that many simply do not feel ready to face. However, in todays increasingly digital world and post Covid, a lot of companies have accelerated their digital transformation journeys in order to become or remain agile, adaptable and innovative even in the most unexpected of circumstances and they have done this via a move to the Cloud.

What Can Be Moved to the Cloud?

Determining what exactly to move to the cloud and the order to do it in can be challenging - particularly if you have a complex environment. Here are some common types of infrastructure that can be put into the Cloud.

Data Storage and Backup

Many organisations choose to utilise the cloud for primary storage, backup and archival data to improve scalability and disaster recovery.

Development and Testing Environments

Dev & Test environments can be moved to the cloud for flexibility, cost savings and rapid scaling.

Customer Facing Apps 

For companies with customer facing applications, a move to the Cloud can significantly improve the performance, reliability and user experience of said applications. 

Data Analytics & BI

Email 

Disaster Recovery

Virtual Desktops

Use cloud-based VDI for secure, remote access to desktops and work environments.

Security

More and more companies re opting to move their security to the cloud because it offers advanced, up-to-date protections like threat detection, encryption and identity management, which are continually monitored and updated by the cloud providers themselves rather than being the responsibility or the user organisation. It also centralises security management across applications and devices, making it easier to enforce policies and respond quickly to incidents.

Suggested Steps

A move to the cloud, wholly or partially of the above components can and does lead to benefits such as improved flexibility, operational efficiency improvements, cost reduction, immediate access to data and reporting, centralised data repository, scalability and much more. In order to see these benefits however, it is critical to plan your move to the Cloud with care, precision and tangible, measurable outcomes.

Define objectives

As with most projects, the first step is to map out the outcomes you would like to achieve by moving to the Cloud. It may be to lower cost, by getting rid of old, legacy servers, it may be to reduce duplication across the business by having one singular data source or it may be that you want to give your customers a better experience - you need to understand your reasons so you can measure them at a later date.

Assess current environment

The next step is understanding how you can achieve these outcomes and what elements they will involve - is it all of the applications you currently use that will contribute to these outcomes? Is it a few? Or, is it none of them and you need a whole new set of applications to achieve your outcomes? It is useful at this stage to rank your applications/data etc to determine which are going to be easier to move, and which are going to be more difficult or even impossible. This can act as a priority list.

Cloud Deployment Model

Next, you need to determine which type of Cloud deployment model you are going to use. There are generally three options -

Public Cloud

• • What is it - In a public cloud, the cloud resources (servers/storage) are owned and operated by a third party vendor such as Microsoft Azure or AWS and shared across multiple organisations.
  • Key Features - Cost-effective, scalable and easily accessible. Better suited to businesses with low risk or non sensitive applications.

Private Cloud

• • What is it - A private cloud is a cloud infrastructure dedicated to a single organisation. It can be hosted on-premises or by a third party provider but is not shared with other organisations like the public cloud.
  • Key Features - Offers greater control over security, compliance and customisation. It is best for businesses with sensitive data or specific regulatory requirements and tends to be more expensive because the resources and subsequent costs to maintain them are not shared.

Hybrid Cloud

• • What is it - A hybrid cloud is a combination of both public and private clouds, allowing data and applications to be shared between them. It allows businesses to move workloads between the two environments based on cost, performance and/or security requirements.
  • Key Features - Offers flexibility and more control than Public Cloud, making it suitable for businesses that need to balance the benefits of both public and private clouds i.e. costs.