By now the benefits of adopting the public cloud are well established. Cost savings, flexibility, accelerated development, and deployment cycles—the list goes on and on.
Realizing these benefits, though, requires successfully adopting the cloud in the first place. And this is where organizations can struggle. Making the leap into the cloud is not a quick process. You can’t simply upload your data and applications and expect to be done with it. You need a solid blueprint in place.
This blueprint for your cloud adoption is informed by exploring five things about your organization’s current operations:
1. Your technical maturity
Not every company has the right foundation in place to migrate to the cloud. That’s why it’s critical that you thoroughly—and honestly—assess your organization’s technical maturity.
This assessment needs to go deeper than just your own internal capabilities. You need to be confident that every face of your company is ready and willing to make the transition to the cloud.
In many ways, it’s more about culture than technical aptitude, since adopting the cloud is a seismic shift for how your organization operates. Without buy-in from every level of your company, your cloud adoption process will struggle to deliver results.
2. Your application portfolio
Not all applications you depend upon will be suitable for the cloud without being modernized.
By taking a thorough look at all the applications in your portfolio, you can identify those that should be updated to work best with the cloud and those made redundant or insufficient for ongoing usage in your new environment.
3. Your current workflows
As you build out your cloud adoption plan, take the time to fully understand your organization’s current workflows—including potential inefficiencies. Ask yourself questions like:
- Where are our current bottlenecks?
- How much are we willing to invest in new skill sets?
- Are we ready to embrace a DevOps culture?
Answering these questions will help you determine whether you should take on the migration process internally or with a trusted partner that can help you make the transition by following best practices.
4. Your time frame
Cloud adoption isn’t something you rush into. At the same time, moving too slowly once you’ve started the adoption process can cause unnecessary disruptions to your business.
This, again, is where you’ll likely find real value in seeking out a partner to help you set a timeline for your migration.
5. Your end goals
This is perhaps the most important step in building out your migration plan. Why? Because if you don’t know why you are adopting the cloud in the first place, you won’t know what you’re trying to achieve.
A good rule of thumb to follow is to know where you’re going, then work backward from there. Is your goal to have more flexibility in your development process? To leverage tools like artificial intelligence and machine learning to gain better insights from your data? To accelerate the deployment of new products and services in order to compete? All of the above?
Once you have your goals nailed down, you’re in a prime position to kick off the migration process in earnest.
Is your organization considering a move to the cloud? We can help. Schedule some time to talk with our experts today.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published in 2019 and has recently been updated.
