Share
The benefits of using cloud technology are well known due to the savings that it provides and efficiency that it brings to your business. When moving processes and systems to the cloud, a company can face difficulties. Wise planning and professional cloud migration consulting can help avoid them.
All aspects of moving data and applications can be fully conducted by cloud migration services. That’s exactly what OpsWorks Co. is here for. We are a company that not only provides consulting services, but we also help the business move to the cloud computing. How exactly is this accomplished?
First, it is crucial to define what the business wants from the shift to the cloud. It can be conducted to:
- enhance the pace of corporate services operation
- improve the safety of the entire foundation
- provide the chance of more flexible IT management
- get an easy set of virtual machines or other additional services.
If firm stores and processes clients’ personal information, the provider must have a foundation that meets the demands of the law. Preparatory to migration to cloud, it would be reasonable and even needed to do calculations confirming the feasibility of the provider’s system. By selecting the appropriate computing scheme, businesses save about 25% on IT maintenance monthly.
By developing a VPN tunnel within the firm’s server and the provider’s cloud, you provide security, privacy, and encrypted connection. Since this connection is encrypted, the traffic passing through it cannot be intercepted, tracked or modified. Now, be ready to conduct the migration correctly. You must settle if you will conduct the cloud application migration yourself or resort to the provider’s help.
According to Statista, the size of the public cloud computing services market has risen from $58 to $257 billion since 2009. Today 70% of companies use at least one cloud application and this figure will rise to 90% in the coming year. In a couple of years, companies that haven’t adopted cloud solutions will not be able to compete with those boosting their business with cloud computing.
With the shift to digital technology, customers are increasingly expecting better IT services. It has long been known that the right cloud model saves software and hardware costs, lowers operating costs, giving the company a competitive edge. Cloud application migration providers offer customers high-performance and flexible services, but in addition to technical factors, legal and specialized aspects play a decisive role in migrating to the cloud.
Many companies face problems during migration to cloud. The IT strategy of modern enterprises must clearly describe how the business will look in the process of evolution, and how cloud technologies can help achieve long-term development goals. This is the way to ensure optimal support for all company processes and flexible adaptation to constantly changing customer and market requirements. To do everything right, it is wise to resort to professionals for cloud migration consulting.
If the IT strategy does not clearly formulate an action plan for cloud technologies, when selecting SaaS, companies often make point decisions that entail additional costs for the transition to a new system and training for employees. This affects productivity and staff satisfaction.
How to avoid it?
Be confident in what you expect from the cloud. This way, you can create the most efficient and effective cloud implementation plan that won’t waste your time or money and will make your business more competitive.
The use of cloud technology requires new knowledge and experience. The issue of data security in the cloud is especially acute — much more so than in your private data center. For example, transferring personal documents to the cloud requires customer consent. Before starting the migration to cloud, you need to find out what data can be retrieved from the cloud on-demand in case you will be faced with the need to switch the cloud provider or shift data to the local data center. Companies often lack the professional, legal, and technical know-how to address all aspects of cloud computing. This partially applies to employees of other departments.
How to avoid it?
It is desirable to create one cloud team with all the competencies required to work with cloud products. If this is not possible, it is a wise decision to bring in experienced consultants or leading experts in the field.
This is not the exclusive possible scenario for getting started in the cloud. Sometimes it is smart to shift just one workflow to the cloud to help determine if a company really needs to move the entire system. The terms of reference of the cloud-team are quite extensive, so the participation of other departments is necessary for the successful implementation of the project. For competent cooperation with clouds, you have to combine the efforts of all employees responsible for data protection.
The cloud team should act as follows:
- capture the current situation (processes and systems);
- determine the privileges for customers;
- evaluate the complexity of the system and establish criteria for data protection;
design a complete architecture (hybrid scenarios, interfaces); - describe infrastructure requirements (high availability)
- draw up an action plan for migration to cloud (description of migration);
- analyze existing applications to be migrated (determine if they need to be improved or if they can be transferred to the cloud right away; whether a SaaS solution is required in this case);
- fix the methods of project implementation;
- organize internal communication and knowledge exchange.
If new requirements and tasks for the implementation of new applications appear, the cloud team decides whether to use the new development or better find a suitable solution from the cloud provider, and also calculates the cost of implementing the task.
Experience shows that the cloud team should have the authority to make such decisions and have a sufficiently high degree of freedom. Only then will the team generate and implement creative innovative ideas.
If all scenarios have already been described, employees are profoundly motivated, and the enterprise is getting ready to migrate to the cloud, the question of finding a cloud provider arises. First, you have to determine what is preferable for your business – a private or public cloud, and decide what capabilities and degree of compliance the business needs. After that, you are ready to start searching for a provider and the price of his services should not be a decisive factor. Cloud migration services often differ in important ways. The regions where data centers are established, the guaranteed features, the security measures followed, and the certificates used can be different.
