Embracing the Cloud: Conquering your Fear of the Unknown

Source: https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/home/F_Apollo_11.html

When Neil Armstrong placed his left foot on the rugged terrain of the moon on July 20, 1969, this event caused quite a commotion as it marked the first human footprint on the lunar surface. I am not sure how that came across to you, but for me, it was a moment filled with wonder, realizing that someone had reached the place that we see in the sky every night. This marvellous achievement has not just been gigantic leap of faith. This was preceded by numerous manned and unmanned space missions, each of which shattered the ceiling by its predecessors in terms of accomplishments.

Moving to cloud is a journey and we cannot make it to the journey if we keep worrying only about the outcome. Sure, this path might look complex, risky, full of roadblocks and unknown. There will always be a lot of questions, such as how long it will take, when it will end, the risks involved, when we will begin to see a return on investment, and so on. All these questions are valid and important and does require attention and consideration while developing your migration journey. However, the crucial idea is that if we love the journey, we can get to our destination. During the process there could be times when things may go wrong right away, and that is perfectly OK. There is no one-size-fits-all strategy because every firm has a different journey to the cloud. Hence, it is important to understand this journey requires a long-term commitment and continuous learning. As a result, reaching the goal could require several attempts and different strategies.

Connecting to the right people
We require a reliable partner to rely on, just like we do in our daily lives. Someone who can relate to our thoughts, comprehend them, and be there for us through both our highs and lows. The cloud's journey is not particularly unlike from it. It is crucial to connect with the right trusted partners and stakeholders who shares your vision and value, someone you can rely on, who can help you navigate tricky situations while ensuring the safety and privacy of your data and systems at its core. Choosing right people is crucial for the success of any business, as a business partner can significantly impact the direction, growth, and culture of the company.

"Data security and compliance at the highest level"
Every business revolves around data, and it is everything to it, hence, it must be handled with utmost care especially when laws and regulations are evolving and stringent. EU (European Union) Laws like GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) which lays down 99 articles outlines strict rules for the collection, processing, and storage of personal data and imposes severe penalties on organizations that fail to comply with its provisions. Organizations with substantial amounts of distributed data imposes complexity on its realization as there may be multiple local regulations and standards that need to be followed. Similarly for data governance, concern is of the visibility, how and where the data is stored.

While this may be seen as a challenge to commence your journey to the cloud but not anymore. As with the right measures and guidance in this direction, we can achieve a balance, while leveraging the cloud for keeping the data safe and at the same time remaining competitive and innovative in the market. Some of these measures include Sovereign cloud solutions on Nordic soil, having proper policies and procedures in place to ensure compliance across all business operations, data encryption (at rest and transit), conducting regular compliance audits internally as well by an independent party, establishing incident response and business continuity plans to respond to data breaches in a timely and effective manner and much more.

After data privacy and security, the first and, in my opinion, most crucial phase in your journey to the cloud is a high-level assessment of your infrastructure, which is then followed by migration and post-migration. We shall discuss the "high level assessment" and its significance in this article.

"Stages of your cloud adoption process"
Business argument

Recognizing the requirements and investigating the advantages of the cloud for business. What is the business use case we are aiming to solve, and how will it change in the cloud from the conventional arrangement? This can help determine whether there is really a true need to go to the cloud. The anticipated costs of the cloud deployment and how the cloud environment will be configured.

Application Portfolio

Understanding which applications can or should be moved first and whether they are suitable for a cloud environment. There will be some applications that can be easily moved to the cloud, such as a simple lift and shift from on-premises to the cloud. They may, however, require some modification and customization in the code, also known as modernization, before they can be migrated to the cloud. The difficult scenario could be with legacy mainframe applications, which may require complete rewriting of the code, resulting in significant effort. It is crucial to understand which applications are worth moving to the cloud along with the effort and ROI (return on investment) aspects.

Selecting the Best Cloud Provider

Once the analysis has been completed, it is time to select the best partner for you. There are numerous cloud providers on the market, each with a unique set of capabilities. It can be a challenging step, especially when everyone makes the claim to provide the best services and support, but factors such as who aligns more with your business values and the approach, they offer you to address your concerns about architecture, licensing, support, and cost, among others, can help you make this decision.

Conclusion
No matter how difficult the path, it is always worthwhile taking the first step even if it is not success.

If you want to break free from a closed shell but are not sure how, or if you are interested in embarking on a cloud journey to reap its benefits, a high-level assessment is a foundation that checks your cloud readiness not just from the technology perspective but also from a cultural perspective of adapting to change. We at Tietoevry Create would love to tell you more about this Cloud Agnostic Roadmap which performs high-level assessments and provides general guidance.

Do not hesitate to contact us for more information.