Preparing for the Cloud: A Comprehensive Guide to Cloud Readiness Assessment
Recent research indicates that there is a consistent rise in the utilization of cloud solutions and services globally, as businesses seek to leverage benefits such as on-demand access, enhanced network connectivity, resource consolidation, flexibility, and scalability. 80% of enterprises have experienced operational excellence in a few months only after adopting the cloud.
As businesses continue to transform their operations to the cloud, IT and business leaders are weighing up how and when to migrate their current workloads to the cloud. It is a multifaceted undertaking that requires a thorough understanding of the critical applications, hardware, and system networks underpinning their operational delivery. However, what we often choose to overlook is that preparing for the migration is just as crucial as executing best practices for a seamless transition to the cloud.
Undertaking a cloud readiness assessment can aid in the development of cloud adoption and transformation strategies. These approaches will enable businesses to capitalize on the full range of cloud benefits.
What is Cloud Readiness Assessment?
A cloud readiness assessment assesses an organization’s ability to transition smoothly into the cloud by evaluating the readiness of its existing workloads, assets, and applications. It is considered a best practice for any organization that intends to deploy IT infrastructure or applications to the cloud to conduct a cloud assessment. It involves the key factors that provides an itemized inventory of whether applications and data can be migrated to the cloud without disrupting the organization’s operations.
Benefits of Investing in a Cloud Readiness Assessments
- Reduces the cost of cloud adoption through system enhancements.
- Assesses business expenditures quickly while also helps to predict future expenses based on the present IT infrastructure.
- Identifies best ways to incorporate cloud services into your business for maximum impact.
- By communicating actual costs to business leaders, IT can establish itself as a strategic business partner.
- Deploys ready-made layouts to create new designs or reuse old content, and templates across sites to boost efficiency.
- Provides a unique experience for contacting users via a single interface across all channels and devices.
Key Factors to Consider While Conducting a Cloud Assessment
Current workloads and needs must be measured to understand the necessities of the environment and operations in the future.
- Validate that any app is designed to run in the new environment, and how it can be modified to ensure a smooth migration.
- If a new cloud-native app is used in combination with an existing program, test it to ensure that they work well together and how they can be adapted if problems arise.
- Test all new processes and software for security and compliance with any applicable regulatory requirements or best practices.
- Checks the efficacy of an old environment to release data as well as the new environment to accept any old data without loss or corruption.
- Effective timeframes to determine which app or process will move first with minimal impact on business operations. Many businesses choose to migrate to cloud environments all at once, however individual processes are moved to reduce disruption.
- Any changes must have the support of key decision-makers and influencers before they are rolled out. Also, the employee training program must be carried out to ensure that employees are aware of the advantages of new processes and additional features.
- For maximum impact, a Cloud Readiness Assessment should include an analysis of the existing IT landscape and a Cloud Risk assessment.
Assessment Process: A detailed roadmap for successful cloud adoption
- Identifying the Business Objectives and Migration Opportunities
To effectively shift to the cloud, it is crucial to comprehend why and to what degree it intends to do so. Organizations must determine what applications and data to migrate to the cloud. Security and privacy regulations may necessitate that the organization knows the location of data and who can access it.
Some business factors to consider when migrating to the cloud include cost savings for replacing hardware and data center maintenance, increased resources for application development, and enhanced data resiliency through DS-ready systems.
- Assessment of Internal Resources
It is crucial for the organization to assess internal resources such as available funds, required skill sets, and the IT staff’s availability window to focus on cloud migration. Assessment of Internal Resources helps to understand how to migrate to the cloud and the best practices to be followed including the tools, methodologies, and services required for a successful migration.
- Assessment of the existing IT infrastructure needs
To establish a cloud-first environment, an organization should evaluate its IT environment and infrastructure to determine which workloads, apps, and data should be migrated to the cloud, retained in-house, or removed entirely. It’s essential to consider how the transition will impact applications, as most of them may require modification to align with the new architecture. The approach may range from minor adjustments to the application’s core to a complete redesign or switching to a SaaS model.
- Assessment of the necessary security measures
Decision to migrate data to the cloud and it’s cloud security posture may be influenced by regulatory requirements at the global and industrial levels. To have a comprehensive understanding of the data landscape, organizations need to take inventory of their data and identify the level of protection required for different types of data. During a cloud assessment, organizations may evaluate data security measures, including encryption, identity access management (IAM), and web application firewalls.
- Developing a timeline and a budget plan
Establishing a clear timeline is crucial for organizations to achieve specific milestones and track progress and setbacks. Budgets must be aligned with business opportunities and migration goals, accounting for a total cost of ownership (TCO) calculations, migration training and fees, licensing costs, and other expenses. Timelines and budgets should also consider the application migration process, where moving programs to the cloud generally takes less time than making peripheral changes. However, rebuilding one or more applications may take longer but can lead to greater cloud profitability.
Maximize your profitability with Open Storage Solutions
Numerous organizations face pressure to modernize their infrastructure, migrate to the cloud, or respond to mission-critical demands. However, they lack the essential know-how and expertise required to take significant action.
At Open Storage Solutions, we offer a dedicated Cloud Adoption Framework, backed by Comprehensive Cloud Readiness Assessments to analyze your requirements, and provide the best cloud solutions suited to your enterprise.
By implementing a fail-safe protocol, we support businesses in transitioning to the cloud while causing minimal interruption to their operational flow.
To ensure a seamless cloud migration that meets your current and future requirements, get in touch today and take advantage of our tailored Cloud Consulting Services.
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