Cloud Migration

How to Think With the End in Mind for Cloud Migration

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I remember reading the book, “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill. One “law” that always stuck in my head was related to goal setting:

“Think with the end in mind.”

In short, this law stipulates that the focus of any successful task is the condition at its ending. It ensures that the correct actions are taken in real-time as your mindset is directed subconsciously to actions that best assure you accomplish your chosen outcome.

Which brings me to my point:

THIS TYPE OF FOCUS HELPS IN THE CLOUD MIGRATION PROCESS.

I will now speak from experience.

As I have implemented this mindset in my cloud migration activities, it has helped a lot. When you face decisions on what technology to use, it helps to keep the primary objective in mind.

Answers become much clearer and arise more quickly when you think this way. You can quickly evaluate the options and decide which is best suited for the stated goal. Further, you ask questions such as:

• Which option gets the project to the goal the quickest?
• Which choice has the best chance of bringing the project to the stated goal?
• How soon can we start executing the options?
• Which option(s) are low cost (can be paid for using already-established accounting)?

With these specific questions and objectives in mind, the answers are much clearer, and you can make decisions much faster.

In summation, think with the end in mind . . . it will make the cloud migration process faster and more (positively) impactful.

What Is Meant by “Cloud Migration Triggers”?

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In a previous post, you learned that the two main reasons a cloud migration is initiated are to improve performance and/or to reduce costs. While this is true, cloud migration is not a regular discussion for the bulk of Information Technology departments within enterprises worldwide.

While this topic is discussed more often than five years ago, it’s not as common as discussions about server decommissioning or system patching. So, it’s not common, just more common than usual (now say that ten times fast … No prize, sorry).

These conversations are more likely to happen after a trigger event. Basically, they take place after events that open the cloud as a potential solution. Common events that can lead to discussions about cloud migration are called ‘cloud migration triggers’.

Cloud migration triggers are the events that are likely to happen to an enterprise, which will commonly lead to a discussion about cloud migration as a solution to the issue(s) at hand.

So, what are some of these ‘cloud migration triggers’?

Some of those triggers are:

  1. Threats to the security of computers and computing resources
  2. Need for the ability to quickly scale up/down for the needs of specific applications/data sets
  3. Cost concerns, aka reductions of the going-forward budget
  4. Needs for redundancy of data sets or computational power across multiple geographies
  5. Options for avoiding renewal of datacenter contracts (e.g., the renewal comes with a substantial increase in cost for similar services)

What will happen is that one or more of the above will become a trigger for the enterprise. As a result, the company will start having internal discussions about the cloud being a possible solution to the problem(s). So, in short, cloud migration triggers are common situations that lead to a discussion about moving a company’s computer-related assets to the cloud.

What Is Meant by “The Migration Is Not Done Once All the Servers Are Migrated”?

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Congratulations!

You have migrated the last of the servers from the datacenter into Azure VMware Solution’s Azure Private Cloud. You can see all of the migrated VMware guests listed on the new vSphere instance with three ‘virtual’ hosts load-balancing the full load of all servers that have been migrated (for now, let’s say you migrated a total of ten virtual machines). The servers are all running without operational issues in the AVS vSphere. Furthermore, you don’t see any alerts in the details tabs.

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU ARE NOT DONE!

WHAT?
WHAT GIVES?!

For anyone who plans to move into cloud migration engineering or architecture, please keep the following phase locked into your memory: “THE MIGRATION IS NOT DONE, JUST BECAUSE ALL THE SERVERS ARE MIGRATED.”

…let me explain.

Yes, getting the physical servers migrated is a major accomplishment! You should feel like a load has been lifted off of your back. However, do not be tempted to think you’ve completed your migration work just because the servers are up and running in the new environment.

Here’s the key: the migration is done when the clients are operational in the new environment.

The difference is the presence of post-migration workloads. Once the servers and related infrastructure are migrated and tested while working, you have to ensure the clients can get to the new location and that the testing results align with pre-migration results.

Specifically, the migration is done when the clients are working the way they used to before migration into the new environment with few changes to the overall work approach and execution.

Remember, we are migration engineers and architects who work to serve the clients’ needs (company, customers, etc.). IT’S ONLY WHEN THE END-USERS ARE WORKING ‘NORMALLY’ IN THE NEW ENVIRONMENT THAT WE CAN START TO CONSIDER THE CLOSURE OF THE PROJECT WITH SUCCESS.

…NEVER forget the above.