Removing the Barriers to Cloud Adoption

When IT needs to plan, manage, and execute a cloud adoption strategy, they need to access many sources of information and collaborate with business owners. But removing barriers to cloud adoption is often a bigger challenge than the initiative itself.

As IT organizations grow, they amass a variety of tools, technologies and platforms. Some are project specific, such as cloud assessment, sizing, and monitoring tools. Others store data and track asset, application, and infrastructure data. Other systems monitor network traffic, application performance or security threats. Still other products are used to recover systems during outages, and migrate and move assets across hosting sites for cloud hosting.

Despite a full technology stack, the team tasked with planning and executing cloud migrations may still be working somewhat in the dark. They may not have access to all the tools and information needed to make decisions. And, often the data isn’t stored in tools at all and instead sits in the minds of business owners.

Without full visibility, questions arise, projects stall and friction grows between IT and business.

• Which applications should move to the cloud?
• Which are most critical to business, used most often, have performance, compliance, or security requirements that must be addressed?
• What about the systems each application depends on to run – are they on a current OS? In compliance with application requirements?
• Do they have hosting restrictions?
• Is the data we have access to current and accurate?
• Which systems rely on legacy systems and how does this impact a potential move to the cloud?
• What are the business goals and desired outcomes for cloud adoption – availability, scalability, security, innovation, realizing cost savings by reducing a data center footprint?
• What is the best way to move to the cloud – and which cloud? Should the easy workloads be moved first? Will there be app modernization done in parallel?

Checklist for End-to-End Cloud Migrations

Managing a cloud migration requires that IT and business work together at every step. They need shared access to a comprehensive, accurate, actionable set of data so decisions can be made confidently . They must be able to assess each application and its dependencies and identify a criteria for categorizing and assigning a disposition. And when it is time to migrate applications, teams need access to the tools that will accelerate the process, and eliminate risk.

1. See all the data you need – and only the data you need
Automated file import or direct API access ingests only the key data points needed from a variety of tools including CMDBs, DCIMs, as well as files and homegrown databases. Data is aggregated, deduped, normalized and then consolidated into an internal repository which can be accessed by any stakeholder.

2. Visualize your hybrid environment
See your entire IT landscape with an app-centric visual representation. Using an interactive map, project teams can easily identify application dependencies, and access key properties for every application, server, database, and other device.

3. Collaborate with a consistent view of data
When teams share access to the same data, better decisions are made and trust is developed across business silos. Incorporate critical business, compliance, and security requirements with each asset.

4. Group assets and plan migration events
Visually identify apps that meet business requirements and create groups of apps to move together. Easily see dependencies are accounted for during a migration so other systems are not brought down.

5. Automate workstreams
Dynamically create runbooks that sequence the precise order in which both human and automated tasks are executed, eliminating the risk of unplanned outages.

6. Manage tasks in real time
Track tasks at the individual, team, and project level. Each team member is able to access tasks in a queue, and only when the tasks preceding it have been completed. A color-coded, interactive task graph tracks multiple workstreams to track progress and prevent bottlenecks.

Watch this video and learn more about how your team can gain access to all the information needed — across different systems and silos — work with business owners to make better decisions, and move to the cloud without disrupting other services.