Modernization of applications and IT-systems can seem like a huge job, but with a good partner, you can do the modernization effectively and systematically. A way to accomplish modernization for the current set of applications and systems is to do a Cloud Migration project.

Enfo has the capabilities for and experience in Cloud Migration projects for hyperscalers such as Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services. We have ready methodologies that are aligned with the best practices (such as Cloud Adoption Framework) of these hyperscalers.

Cloud Migration begins by setting up a strategy: defining justifications and clarifying the expected business outcomes to ensure that expectations are known. When the expectations are clarified, an analysis will be done to gain a common understanding of which expectations are realistic and what it means for the project, applications and the organization itself.

It is crucial to make an action plan prior to starting the actual migrations. The skills of the organization and critical stakeholders must be understood and when needed, a plan must be made for competence development. Understanding the roles and responsibilities involved in building and running the cloud services and setting basic principles (see: Cloud Governance Model) for usage ensures that control of cloud usage is maintained while still enabling the freedom for a business to develop their services.

The migration begins with scoping and scope analysis. The workloads are assessed to validate readiness for migration, estimate costs and to find the most beneficial migration strategy. Understanding the criticalities, usage methods and limitations set by the business (such as cut-over periods) is a key part of the process. When low-hanging fruit is found, an accelerated approach to capitalize on these opportunities can be taken. At the same time, the low-hanging fruit will work as a pilot for the migration methodology.

The migration scope is then cut into migration groups – a selection of migration candidates that have a commonality such as relations between applications or common migration strategy. The migration groups are planned carefully to set out tasks for the migration itself, test procedures and develop a handover procedure for the operations.

The migration candidates are then migrated, tested (and if needed, rolled back) and moved to operations. Between different migration groups, it is vital to gather learned lessons to further develop and optimize the migration process.

No. It is important to optimize and transform cloud usage. With rehosted workloads, for example, an assessment of possible transformation to cloud-native services should be accomplished. Also, possibilities to right-size or reserve instances should be assessed to optimize costs.

In the end, with good planning and setting and addressing business expectations, the success rate of a cloud migration project is elevated. Having an experienced partner like Enfo is certainly beneficial.