Top 3 Considerations BEFORE Moving to Azure Cloud
Written By: Chris Langston
Learn what Enterprises Should Take into Consideration BEFORE Moving to Azure Cloud
In this short post I’ll briefly talk about three of the top items you should consider before moving to Azure cloud, not afterwards.
In my current role as an Azure Cloud Solution Architect, I have the opportunity to see the good and the bad of Azure implementations. Sometimes there is a fine line between what makes one implementation good or bad and sometimes it is glaringly obvious. When you have the opportunity to see all the various combinations on a frequent basis, some patterns start to appear.
Let’s touch on three common threads that I see typically jumping out on Azure Implementations:
- Not following established cloud adoption guidelines
- Failure to plan
- Assessing the capabilities of the current technical team
We will explore these three areas in detail below.
1. Not Following Established Cloud Adoption Guidelines
Fortunately, we do not have to re-invent the wheel and come up with our own proprietary guidelines. We can lean on the shoulders of the giant in the cloud industry — Microsoft.
Microsoft has produced an extremely thorough and extensive framework, appropriately named the “Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure.”
Microsoft considers this to be the “one Microsoft approach to cloud adoption in Azure.” First-hand experience has brought me to strongly agree with that statement.
The information is broad and extensive, covering areas such as:
- Strategy
- Readiness
- Innovations
- Management
- Planning
- Migration
- Governance
Covering all of these topics in this article is beyond scope, but let me strongly emphasize that you should not skip this step. Allocate adequate time to explore all these areas. By doing so, you’re going to be much more satisfied with your cloud adoption outcome.
Visit the link in I provided in the Additional Resources section below to navigate to this document.
2. Failure to Plan
When I was a child, I would help my dad build houses. He often used the expression “measure twice, cut once” when using lumber to hold up the roof and frame walls and when using sheet rock to cover the wires and insulation behind a wall.
If you don’t take your time to measure appropriately and you’re too short with a board, then it either is not going to fit or you’ll end up having to throw the board away and completely redo the cut. This can be costly in the building industry. This valuable lesson also applies in the software industry. If you don’t properly measure (or plan) before a cloud adoption project, it can end up costing you a lot of money.
The cloud plan should include:
- Inventory of your digital assets — All the applications, network infrastructure, security policies, and readiness plans teams have adopted
- Skills readiness — We will cover this in point 3 as it can’t be over emphasized
- Alignment of the organization — Answer the question “Is the organization at a point in time where it will support this effort from start to finish?” If this is your first time to the cloud, it will be a journey
Visit the link I provided in Additional Resources section below to access a template you can leverage to build out your plan.
3. Assess The Capabilities of Current Technical Team
No question about it, managing people is a challenge. The people aspect of the move to the cloud has to be addressed BEFORE you move.
Often there is a mixed reception by the technical team that ranges from excitement to fear. Let me address the fear aspect (fear is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that something dangerous is likely to happen or a threat).
When a team hears about moving their product to the cloud it’s often perceived as a way to eliminate jobs. Phrases are tossed around such as “This is going to help us reduce costs.” Cost reduction may be true, but without making and following your plan before the move to the cloud, it might turn out that the organization will not reduce costs.
I would advise that you use words and phrases that include “rapidly innovate, speed and agility, meet growth opportunities like you never thought possible” instead of speaking to cost reduction as a way to help reduce fears and concerns.
Addressing the current capabilities of the team has to be taken into account. The cloud is a new world. Each cloud vendor has a special word for their resources (e.g. App Services, Compute, Serverless, Cognitive Services, etc.).
Not only do they have to understand the concepts, they also have to learn and follow some best practice guidelines on such things as naming conventions, security, high availability, and cost considerations.
Getting up to speed on this is going to require dedicated time. If the current technical team is 100% heads down on existing feature work with no time to train and prepare, then you will not be happy with the outcome of the move to the Azure cloud (or any other cloud).
Specifically you need to determine the roles you need to fulfill including:
- Security
- Operations (DevOps is now more broadly used)
- Technical architects (both application and data)
Let me re-iterate, these roles and preparation should be done BEFORE you move to the cloud.
Conclusion
I hope this gives you a solid starting point of steps to follow as you begin your journey to the Azure cloud. Please make sure you’ve addressed these steps before you start, and not after when you’re in a fire-drill mode.
I understand the justifications that are often used as to why these steps are not followed but in the end, skipping these activities cost organizations much more in the longer run.
Additional Resources:
