Transformation to cloud: assessment imperatives

Transcription

1 wipro.com Transformation to cloud: assessment imperatives Microsoft Application Services

2 Cloud technologies form the foundation of digital platforms in enterprises, with its faster, agile, automatable scaling characteristics. Enterprises start the Cloud adoption journey with a portfolio assessment, aiming to understand cost savings, with a set of quick wins, and experiments. In this process, the elasticity of Cloud (on demand scaling of infra/ applications) does not make it in the priorities. The two Cloud strategies top-down and bottom-up vary in accurately forecasting benefits of Cloud. The skewed expectation on top-down strategy is to model minute details of benefits, whereas the bottom-up strategy is prone to insufficient parameters to assess portfolio. How to look at large portfolio for Cloud? There are conflicting perspectives for portfolio assessment by infrastructure, application development managers and executive team. The below table looks at these viewpoints, assuming thousands of applications and servers in the portfolio. 2

3 Viewpoints on portfolio applications and servers Viewpoint Stakeholder Expectation #Servers to Cloud Infrastructure Director #Virtual Servers on to Cloud #Applications to Cloud Application Development Director Application categorization Cloud Subscriptions and Consumption Cloud Provider Ecosystem Digitalization using Cloud Cloud Strategist Cloud Strategist Business Technology Strategy Officer Elevate License Vs Consumption Comparison of Cloud Providers and Platforms Innovative go-to-market Applications Cloud based DevOps Development/Operations Director Automated Provisioning of Cloud Dev/Test On Cloud Development Director Dev Environments in Cloud SaaS Integration Business Chief SaaS Integration of services Benefits (ROI, TCO Reduction, Bi-modal strategy) Executive Team Tangibility of benefits Cloud vendors and service providers bring additional perspectives on the enterprise portfolio, based on their level of engagement. Vendor and service provider s perspectives on enterprise cloud portfolio Viewpoint License and Consumption Forecast Monetization of architectural Elements Adherence of architectures to Stakeholder Cloud Provider Cloud Provider Cloud Provider Expectation Maximize Cloud consumption Maximize Architecture elements Minimize risks of architecture Quick-Wins Cross-linkage of architecture elements Full Replacement with SaaS Migrations (App, Data, Storage) Service Integrator Service Integrator Cloud Provider (SaaS) Service Integrator Create Cloud Momentum Provide value in Cloud Maximize tenant adoption Create business value These perspectives are distracting in a traditional assessment of portfolio. 3

4 Traditional Assessment When companies execute Application Portfolio Rationalization, the objectives are beyond Cloud assessment, and does not address the divergent of viewpoints. The approaches of performing traditional Cloud assessment are: Approach Server-Centric Moving server by Server Method Application-Centric Business-Centric Proof-of-Concept(PoC) SaaS Evaluation Cloud Provider Centric Migrate applications to Cloud Cloud as part Digital Assessment of select legacy applications Evaluation of SaaS products to replace business applications Relationship driven assessment with provider perspective In particular, the Server-centric approach (listed first in the table) is preferred by Enterprises because of its measurability ; i.e. - the metrics and KPIs are easy to report. The infrastructure team, that owns end of life programs, uses this approach with native skills and processes. The parameters in server-centric assessment are: - Virtualization status - Environment (Prod, Test, Dev) - Ability to tether applications with tools - Topology - Data Movement Patterns - Compliance of Cloud platform The Application-centric assessment calls for clarity of methodology and the KPIs are complex to measure. The application dependencies create complexity between servers, applications and other elements such as ownership. It is not uncommon to see orphaned applications in Enterprises. The parameters of assessment of Applications are: - Application Architecture - Application Impact Points for Cloud - Topology - Database/Data Migrations - Application/Data Compliance - Application Complexity To contain risks, Automation is important, and traditional assessment covers it partially, with parameters such as: - Coverage of the tools - Efficiency - Cost & Support - Testability The challenges of assessing impact points for application architecture include many definitions of complexity of the as-is architecture (not the to-be ones) conducted by disparate groups. Other assessment methods such as Business Centric, PoC Centric, SaaS Vendor centric, and Cloud Provider centric contribute different outcomes to the overall assessment. 4

