Key Criteria and Strategies for Cloud Migration Success

1. What’s Not Working with Cloud Migration?

Companies are increasingly transitioning their traditional IT systems to the cloud, including everything from databases and applications to the underlying infrastructure. Behind the movement: the prospect of lower costs and improved agility that enables organizations to respond to change. The benefits are supported by evidence and anecdote:

• You may be able to lower your operating costs or at least slow their rate of growth, while reducing or eliminating the expense of physical data centers.
• The ability to scale resources quickly means that the business can be more agile, responding to changing needs and expanding into new markets with less risk.

The benefits of cloud migration are not a given. For IT shops versed in the rhythms of on-premises operations, the transition to the cloud presents unfamiliar challenges. Selecting a cloud vendor is significantly different than the process of choosing a data center provider. And despite historical promises from service providers of increased agility, lower cost, and risk, migrating even a single complex application to the cloud is a major challenge. The obstacles range from the deeply technical to issues relating to operations and management, and to managing the change itself.

Whatever the reasons, organizations are constantly looking at their past migrations with the benefit of hindsight to answer the question, “Why didn’t I get it right the first time?” As the old Irish adage goes, “If you want to get there, don’t start from here.” This report helps you start from the right place, exploring the processes and technologies needed for a successful cloud migration. Three areas of focus are addressed:

• Base-level agreements between business units and IT
• Core and differentiating cloud provider capabilities
• Evaluating a provider in terms of required success factors

Success not only means addressing these needs, but also defeating potential roadblocks in advance. Let’s first consider what needs to be in place between IT and the business.