Due Diligence Is The Cornerstone Of Public Cloud Migration Success

Transcription

1 Due Diligence Is The Cornerstone Of Public Cloud Migration Success Improve Migration Results Through Discovery And Planning GET STARTED

2 Overview Cloud adoption continues to gain momentum, but organizations are finding limited success in their cloud migrations to date. The reason? Poor organizational planning and inaccurate cost estimates during discovery and planning can stymie success before the migration even begins. Organizations must re-evaluate what they are doing before they begin their migration, or success may prove elusive during it. This CloudHealth Technologies-commissioned profile of US IT decision makers at firms that are currently migrating or have migrated workloads to public cloud platforms investigates common strategies and challenges associated with public cloud migration in order to identify what organizations can do during discovery and planning to ensure a successful migration. Demographics Demographics Demographics Demographics Geography Company size Title Workload migration status US: 100% 20,000 or more: 19% 5,000 to 19,999: 31% 1,000 to 4,999: 50% C-level or VP: 30% Director: 28% Manager: 42% Currently migrating: 77% Already migrated: 23%

3 The Future Of Cloud Strategy Is Hybrid Public cloud adoption continues to accelerate as organizations migrate existing applications to the cloud and build net-new applications in the cloud to capitalize on benefits like improved infrastructure flexibility and cost savings. Forrester s Business Technographics Global Infrastructure Survey 2016 shows that onethird of North American firms have adopted public cloud today, with an additional 13% planning to in But as cloud maturity increases, organizations realize that cloud is not a one-size-fits-all solution, and that multiple cloud deployment types are needed to best handle different workloads and satisfy business expectations. Forrester s data shows that using multiple deployment types is a top priority for most organizations. In fact, 68% of firms that have adopted public cloud say that they are pursuing a hybrid strategy. A hybrid and multicloud strategy requires a systematic approach in order to continually assess applications and identify the best fit platform and architecture. Complete and comprehensive workload profiles during the discovery and planning phase are critical to optimize costs, maximize benefits, and ensure the overall success of cloud migration.

4 1 2 3 Less Than Half Of Firms Report Public Cloud Migration As Successful Many firms aggressively prioritize cloud services under the expectation of improved performance and cost reduction. However, less than half of firms migrating workloads to IaaS thought that their most recent migration met or exceeded most of their goals a scary figure if you are the one responsible for reporting the results of your migration to the CEO. Our survey shows that firms find the following aspects of their migration particularly difficult: Costs. Less than 40% of firms met or exceeded most of the goals related to both migration and run costs. Business satisfaction. Only 41% of firms met or exceeded most goals related to business satisfaction Public cloud migration is not easy: Less than half of respondents (43%) considered their most recent migration to public cloud as a success overall.

5 1 2 3 Firms Struggle To Accurately Forecast Cloud Migration And Operational Costs A major component of dissatisfaction with public cloud migration is cost complexity. Cloud platforms promise greater agility and flexibility using dynamic cost structures to align spend with usage. While this pay-per-use model has the potential to curb spend on transient workloads, unpredictable user patterns translate to unpredictable costs. As a result, Less than 40% of firms were able to predict cloud platform costs, with 58% claiming run costs were higher than estimated. Firms also underestimated nonplatform costs associated with running and maintaining service quality on a public cloud. Costs tend to be higher than expected: Most firms today underestimate costs associated with cloud usage and migration.

6 1 2 3 Lack Of Organizational Readiness Stymies Success Both During And After Migration In addition to costs, organizations struggle against legacy processes and from lack of internal support and skills. During migration, firms struggled to secure approval from the security and financial stakeholders, and after migration, organizations took a productivity hit, underestimating developer hours required for app redesign and time spent on staff retraining. Compounding these challenges, less than a quarter of respondents involve their security and AppDev teams in cloud migration planning. Firms must collaborate across all stakeholders in order to properly realign processes and skills to support cloud usage. Unprepared organizations struggle to leverage the benefits of public cloud: Firms struggle to close the skills gap introduced by cloud, citing the difficulty of properly training staff both during and after migration. Base: 108 US IT decision makers responsible for public cloud (IaaS) strategy at firms migrating workloads to public cloud IaaS Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of CloudHealth Technologies, April 2017

7 1 2 Migration Success Requires Deep Understanding Of Workloads And Interdependencies Today s cloud migration complexity means hidden dangers lurk in the form of costs to rework applications for cloud infrastructure and escalating costs from apps that are not optimized to run on cloud platforms. To ensure a successful cloud migration, firms must make sure they take the time in discovery and planning to identify what workloads would run best in public cloud and understand the interdependencies between the apps that are migrating. But these things are easier said than done. In particular, organizations struggle with workload dependency mapping 69% of survey respondents say this is challenging or very challenging. Incomplete workload assessments invalidate cost projections: 63% of firms struggled with app profiling, adding to uncertainty of cost estimates given the relationship between workload patterns and platform costs.

8 1 2 Firms Invest In Visibility And Education To Improve Migration Success For most organizations, cloud migration is not a one-time affair and is often part of an ongoing modernization initiative. Not only do appcentric strategies require upfront profiling, but continuous migration assessments are required as architectures shift, apps reach end of life, and new services are built. With each successive migration, firms must learn from their prior challenges in order to increase the success of future projects. In order to improve the outcome, during the discovery and planning phase firms should strive to: Increase visibility, education, and time spent on application profiling to ensure performance, organizational competence, and cost optimization during and after cloud migration. Involve more business stakeholders in order to realign security and budgeting processes for a cloud-first mandate. Continuous improvement requires continuous feedback: While 69% of firms claimed to leverage cost modeling and scenario analysis tools, 46% of firms require additional tools to increase performance visibility.

9 Conclusions Cloud migration should not be thought of as a one-time project, but a continuous process that requires thoughtful re-assessment and re-alignment to maximize the potential value of cloud. For most organizations: Cloud migration is not easy, and most struggle to achieve all stated goals Cost complexity is the largest source of confusion and misaligned expectations Greater visibility will improve success: Not only will increased visibility help to optimize performance and cost, but holistic information serves as a collaboration point across stakeholders Due diligence in the discovery and planning phases are critical to identify the best fit workloads and prepare the organization for this transition METHODOLOGY This Technology Adoption Profile was commissioned by CloudHealth Technologies. To create this profile, we leveraged Forrester s Global Business Technographics Infrastructure Survey, 2016 and surveyed 108 IT decision makers responsible for public cloud (IaaS) strategy. The custom survey was completed in April For more information on Forrester s data panel and Tech Industry Consulting services, visit Forrester.com. ABOUT FORRESTER CONSULTING Forrester Consulting provides independent and objective research-based consulting to help leaders succeed in their organizations. Ranging in scope from a short strategy session to custom projects, Forrester s Consulting services connect you directly with research analysts who apply expert insight to your specific business challenges. For more information, visit forrester.com/consulting. Project Director Andrew Magarie Senior Market Impact Consultant 2017, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. Forrester, Technographics, Forrester Wave, RoleView, TechRadar, and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. For additional information, go to forrester.com. [1-11OWNY8]