How to avoid it?
The set of criteria that the overall architecture dictates can serve as a good starting point in choosing the right cloud provider. To prevent unconditional dependence on your hosting provider, prioritize correctly.
Many companies believe it’s best to start the cloud application migration process with complex apps. They do so under the impression that by moving the largest application to the cloud, most of the processes, interfaces, and data will migrate along with it. It’s also commonly thought that if you actually managed to migrate the most complex application, then the other projects will follow suit and migrate to the cloud without a hitch.
How to avoid it?
Practice shows that it is better to transfer the simplest applications first, so that you can test how effective your chosen methods are. Thus, the time spent and the risk of failure is reduced and the chances of successful project implementation are much higher.
The experience gained will help department staff prepare for larger and more complex migration scenarios. Successful implementation of the task will contribute to the confidence of employees of IT departments and specialized departments in the new direction.
Even if all the company’s services are transferred to the clouds, the IT department will not be superfluous. With the increasing volume of digital transactions, information technology knowledge is becoming more important. Other departments within the company are also demanding that IT specialists work more quickly and with more flexibility on new services.
How to avoid it?
The professional profile of an IT specialist should be determined not only by a specialization, but also by an understanding of how certain information processes occur. Years of experience and in-depth knowledge will help you assess whether a cloud provider’s standardized service level agreement (SLA) can truly provide the flexibility you want. The same applies to control over the provider’s obligations under the SLA.
One of the biggest mistakes is lack of professional consulting. Cloud consulting services can help you avoid many mistakes and pitfalls. In the process of moving to the cloud, a business’s greatest fear is the downtime and inaccessibility of its infrastructure, as a result of which the company’s work stops and money is lost. The risk of data loss during migration is also intimidating.
How to avoid it?
Our experience and successful projects prove that you don’t need to be afraid of moving to the cloud. In its projects, OpsWorks Co. uses an integrated approach and conducts an audit, the result of which is the selection of the optimal migration option (full, partial with selection, cross-platform), which avoids errors and downtime when moving.
Successful cloud deployment provides agility and cost savings, while failed implementation negates the benefits. When planning your migration to cloud, follow these basic patterns to reach success.
Calculate all available options. Choosing a large cloud service provider has its advantages, but it is often made without a thorough examination of the available offerings. Switching to another operator will not be easy. The selection is carried out with special care and consideration of how your environment will develop in the coming years. This is important as more and more companies are adopting a multi-cloud approach.
Ensure a dialogue between the business and IT. Decisions related to cloud migration services are made by the board of directors and business units. In many organizations, IT professionals are prevented from meeting with other executives to communicate the cloud strategy well. We believe top managers need to establish communication channels so that COOs can articulate their business objectives, and select the resources needed to meet any challenges.
Modernize tools. For IT professionals, migration to cloud means learning new skills, and that takes training and time. IT leaders must learn to understand the business objectives and requirements in order to justify purchasing and deploying the right services. IT professionals need to be aware of the cloud services available and the benefits they will bring to the organization.
Concern for safety. Security issues must always be at the forefront for companies that migrate applications to the cloud. Appropriate protective measures must be taken early in the migration process. It is imperative to take all possible measures to protect the company’s data. The IT department will need training and tools to combat security threats from day one.
Don’t hurry. The transition to the cloud must be gradual – start with one business function at a time to remain validated. You need to start with the departments that are least critical to the business so that IT professionals can safely familiarize themselves with the implementation process before taking on the transfer of responsible structural units. Moving to the cloud will take a long time and will involve gradual expansion.
Ensure efficient investment. Many organizations have not figured out the pricing models for cloud services, thus, up to a third of investments allocated to a cloud project are wasted. Companies often underutilize the resources of their virtual machines and pay for unused instances. The costs of maintaining the cloud are beyond reasonable limits. Migration to cloud doesn’t have to come with a hefty price tag.. If you don’t plan your maintenance strategy carefully, it will be difficult to justify the costs to management later.
Master new technologies. Modern technologies provide tremendous innovative opportunities. Today, many IT departments are exploring the promise of automation, machine learning, software-defined data centers, and more. Companies that do not want to use the full range of opportunities provided by the cloud will find themselves falling behind the competition in the next round of the cloud revolution.
Good planning and proper migration consulting are key to successfully migrate applications to cloud and earn clients’ loyalty. The successful experience of many projects and the qualifications of our specialists allow us to perform the migration as simple, fast, and safe for our clients as possible. OpsWorks Co. specialists will help you migrate your infrastructure to the cloud. We will work with you to determine the best time to transfer to minimize any risks associated with equipment downtime.
