Mobilisation and the Cloud Center of Excellence

If the migration to the AWS Cloud is to succeed, the migration team must explore two aspects in more depth during the mobilisation phase: iteration of the migration plan and the impact of the migration on the company’s culture. The Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE), which a company has to establish internally in order to significantly influence the success of the migration, plays an important role here.

There are several good reasons for taking an iterative approach to an AWS migration. Because the migration team is constantly learning, it can incorporate this new knowledge into each new iteration. By becoming more familiar with the strategies, it may eventually find that some riskier options are feasible. The IT landscape will most likely change as well. For example, a particular service can be given the go-ahead from a security standpoint, meaning that it becomes a realistic option. Or the financial department may decide that it is more economical to procure a series of applications from a third party instead of developing them independently. In short, the iterative process increases the chances of planning the migration more efficiently and precisely.

‘The iterative approach enables a company’s teams to solve problems. Starting with a raw layout, we discuss what a good solution might look like, work out a draft, continue developing it and come to an agreement. In the process, the team learns and builds knowledge. At the same time, the fear of seemingly overwhelming tasks disappears – because you have already experienced the success of tackling big tasks of a similar magnitude. This greatly boosts confidence in taking the next steps.’

Tristan Woerth, Cloud Architect at Swisscom

The Cloud Center of Excellence drives the migration process

During the second phase, the AWS Migration Acceleration Program focuses heavily on the topic of ‘people, skills, cultural change and leadership’. Migrating to the cloud will have a significant impact on the company’s culture – as it should. After all, a cultural shift will enable a company to reap more benefits from the cloud. Existing work processes and types of cooperation must be updated. Otherwise, they will create huge roadblocks for important projects. The new kinds of cooperation, in turn, push the migration forwards – an interaction that is crucial to success.

Establishing a Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE) is essential for this. The Excellence team helps the company navigate the many challenges it will encounter along the way until it has completed the migration successfully. The CCoE is where the rules of the migration process are documented, perfected and maintained. In the long term, the team takes responsibility for centrally documenting the decisions made in all areas with respect to a whole range of issues. It also works proactively to ensure managers are feeling good about the cloud migration.

Relax and celebrate the first experiences

At the end of the mobilisation phase, the company’s employees will be familiar with the technical as well as business aspects of the cloud. The company will have celebrated the rollout of around a dozen pilot applications that will now be running productively in the cloud. It will have a solid but flexible governance model that is maintained by an internal team that is committed to long-term success. Managers are onboarded during the mobilisation phase. Like the Cloud Center of Excellence, they are also part of the team that drives the project forward internally.

Reflecting on the mobilisation phase, the team members will probably realise that the process may have sometimes felt like an arduous mountain climb due to its steep learning curve. However, the experiences gained in the process will be invaluable.

‘During every migration project, we see that customers are confronted with an incredibly steep learning curve. This means that we will push employees’ limits. By working within a well-defined framework, we can test these limits while staying on the safe side. There is no point in pushing people to their breaking point. At the end of this phase, it’s nice to see how proud the employees are of what they have achieved – and how they have done things they never would have felt comfortable doing before.’

Tristan Woerth, Cloud Architect at Swisscom

Close element

Next article in the AWS Cloud series

Reaping the rewards of a methodical approach – migrate and modernise!

Using the ‘factory approach’ and the Cloud Migration Tool allows companies to effectively plan the process of migrating data to the cloud.

Read more

Find out more about migrating to the AWS Cloud