Migrating to the cloud is an important decision for any business, and the process requires careful consideration and planning. However, with the right approach and tools, you can ensure that your business is prepared for the cloud and that the transition is successful. A cloud readiness assessment is an essential first step that can provide a solid footing before moving forward with plans. In this blog post, we’ll discuss the purpose of a cloud readiness assessment and provide a step-by-step guide for determining your cloud readiness.
A cloud readiness assessment is a comprehensive review of your systems and processes. It helps identify potential weaknesses or issues that could impact your transition to the cloud and provides a detailed roadmap for successful cloud adoption. The assessment looks at your organization’s existing infrastructure, applications, and data, as well as your security policies and compliance requirements. It also helps you estimate the costs associated with the migration and identify potential cost savings. Finally, a cloud readiness assessment evaluates your staff’s technical skills and IT processes to ensure a smooth transition and successful implementation.
Here are the essential steps you should execute to assess your cloud readiness.
The first step in assessing your cloud readiness is understanding why you want to move to the cloud in the first place. What do you hope to accomplish by migrating to the cloud? Hopping on the cloud bandwagon, just for the sake of it, is a recipe for failure.
The most common business objectives for migrating to the cloud may include the following:
Whatever your objectives are, be sure they are well-defined, realistic and can be measured. Once you understand the business rationale behind switching to the cloud, you can determine what to move to the cloud.
Does your in-house team have the necessary skills to conduct a seamless cloud migration? Do they have the time and resources to invest in this project?
An inexperienced IT team or one with multiple competing priorities may cause significant delays to your cloud migration plan. To ensure minimal risk and guarantee best practices in testing, building and deployment and performance optimization, consider outsourcing to a Managed Cloud Service Provider.
Before you move to the cloud, getting a feel for what you’re moving is essential. Examine the applications you want to move and collect information on your storage, network, data collection, operating environment, and on-premise hardware. You will need to understand a host of things that include, but are not limited to:
After you assess your existing infrastructure, you can create a gap analysis. This exercise will determine what you do with each of your applications. While some apps will be retained, others must be re-hosted, refactored, re-platformed, or re-architected. A gap analysis will also give you an overview of potential issues with security, resilience, storage, maintenance, and cost of operation.
A critical step to your cloud readiness assessment involves taking a closer look at your current security protocols, regulations, and compliance standards and making a plan to implement them in your cloud environment. You must also understand how to apply different security protocols to different categories of data as necessary.
Cloud security requires a comprehensive approach to secure not only the application itself but the infrastructure it runs on. The top 5 effective cloud security measures include:
The next step in your cloud readiness assessment is estimating the total costs associated with cloud migration, including upfront costs and the total cost of ownership, as well as the timeline to complete it. This includes the estimated growth rate of your workload, infrastructure overhead and management requirements, usage per month, security requirements, and the cost of any training or support required. This assessment will help you determine if the cloud solution is within your budget and identify any hidden fees or time delays.
It’s also critical to determine if your organization is prepared to handle post-migration cloud operations. Some key questions to ask are:
If you do not have the time, resources or expertise to manage the cloud post-migration, it is best to consider a Cloud Managed Service Provider.
A cloud readiness assessment not only helps you gain a complete understanding of your current IT infrastructure and identify any possible migration challenges, but it also allows you to develop a detailed plan of action to help ensure a seamless transition.
