Determine 3 Areas Of Readiness Before Making A Major Leap To Cloud

1. Application Portfolio Readiness

A good set of APM tools can give you a complete view of your data center, including the performance of machines and networks and the workings of the database server itself. They can allow you to see the overall performance of your application environment and end user application ties to the business data of the transactions. They can even extend your insight into the end user experience and collect information on where your requests are coming from and what devices and channels are being used.

Many agencies don’t have a clear picture of what applications are residing in their infrastructure, due to sheer network complexity and a grueling demand to keep pace with market and technology changes. It’s difficult to look at the entire portfolio of applications holistically, given disparate systems. But understanding connections and interdependencies between applications is crucial to understanding how each will impact that IT infrastructure as it heads to a cloud environment.

And, while efficiency and performance are hallmarks of cloud technology, these benefits can only be reaped if applications are appropriately automated and orchestrated before they move to the cloud. That requires an understanding of what each application is, what it does and how it interacts with other applications. You need to achieve this level of understanding across all workloads and applications – not just those moving to the cloud. Otherwise, an application left on-premise may be negatively impacted by a cloud-transitioned application due to the interconnectivity.

Focus on applications where cloud can enhance performance before migration begins. Automating the process of performance checks can be achieved with certain tools, which can also identify areas where current performance can be improved. That can ensure you’re sending the most suitable applications to the cloud and guarantees you’ll reap the efficiency and performance rewards of a migration.

2. Supporting Infrastructure Readiness

Next, you’ll need to consider your application-supporting technology, which comprises all technology outside of the application stack. That includes enterprise management software, security software and other infrastructure components – essentially all of the technologies that have to be integrated in order for an application to be successfully hosted in any environment.

From an infrastructure perspective, it’s essential that you assess the technical workloads of your applications before transitioning any of them to the cloud to ensure that performance can be maintained or even improved as different aspects of the infrastructure are transitioned.

While many organizations recognize the need to assess applications moving to the cloud, it’s less common for them to think about the infrastructure that remains behind on-premise. That technology, however, continues to be tied to applications migrating to cloud. So, it’s important to understand those connections and decide if they can be securely maintained as applications migrate to cloud.

3. Organizational Readiness

Finally, organizational support for cloud migrations is the most often overlooked requirement but just as critical. A successful migration not only requires the technical infrastructure to accommodate the new technology, but it also requires an organizational willingness and supporting skill sets to accommodate different management and cost structures.

Certain parties will be more reticent than others to migrate their applications to the cloud, due to predefined conceptions of the technology and its purpose. Some users and application owners will be less willing to trust that reduced resources in the cloud design will be sufficient. Others may be worried about loss of access or control. That’s where education and consistent messaging plays a key role. The most important component is the need for people to understand cloud technology, and to align it with business perspectives and business drivers.

There is one more tangible need: technical skills. To make sure your workforce is prepared to handle cloud migration and maintenance, take the same approach to your workforce as you would to your applications. Consider each team separately, starting where you have the skills and will to migrate to the cloud. Build a gap analysis to identify where teams are lacking. You can often map current skills to evolutionary new skills. Where the appropriate tech skills are truly lacking, consider moving staff between teams to gain best practices from more cloud-proficient colleagues. In the event that there simply isn’t enough skilled staff to orchestrate multiple application migrations, hiring third-party assistance may be necessary.

About Govplace

Govplace is a value-added reseller and systems integrator exclusively focused on providing the public sector with innovative, industry-leading IT products, services, and solutions. We bring a unique combination of California innovation and beltway understanding into each engagement to ensure our federal customers are achieving measurable business and technical outcomes. With a deep understanding of government contracting, an expansive portfolio of contracting vehicles, and demonstrated expertise in leading technologies and solutions, Govplace takes a strategic approach to technology-led transformation and modernization to improve business and operational efficiency and help our federal customers achieve their unique mission needs. Our core capabilities cover Cloud Computing & Infrastructure, Cyber Security & Privacy, IT Automation, and Smart Security Technology & Surveillance. Visit www.govplace.com for more information.

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