Bring your cloud migration to life

A post by Soheil Neghabani, managing director, Google Cloud alliance resell lead, Deloitte Consulting LLP

Cloud adoption continues to accelerate in the US. According to Zippia, “as of 2022, 60% of all corporate data is stored in the cloud. That’s double what it was less than a decade ago, in 2015, when only 30% of all corporate data was stored on the cloud.”¹ This rapid deployment speaks to the need for organizations to control costs, enable new technologies, improve interoperability, and shore up security and compliance

In my last post, I discussed how to evaluate whether you are ready to go to the Cloud. The next step in the transformation journey is to look at making the move with the development of a migration plan.  Afterall, your strategy and assessment findings will go out the door if the build processes decided upon are not implemented correctly.

Let’s look at the second step in the cloud migration journey: design and planning. During this phase, I will examine what strategies, tools, and decisions you may need to make for this part of the deployment. And how you can be supported by an MSP during the process.

#1 Cloud deployment model

Where will your infrastructure reside and who will have control over it? Cloud deployment is offered in three methods: private, public, and hybrid with each offering different security, control, and management levels.

• Private: in-house and on-premises. Resources are shared internally among gated users for a high-level of control and security for sensitive data.
• Public: service provided, managed, and maintained off-site and delivered via the internet (e.g., Google Cloud). This method allows for streamlined workflows and collaboration, creating greater efficiency in resource workloads.
• Multi-cloud: utilizes a combination of clouds. This method blends two or more clouds of the same type (two or more public OR two or more private). In this instance, different clouds are used for different tasks which can enhance risk management, create automation efficiencies, and tailor business requirements with the strongest service provider.
• Hybrid: a mixed computing, storage, and services environment made up of on-premises infrastructure, private cloud services, and a public cloud. In order to be a hybrid cloud, there should always be at least one private cloud component. The benefits of hybrid cloud include improved performance and reduced latency, flexible operations, and effective application governance.

Based on your findings during the assessment and strategy phase, an MSP can provide insights into which deployment model might best suit your needs. The depth of historical knowledge from the MSP can allow them to see potential pitfalls or unrealized benefits of using a particular deployment model.

#2 Cloud infrastructure

Earlier in the journey you mapped out a high-level application architecture for the most important pathways in your cloud—think of that as your organization’s interstate highway system. Now, the full-scale architecture will fill in the “street map” that details the connection points between the cloud and the business it serves.

A scalable, modular, secure configuration is a starting point for building out the capabilities of your new cloud architecture. This plan and design process should take into consideration organization account setup, identity, and access management (IAM), and network. It should also be designed with compliance in mind— security configurations should be included that meet your regulation, compliance and audit needs now and in the future. That’s a lot, right? Well, you don’t have to go it alone. An MSP can help with the process and provide visibility into product roadmaps, upcoming product releases, early product release and Alpha / Beta product availabilities that might be beneficial to your organization. An MSP can also provide the necessary guidance for establishing your security controls and make sure that your assets are secure throughout the cloud migration process.

Keep in mind, this is a detailed and complex process and trying to complete all the required infrastructure steps without help is likely to lengthen the timeline and increase costs. This is your organization’s critical infrastructure—working with an MSP can help you build the cloud environment correctly the first time—ultimately saving you time and money.

#3 Data

As you consider your application migration process, also keep in mind the portability of data. How much data is currently associated with each application? Where is it stored? What is the update frequency? Is there disaster recovery in place? An MSP can assist you with solutions that will keep your application data safe and synchronized throughout the migration process.

#4 Migration Tools

You’ve created an architecture for your new cloud array of applications and functions. You’ve identified what will migrate and how. Now it’s time to get it done. Carrying out the migration will likely involve a combination of contributions: tools from your cloud provider and ones from third parties dedicated to specific functions. When selecting the best tools for your workloads, consider the following:

• Agent or Agent-less solution: Does an agent need to be installed on each application and / or in your cloud-target? If yes, determine the amount of time to install and remove.
• Testing: What solutions are offered to test before migration?
• Migration: Does the tool migrate applications and data or only one?
• Monitoring: What tracking is in place?
• Customization: Can the tool automatically adapt the application, or will manual configurations need to be made?
• Cutover: What happens once you are ready to switch completely to the Cloud?
• Rollback: Can you revert the application?

An MSP can assist you in identifying the requirements and capabilities related to a tool and help you evaluate whether a tool is a right fit for your migration. Most MSP’s also have their own specific tools that can assist with the cloud migration process.

#5 Testing

Ideally, all your apps would arrive in their new cloud homes without a hitch and ready to perform. In reality, you should test each to make sure—in a defined way that you can apply not only at first, but later as other migration phases roll out. There are different ways to approach testing: A smoke test is a quick way to test at a high level for simple issues. A functional test dives deeper into simulated business operations to make sure the app is delivering the services it’s supposed to. And acceptance testing brings actual users in to put the app through its paces. In many cases, a new migration will call on a combination of these methods. An MSP can assist with the testing process, while also verifying that the cloud system has met all your business requirements.

Putting it all together

With all the elements of the plan in place, it’s time to pull the switch and make the migration real. It’s important to keep detailed documentation of the decisions and implementations that take place, because that information will contain guidance, establish standards, and provide the answers to many questions that arise down the road. And if not already considered, reach out to an MSP for ongoing support with monitoring, backup automation, cloud firewall management, and security needs. While you can go it alone with your cloud provider, consider lightning your load by working with an MSP that can work side-by-side with you to build, manage, operate, and nurture your environment.

Interested in exploring additional insights on your options and the value that can come with a more strategic approach to cloud services?

¹Flynn, Jack, “25 Amazing Cloud Adoption Statistics [2022],” Zippia, Inc., May 23, 2022.