Convinced by the benefits of the cloud for your business, you've decided to take the plunge. Migrating your IT infrastructure or some of your applications requires a detailed plan. Each of our ten steps is of major importance to the success of your project.
The cloud can enhance your company's agility or optimize costs while boosting performance.
But the cloud can also prove to be a "ball and chain" if your migration project has not been sufficiently methodical and well thought-out. You need to ask yourself a lot of questions, and come up with answers that are relevant and adapted to your specific needs.
After all, every company is unique. You may need to adapt some of our ten key steps.
As we've just seen, you need to ask yourself a number of questions, the first of which is crucial: why does my company want or need to migrate to the cloud?
To answer this question, you need to understand and explain exactly why you need to transfer your IT infrastructure, or some of your applications, to the cloud. Is it to optimize costs, be more agile, strengthen your IT security?
By defining your goals and objectives, you'll have a clearer vision of the project, and help everyone involved to identify and understand what's at stake.
2# Assess your current situation
Before proceeding with the migration itself, you need to have an exhaustive vision of your IS and your costs. This step enables you to :
- Select the applications you want to migrate first: typically, you'll want to start with applications that are simple and "easy" to manage, or those that are "cloud native";
- Check your current infrastructure: an audit will give you a precise idea of the scope and scale of the migration. It's a good idea to take a close look at your current storage levels (and types), the volume of data you create and store (daily, monthly...), the databases you use, your percentage of downtime...
- Specify your current costs and resources: this concerns your physical servers, your dedicated maintenance staff, your hidden costs...
3# Select the right partner
As we explain in this article, migration involves a number of different steps. These processes are not always easy to understand or master. It is therefore advisable to be accompanied by a company specialized in this type of service. There are many such companies. To select the "right" partner, check the following points:
- The service provider's previous experience in migration projects;
- Types of customers he has worked with ;
- Certifications, etc.
4# Select cloud type
Public, private or hybrid? As we've explained in various articles, there are three main cloud families. Assessing your current situation - presented in our second step - will enable you to select the right environment for your needs.
5# Identify cloud-specific components
Once you've decided on the type of cloud, you'll need to determine the specific infrastructure components you'll need to maintain or improve the performance of your current IT infrastructure. In particular, ask yourself these questions:
- How much computing power do we need?
- What type of databases will you use to store your data?
- What kind of automation do you need to enable your developers to focus on value-added missions?
- Etc.
6# Choosing the right cloud provider for your migration
There are more and more of them. To select one in particular, go back to our first step and focus on your priority needs. You'll then be able to see which supplier offers you the most suitable solutions.
7# Planning the migration approach
The success of this type of project depends on perfect consistency between all the "bricks" and trades directly involved. The aim is for everyone to know exactly what they have to do, with deadlines and a gradual build-up (punctuated by tests). A "cloud migration" manager in each of the departments concerned is recommended to ensure perfect coordination.
8# Execute migration
You're now entering the realm of concrete project realization. Here too, it's important not to skip any steps:
- Back up your servers and data to maintain application availability during the migration process;
- Deploy the cloud environment: this involves provisioning, connecting and testing all components (storage, compute, database, security...);
- Migrate servers, data and applications: regardless of the order in which you choose to migrate, you'll need to spend some time configuring them;
- Validate and adjust the production environment: you need to check that all your data is present and secure. For their part, end-users of migrated applications need to check that all functionalities are accessible and operational...
9# Monitor the production environment
After a successful migration, tools and processes will need to be put in place to monitor the new environment in terms of security, reliability, costs...
In conclusion, migration is a long road that can hide traps, blind alleys, unforeseen obstacles... Its success requires the integration of all employees.
