With cloud computing usage growing, cloud migration projects are still a high priority for many organizations. According to Flexera’s 2020 State of the Cloud Report, the use of public clouds continues to dramatically increase in all organizations. Cost optimization, global reach, and almost infinite scalability are just a few of the driving forces behind the continued growth of Public Cloud.

In order to streamline your process, you’ll need a few things. Even with all of the automation, AI, and other time-saving capabilities of Public Cloud, you still need real people behind the scenes supporting your environments. Further, to be successful in cloud migration, you need an appropriate discovery and planning process, and a detailed migration plan, while launching a  Cloud Center of Excellence will ensure long-term success.

1. Discovery and Planning

Whether you’re migrating workloads to a public cloud, private data center, or co-lo facility, proper discovery and planning are essential. Cloud discovery and planning is both a quantitative and qualitative method for reviewing a customer’s current IT infrastructure. Combine tool-based research and interviews to create a low-risk path to cloud migration that maximizes the value of public cloud to the organization. Initially, it’s important to create an actionable, data-driven migration plan that meets your organization’s operational requirements, timeline, and budget.

According to Enterprise Management Associates without proper planning, 65 percent of migration projects run over budget or take longer than expected. Research also shows that at least a quarter of all migration projects fail often due to poor planning. Connectria uses tool-based application discovery and dependency mapping as well as key stakeholder interviews. Our process produces an optimal migration plan that delivers business value, reduces risk, and helps ensure your migration milestones are met.

2. Migrating Workloads

When migrating workloads to the cloud, a great way to lessen your risk is to have a detailed migration plan. Migrations present a variety of challenges from program management to technical obstacles and more that need to be considered before starting the project. There are a number of planning methods that can provide the necessary structure to the migration process and ensure your migration project runs efficiently, saving you both time and money.

Ultimately, effective migrations take careful planning, a skillful approach, and the right tools to manage any issues as they arise. While migrations require involved planning and coordination, the benefits of migrating workloads to the cloud are worth the complex process. Get started with these eight steps.

3. Cloud Center of Excellence

A Cloud Center of Excellence (CCOE) is a cross-functional, in-house team responsible for developing and managing cloud strategy, governance, and best practices. This team is also accountable to the organization for cloud adoption, migration, and ongoing operations, including security and compliance. The CCOE’s deliverables cover a wide swath of responsibilities with four overarching categories relevant to every organization:

1. ROI – The CCOE is responsible for creating an efficient, repeatable, and scalable strategy that maximizes cloud ROI.
2. Security and Compliance – This team is responsible for ensuring compliance with regulations and standards as well as protecting your cloud-based resources and data from threats.
3. Resiliency and Performance – The CCOE is responsible for ensuring maximum uptime and performance of cloud-based resources.
4. Business Continuity – The CCOE team is responsible for creating a cloud strategy and architecture that minimizes downtime and data loss in the event of a man-made or natural disaster.

These macro responsibilities are the goals you’d set KPIs against. To achieve these goals, the CCOE is tasked with a number of other responsibilities, including but not limited to:

• Aligning cloud strategy to the needs and goals of the business
• Choosing the proper tooling to manage costs, performance, and scalability
• Creating a cloud strategy that includes the right cloud platform(s) for each workload
• Defining the processes to be used for making effective cloud decisions as an organization
• Developing an automation strategy to reduce costs and improve performance and security
• Pinpointing skills gaps in the organization that can impact the ability to carry out the cloud strategy

CCOE is not a new concept. You probably read an article about it a few years ago thinking, “we don’t have time for that.” Now, especially, a CCOE can provide necessary benefits to your cloud migration or transformational IT project.

Connectria and the Cloud

Contact Connectria for more information and to speak with one of our cloud experts. We can supplement your existing team and free up time to focus on the things you want, not just the things you need. Whether your ideal cloud environment is public, private, hybrid, or multi, we’ll customize the optimum solution to meet your needs.

Connectria experts are here to help in the event you don’t have the IT resourcing readily available. We’ve been at the forefront of cloud computing for many years. We’re in a unique position to help you assemble your strategy for migrating to the cloud. We’ll make sure you ask the right questions and are aware of any potential risks and complications.