5 Need for a Newer Methodology The divergence of viewpoints makes the Enterprises carry out multiple cycles of strategic evaluations of Cloud. A newer methodology is required for stakeholders to set consistent priorities and this discussion - Infrastructure Directors - Applications Directors - Businesses - Advisors, Vendors, Providers The initiative calls for not only revamping the traditional way of looking at the portfolio, but also each organization. Enterprise) - Reference Architecture(s) - Tools Guidance - Integrated Consumption Model (License, Operations) - Assessment Methodology instrument to be invested upon by each enterprise, groups, with parameters and guidance. The categories of stakeholders who need to be brought in a cohesive initiative are: Parameter Portfolio Complexity Factor (break-up per group) Business Disruption Factor Skills forecast ROI and Break-Even Analyses Architecture Factor Partnerships Factor Delivery Capability Factor Objective Business Disruption consolidated across units Enterprise resource readiness Investment modelling Future-ready architecture Vendor, Provider partnerships Enterprise, partner deliver readiness and optimization Compliance Factor Risks/Pitfalls Factor Indicator of common pitfalls and their dependencies on Several types of BCM can be created; however, it is important to have one model adopted across the enterprise. 5

6 Artefact 2: Reference Architectures Finite set of Cloud Architecture Blueprints address the gap of assessing without architectures, and the blueprints evolve as the assessment progresses. Parameter Ability to assess apps against Architecture alignment with Objective The blueprints should have IaaS, PaaS, SaaS architecture mixture This will help ruling out irrelevant Cloud architectures Provider Agnosticism Tools Agnosticism Qualifying for Technology Migrations Processes Alignment Impact Points Alignment Industry standards & compliance Viability for technology and data migrations Align with process regulations Consistent impact points for architecture (including Infra) Architecture to align with industry standards and regulatory compliance The distributed assessment teams will have reference-able architectures with consistent impact points, reducing unwanted cycles of re-assessments. Artefact 3: Tools Guidance A coherent view of required Cloud (and migration) tools speeds up adoption and time-consuming to a standard mechanism (even self-service) knowledgebase of tools. Artefact 4: Integrated Consumption Model consumption model is required to understand the Cloud consumption patterns and practices across groups. This model addresses the varied set of Cloud providers and their licensing contracts that the regulatory compliance risks and technical risks. This discussion recommends a convergent enterprise platform than implementing platforms by vendors in the area of consumption monitoring. The tools guidance is partly dependent on the reference architectures proposed for assessment. 6

7 Artefact 5: Assessment Methodology A convergent methodology helps comparable categorization and inferences, to arrive at accurate outcome. Parameter Cloud Impact Points Objective Impact points refers to a set of application parameters that gets impacted when moved to Cloud. The same set of impact points and the enterprise Source Data Structure Gold list Data Structure From numerous sources, need to unearth and store the application metadata in a uniform structure Course-of-action Dependency Resolutions Estimations The course of action arrived with convergent algorithm and analysis Consistent resolution of the intra-application and infra-app dependencies Groups use same estimation parameters Conclusion About the Author The challenges of having different perceptions on Cloud and its variations, added by the diverse methods of arriving at an adoption pattern, have not been addressed in a cohesive way in enterprises yet. The convergence initiative and the methods discussed in this paper is an attempt to address these challenges. The convergence initiative looks at a newer way of assessing a portfolio of legacy applications, also looking at need for a more coherent Cloud directive. in this paper in ways of orchestrating the individual groups, practices and tools, and over mechanism as well. Praveen Kodikkambrath Head Presales BAS Microsoft Application Services Praveen is a Practice Head and Principal Architect with Microsoft Practice, Business Application Services, at Wipro Limited. He brings with him 19+ years of experience in development, consulting, delivery, sales & pre-sales, go-to-market activities, CxO and Analyst interactions, Innovation and marketing. His area of expertise has been Application Estate Transformation. He has built transformation services to scale, including management of services & strategy, customer accounts, solutions development, delivery and management of associated people structures. He has pioneered a productized solution that addresses all transformation requirements across Microsoft technologies (SharePoint, BizTalk, Dynamics and Azure) At Wipro, Praveen handles GTM for Microsoft Application business. 7

8 About Wipro Limited Doddakannelli, Sarjapur Road, Bangalore , India Tel: +91 (80) Fax: +91 (80) wipro.com Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: , NSE: WIPRO) is a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company. We harness the power of cognitive computing, hyper-automation, robotics, cloud, analytics and emerging technologies to help our clients adapt to the digital world and make them successful. A company recognized globally for its comprehensive portfolio of services, strong commitment to sustainability and good corporate citizenship, we have a dedicated workforce of over 170,000, serving clients across six continents. Together, we discover ideas and connect the dots to build a better and a bold new future. For more information, please write to us at info@wipro.com IND/BRD/MAY 2017-APR 2018