WHITEPAPER

5 QUESTIONS TO ASK
BEFORE CHARTING YOUR
COMPANY'S FUTURE IN
THE CLOUD
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5 QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE CHARTING YOUR COMPANY'S FUTURE IN THE CLOUD

Smart organizations around the world are evaluating the

right platforms and partners to help accelerate their
migration into the cloud. What is setting them apart from
those who are behind in the cloud race is the 5 key questions
they ask themselves, and the answers they seek.

Enterprises are increasingly moving business-critical systems

The 2017 Cloud Migration
into the cloud for the benefits digital transformation provides:
Survey Report by CloudEndure
enhanced customer relationships, empowered employees,
reveals that public cloud usage
streamlined operations, new business models, and innovation in
is set to grow 49%
products and services. Organizations that have traditionally used
year-over-year for the next 2
enterprise systems like SAP are making big gains from migration years in companies with more
to the Azure Cloud. The 2017 Cloud Migration Survey Report by than 1,000 employees.
CloudEndure reveals that public cloud usage is set to grow 49%
year-over-year for the next 2 years in companies with more than
1,000 employees. Organizations across business domains, all
over the world are evaluating platforms and partners to help
accelerate this cloud migration, often without asking themselves
these key questions. With the logical sense that the combination
of Microsoft and SAP makes to businesses, the transition to
Azure makes most sense for enterprises.

Why should I migrate to the cloud?

In the 2016 Deloitte study titled
There used to be a time when cost considerations were one of
‘Mastering the Migration’, 18%
the primary drivers of cloud migration, but this has changed. In
of federal business leaders
the 2016 Deloitte study titled ‘Mastering the Migration’, 18% of
polled said that business
federal business leaders polled said that business benefits were benefits were the primary
the primary driver for their migration decision, a higher number driver for their migration
than ever before. More companies are migrating to the cloud to decision, a higher number than
increase the productivity of their workforce. Typically, ever before.
productivity is increased by two key factors: not having to wait
for infrastructure, and having access to the breadth and depth of
infrastructure you would otherwise have to build and maintain.
In fact, it is common to see workforce productivity improvements
of 30-50% following a large migration to a public cloud. It
becomes a key differentiator in the marketplace when compared
to organizations that have not made the digital transformation.

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5 QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE CHARTING YOUR COMPANY'S FUTURE IN THE CLOUD

What are the steps to take before I begin Keep an eye out for other key
cloud migration? factors that can greatly impact
migration time and costs —
Successful cloud migrations require time and resources: for such as customizations made to
most organizations, the first battle is fought in the decision to legacy systems and information
embrace the cloud. Making this leap is a costly and architecture.
time-consuming process for today’s IT leaders. According to 2017
AvePoint report “Migrate, Manage, Protect”, nearly half of
organizations that migrated to the cloud took three to six
months to do so and 65% invested more than $50,000 on the
project. To avoid lengthy timelines and surprises like hidden
costs, take an inventory of all your data and interview primary
stakeholders or content owners. Third-party tools can help
organizations grasp how much data they have, but also keep an
eye out for other key factors that can greatly impact migration
time and costs — such as customizations made to legacy
systems and information architecture.

How do I decide what to migrate first?

Enterprises typically begin to contemplate how to migrate an

application during the second phase of the “Migration Process” — Migration should begin with
Portfolio Discovery and Planning. This is when you determine something on the
what’s in the environment, what are the interdependencies and low-complexity end of the
what’s going to be easy or hard to migrate. Using this knowledge, spectrum which will give you
an organization can outline a plan on how to approach migrating some immediate positive
each of the applications in the portfolio and in what order. The reinforcement as you apply the
complexity of migrating existing applications varies, depending learnings to more complex
on the architecture and existing licensing arrangements. The migrations.
approach should put a virtualized, service-oriented architecture
on the low-complexity end of the spectrum, and a monolithic
mainframe at the high-complexity end of the spectrum.
Migration should begin with something on the low-complexity
end of the spectrum which will give you some immediate
positive reinforcement as you apply the learnings to more
complex migrations.

Should I re-host or re-architect?

We find that many early cloud projects gravitate toward net new
development using cloud-native capabilities, but in a large legacy
migration scenario where the organization is looking to scale its
migration quickly to meet a business case, we find that the
majority of applications are rehosted. Re-imagining how the
application is architected and developed, typically using
cloud-native features. This is typically driven by a strong business

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5 QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE CHARTING YOUR COMPANY'S FUTURE IN THE CLOUD

need to add features, scale, or performance that would

otherwise be difficult to achieve in the application’s existing
environment. If you are looking to migrate from a monolithic
architecture to a service-oriented (or server-less) architecture to
boost agility or improve business continuity, you should go cloud
native.

How important is third party support in this

transition, and how do I choose a partner? By outsourcing cloud
management, IT departments
Managing cloud apps offset a lot of potential cost benefits can focus on initiatives that are
without third-party support. The biggest cost associated with closer to the core business
managing cloud-based productivity and collaboration apps is the goals of the company.
IT department’s time, according to the AvePoint report. Another
62% of IT professionals say the daily maintenance costs of cloud
platforms make up a quarter of their corporate IT budgets. Over
half the surveyed organizations contract a third-party software
and service provider to offset these costs. By outsourcing cloud
management, IT departments can focus on initiatives that are
closer to the core business goals of the company. For an
enterprise to overcome the on-premise hurdle by migrating an
SAP application, for instance, to Microsoft Azure, it would need a
partner who can enable the transition to a robust and flexible
cloud infrastructure platform which is already interoperable with
SAP.

In conclusion, as of late 2016, more than three-quarters of

organizations hosted up to half of their software applications in
the cloud. By 2020, this continued cloud shift will impact more
than $1 trillion in IT spending—particularly around application By 2020, this continued cloud
software and infrastructure, according to Gartner. At that point, shift will impact more than $1
the sore thumbs will be the organizations still clinging to trillion in IT
on-premises technology alone—rendering “no-cloud” policies as spending—particularly around
obsolete and out of touch as “no inter net” policies are application software and
considered today. infrastructure, according to
Gartner.

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5 QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE CHARTING YOUR COMPANY'S FUTURE IN THE CLOUD

About Brillio

Brillio is a global technology company focused on digital transformation.

We develop and deploy disruptive solutions that help our customers
compete better and capture business value faster. We take pride in
serving over 350 companies globally that include 15% of Fortune 100
and 10% of Fortune 500 companies. With more than 2,600 people
around the world across 10 locations, we can tackle any challenge. Brillio
is a SEI CMM level 5 ISO certified

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