Home

Wikitip

4 Tips for a Successful Cloud Migration

Introduction

Perhaps to recap some of the things that I have written about during the year, I would like to propose a set of best practices for a cloud computing implementation that I believe are crucial. Here are the 4 most important aspects to determining the success of such an IT project:

Security

I will start with this, since it still seems to be the most debated topic concerning cloud computing implementation. Keep in mind that the managed enterprise provider you choose has specialists dedicated to the security of your servers who are available 24/7/366. They are responsible for both the setup and the ongoing maintenance of your cloud – regardless whether it is public or not. Think how much trouble, time and money it would cost you to hire these specialists, to setup, monitor, and maintain your own system -– it does seem simpler and more efficient to have security in place when paying for your cloud services, doesn’t it?

Choosing the cloud provider

Choose a vendor that is renowned in the industry AND make sure its offering fits the needs of your organization. Ask for customized service and remember that the more growth you sell to your provider, the more space you have to negotiate. After selecting the vendor, make sure to ALWAYS have a service level agreement in place – check it with your lawyers, as you can never be too cautious about your company’s crucial data.

Scalability

This is one of the main reasons that people migrate to the cloud; they need a flexible and dynamic environment. For the cloud application to be functional you need to make sure your application is multi-tier, and you have load balancing solutions in place. These often are not available in the selected cloud providers basic options and probably will require additional expenses. However, once implemented correctly, the benefits of this initial investment will be quickly be realized as your utilization significantly increases.

Evaluation

Perhaps this is not something that I stressed enough in my previous articles. There are several criteria for evaluating how successful a cloud implementation is. First of all, was the migration of the project on time and on budget? Then, is it financially advantageous? Did you manage to reduce ongoing costs as originally planned? Obviously, there should be nuances when defining the marks of success, perhaps your main goal was to modernize the IT infrastructure, so it all depends on the initial objectives.

What about you? What would you consider to be the main criteria for evaluation? Are there any other relevant topics that should be included here or you would like to find out more about? I am looking forward to reading your comments on what other parameters you consider when thinking of the success of a project.

View Another Wikitip

Featured Case Study

Financial giant goes green

The corporate IT group of a very large, worldwide financial organization with 100,000 employees, has initiated an ongoing “greening” process. This is focused largely on reducing energy use both to decrease the corporation's carbon footprint while creating a net savings in operational costs over the lifetime of new, more energy-efficient equipment, including new storage systems.

read more...

Featured How-To Note

Planning a Green Storage Initiative

Fluctuating energy prices have heightened electricity and energy consumption as a major issue within the technology community. IT is a significant consumer of energy and IT energy costs have been rising disproportionately because of continued investment in denser IT equipment. Estimates from the EPA and others indicate that IT will account for 3% of energy consumption by 2012.

read more...