Business can take a view that moving workloads to cloud seems like nirvana, but it is more nuanced than that.
They need to know what they are looking to achieve, what the application architecture looks like and the lifecycle of the application to understand what destination makes the most sense for workloads.
Moreover, they need to understand what the actual IT challenges are that the business is looking to solve and then choose the cloud destination appropriately.
So says Dave Funnell, manager: Cloud Provider at VMware, who will be presenting on "Connected clouds, public, private and hybrid: the ongoing evolution of cloud adoption", at ITWeb Cloud Summit 2019, to be held on 12 February, at The Forum in Bryanston.
According to Funnell, there are many examples where a decision has been made to migrate to cloud and then months later nothing seems to have happened, causing disillusionment.
Delivering services
Cloud shouldn't be seen as a destination but rather as a strategy, he says.
"The cloud needs to be seen as part of the strategy for delivering IT services and providing for an agile, flexible business, with decisions taking into account what services are to be delivered and the architecture for an application. This means businesses will end up using more than one cloud, and then understanding how they are going to manage a hybrid multi-cloud environment."
There are several things to consider before embarking on a cloud journey. "Firstly, the business should ask themselves why they are moving to the cloud, and what the IT issues are that they are hoping to solve, both tactically and strategically."
Next, they need to decide which cloud best fits their specific use case.
"Then there's the question of whether or not the application is efficient if you keep the architecture the same, and if existing applications are non-efficient, would it need to be refactored?"
Funnell says the organisation needs to consider the shift to a subscription model and which factors would impact this cost on a monthly basis, and look at the application lifecycle. "They need to think about performance SLAs and not just availability SLAs, and need to consider any governance implications, as well as the security of user and application data."
Delegates attending Funnell's talk will learn how to design an effective strategy for leveraging the cloud and as well as what pitfalls to avoid. They will also get an understanding of what services they should expect from a cloud service provider.
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