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November 10, 2017 - by Synoptek
In a recent discussion with two of Synoptek’s leading Service Development executives, we uncover some of the challenges and pitfalls of migrating to the public cloud. Keep reading for frank review of where some have failed before you and how to manage your cloud transformation more effectively.
“You hear it again and again: customers are surprised by the cost [of the cloud],” said Miles Feinberg, Vice President Service Development at Synoptek. He continued, “They don’t know how to map the SKUs, and hyperscale cloud is very complex.”
According to Carl Ramkarran, Senior Service Development Manager at Synoptek, “There is cultural resistance as well, because technical implementation decisions are being made at the executive level rather than by the IT department. The people doing the actual work feel that what they have already works and they don’t need to change.”
However, change is coming regardless. The strategic decision to adopt cloud transformation — driven by pressures to innovate — comes at a time when IT groups are continually stretched thin responding to day-to-day needs of the company. This hinders their ability even think about taking on any new initiatives or execute them tactfully. Resources are tight, and the assumption that the cloud will be less expensive than existing systems adds yet another vector to the stress.
“The challenge is that organizations do not have the strategy nor the resources established [required to successfully migrate to the cloud], even though they think they might,” offered Feinberg.
Some organization leaders know that they aren’t prepared or equipped for the move but are compelled to act because of the mounting pressure to innovate. The result of jumping into a cloud migration project can result in uncontrolled costs, misconfiguration of security controls, and, ultimately, dissatisfaction from end-users.
Feinberg agrees that he has seen companies fail when “they did not have the right team in place,” but that it was “almost a secondary problem.” ‘What’ and ‘why’ are the biggest questions to answer first, then the ‘how’.” Cost and security are typically the biggest concerns, he added, comparing it to buying a car. “For example, with a car you can sort of figure out how much it is going to cost. Purchase price, taxes, fees, add-ons, fuel, etc. But with the cloud, there are lots of operational variables that are difficult to predict: usage, network connections, and storage capacity.”
Still, Ramkarran feels there is hope. “Effective assessment and planning in the early stages of any cloud migration can have a huge impact,” he said. “Sometimes customers don’t have sufficient understanding of necessary network bandwidth for the workloads which have traditionally run locally but will now move to the cloud over a WAN. They open themselves up to latency and performance issues by not provisioning enough network capacity to account for the extra traffic between cloud-based application components and the ones that remain on-premises.” This is largely because not everything gets moved to the cloud at the same time. And, Feinberg added, “Many workloads are not yet migrated to the cloud; those that are today are cloud-native (born in the cloud) or otherwise net-new.”
Another cost driver? Over-provisioning and licensing. “There is a [software] configuration that would have a very high license cost in the cloud” said Feinberg. They don’t truly use it, but if they move it they have to buy it. How do they do it and how much will it cost?” This lack of understanding prior to the project can mean spending on underutilized resources, including capacity.
In the end, though, it isn’t a process or an IT challenge — it’s people. Does the team responsible for the implementation have the skills, or are they expected to develop them on the fly? Business leaders might be tempted to have their employees learn on the job to develop the expertise, but the complexity can be overwhelming. “If you start with the ‘why’ of business outcomes, then look at the overall challenges, and if you have the right partner who is aligned with your challenges and needs, then you’re golden,” said Ramkarran.
“Assessment is a crucial first step for organizations,” Feinberg said. “The trick is identifying the different workloads and establishing the priorities of what to address — and where to start.” A phased migration that is thoughtfully planned won’t incur unnecessary complexity and cost. “If there are SaaS providers out there that have a particular function, then maybe we don’t need to (re)build that infrastructure. The goal is to get out of the data-center game.”
Ramkarran points out that legacy systems can be the biggest blocker next to security. “There is so much sprawl, and it’s too hard to maintain.” Plus, there are likely pockets of business groups in many companies that have already experimented with moving smaller, lower-risk workloads to the cloud, ones that must be managed and centralized. The tendency is to be driven by deadlines and impending purchase cycles and renewals, thus, pushing smaller applications quickly to the cloud first, but ultimately everything must go. And this is where the resistance comes from on the heavy lift items, “Because IT personnel may be hesitant to move platforms just for the sake of change, and given the way their jobs may change, they need to be comfortable with it, too,” he said.
Both Ramkarran and Feinberg agree that laying out the plan with a compatible cloud partner will help staff get past initial objections and cultural issues. A comprehensive assessment will clarify budget constraints and savings opportunities, mitigate risks, and enable an organization to address any legacy environments. But the greatest advantage is having a team of trained professionals ready to jump in and help understand why certain choices should be made and how to optimize an implementation for the smoothest possible migration.
Subject Matter Experts Interviewed:
Miles Feinberg, VP Service Development, Synoptek – LinkedIn Bio
Are you considering migrating to the Cloud, but not sure where to start? Speak with our experts, give us a call 888-796-6783 or Contact Us here.
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