Guide to Migrate to the Cloud: What, How and When
by Gerhard Bayer
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Description
Cloud Computing quickly became a must-have in our IT landscape, and simply stating you adopt the Cloud or risk falling behind your competition. For most Enterprises, however, moving to the Cloud is not as simple as for startup companies; established Enterprises are operating a complex IT environment and a comprehensive Cloud strategy needs to include approaches for migration.
This seminar addresses which IT systems could be migrated (on the application as well as infrastructure level, i.e. servers, storage and network), and which IT functions are typically considered low risk for Cloud migration. We will discuss how to plan the migration to an IaaS cloud and the choices of deployment models.
What does it take to migrate a legacy application to the Cloud? Not all legacy applications are good candidates. The seminar will provide a step by step approach to legacy migration and give insight into some of the tools that can help. Once we have migrated existing applications to the Cloud, or if we choose to replace them with SaaS applications, the question of integration becomes inevitable. Our enterprise backend systems typically have numerous touch points with other applications. Connecting them across the boundaries of Cloud and on-premise data centers is significantly more challenging than traditional integration behind the firewall. Add to that the requirements of business partners and mobile integration and we can quickly see why Gartner projects a 30% increase in integration cost over the next few years.
Migration to the Cloud is not just a technical issue; it also comes with organizational issues. We will discuss the challenges that IT as an organization faces, as well as the opportunities for accepting new IT roles and responsibilities.
Cloud Computing bears many dangers, for example the creation of shadow IT, the proliferation of virtual machines and uncontrolled cost, the proliferation of data that undermines the authority of a system of record, and many more. To assure successful migration to Cloud requires governance that defines and implements policies for the deployment and utilization of Cloud services. Migration to cloud doesn’t happen over night, it is a journey and requires a roadmap that shows how you get from where you are today into the Cloud.
Main Topics
- Overview of Cloud Computing
- What IT systems and IT functions to migrate and why
- Infrastructure migration to an IaaS Cloud
- Options and approaches for migrating legacy applications
- Integration
- Impact on the IT organization
- Governance