While lift and shift is a pragmatic first step, it's really just the beginning of your cloud journey. You'll still be running traditional workloads just in Azure's cloud. The bigger opportunities come in modernizing your applications and processes.
Modernizing for the Cloud With your systems running in Azure, you can now rearchitect applications to be truly cloud-native – decomposing monoliths into microservices, adding scalable NoSQL databases, orchestrating containers, leveraging serverless functions, and taking advantage of Azure's advanced services like AI, IoT, and more.
Start mapping out what this modern cloud environment could look like for your business:
Adopt cloud design patterns like event-driven or CQRS architectures
Break up monoliths into independently scalable microservices
Utilize managed database services like Cosmos DB
Build automated CI/CD pipelines for rapid iteration
Deploy containers at scale with AKS and containerize everything
Maximize cost-efficiency with consumption-based, auto-scaling models
Bring advanced services like AI, Analytics, and IoT online
It will likely be a multi-year transformation journey, but one that unlocks the full potential of cloud computing.
Financials and ROI Of course, there has to be a solid business case behind any cloud migration. Common ROI factors include:
Cost Savings
Reducing data center overhead and CapEx
Pay-as-you-go consumption model
Autoscaling to minimize idle resources
Productivity Gains
Self-service provisioning and automation
Focus engineering on innovation, not undifferentiated work
New Revenue
Accelerate product cycles and release cadences
Enable new digital products & business models
Risk Mitigation
Robust security, compliance, DR, and BCP
Distribute workloads across Azure's global footprint
Model out all expenses for compute, storage, networking, data transfers, and services. But also quantify softer benefits like opportunity costs, security/compliance obligations, and productivity gains. ROI timeframes of 12-36 months are common.
Challenges Of course, no cloud migration comes free of challenges and risks that must be considered:
Skills and Culture Shift
Significant learning curve for cloud technologies
Managing new operational and financial models
Change management and organizational resistance
Networking and Security
Identity and access management is very different
Data flows and networking across hybrid environments
Evolving shared responsibility security model
Application Complexity
Not all legacy apps easily modernize, need to re-platform
Data gravity challenges with large transactional datasets
Dependencies on non-cloud resources
Test extensively, automate relentlessly, and foster a DevOps culture of continuous learning.
The Skills Challenge Successfully operating in Azure's cloud requires modern engineering capabilities that could be new for your organization:
Cloud Architecture
Distributed systems design and cloud-native patterns
Infrastructure as code with ARM, Terraform, etc.
Cost optimization and consumption monitoring
DevOps
Source control and CI/CD automation
Configuration management and drift control
Monitoring, logging, and telemetry pipelines
Site Reliability
Incident response and chaos engineering
Performance tuning and scaling processes
Self-service deployment and GitOps workflows
Security and Governance
Policies and guardrails with Azure Blueprint
Encryption and key management
Authentication and Access controls
Data Management
Data storage patterns and data gravity planning
NoSQL and modern data platforms
Data pipelines and analytics workflows
While your existing ops and engineering teams can grow into these roles, it will likely require a mix of training and new hires for a comprehensive set of cloud skills.
Build Your Cloud Operating Model How you choose to build teams, processes, and responsibilities around Azure will determine how effectively you can leverage the cloud in the long run. Strong cloud operating models start with DevOps philosophies around automation, iterative development, and self-service.
Focus your teams around key cloud capabilities:
Core Cloud Platform and Azure Enablement
Application Development and DevOps
Cloud Security and Governance
Cost Optimization and FinOps
Data Engineering and Analytics
Bringing in third-party partners can also accelerate cloud adoption with proven templates and expertise to build upon.
Ultimately, a successful Azure cloud strategy stems from both a strong technical and organizational foundation. Up level your people, processes, and culture to be cloud-first, and Azure can be a potent catalyst for innovation.
8/20/2016
Sash Barige
Links
Cloud Strategy
Phase 1
Phase 2
Phase 3
Making it Happen
DevOps Rigor
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