Hurdles and help with cloud transformation

The road to the cloud is very different for every company, and it can be a process with many hurdles. But road maps are available in the form of Cloud Adoption Frameworks, so that companies do not stumble and lose their way during the transformation.

The goal is clear, but the way is completely open: A cloud strategy is on the agenda of pretty much every company these days. However, because every company is in a different place, the initial situation and therefore the journey to the cloud transformation is completely different. These are three of the scenarios that can be found in the real world:

• Hybrid infrastructure I: A large part of the applications run in the company’s own data centre. What’s more, SaaS offerings such as Microsoft 365 are in use.
• Hybrid infrastructure II: A large part of the applications run in the company’s own data centre. Some less business-critical applications have been moved to the public cloud or pilots are running.
• Multi-cloud: Most of the company’s applications run in its own data centre. SaaS offerings are also in use. What’s more, individual branches have implemented their own projects on several hyperscalers (Microsoft Azure, AWS, Google Cloud).

But not only the initial situation is different. Availability and security requirements and compliance regulations also differ between companies and industries. This makes it all the more important to have a guide that supports a strategic approach to cloud transformation.

Find the right way with a Cloud Adoption Framework

Are the above scenarios worthwhile? That depends. Maybe the steps were implemented based on a strategy. Or it “was simply done”. In cloud transformations as well, the first step is the most difficult: What goals is the company pursuing with this in the first place, and what are the requirements?

A Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) can help to clarify such questions. This is a collection of best practices for the individual steps of the entire cloud life cycle, from definition of the strategy to maintenance and further development of the cloud infrastructure. Such frameworks exist from the hyperscalers themselves, but also from Swisscom. The latter is provider-independent and therefore also includes an evaluation of the respective cloud provider. In general, a CAF can help to overcome the most common hurdles that stand in the way of transformation.

Hurdles with cloud transformation

The following three examples illustrate the specific hurdles that can be experienced and how a CAF can provide support. It turns out that the risk of stumbling increases when the human factor and strategic and organisational planning are neglected. However, these aspects are just as important for a successful cloud transformation as the technical implementation.

Example 1: Over-provisioning of cloud resources

Problem: For one company in the financial sector, cloud costs are constantly rising without any indication of an increase in usage. The applications are not only running with two different public cloud providers, but also partly on-premises in their own data centre. An overview of how and for what the cloud resources are being used is missing.

Cause: Based on the CAF, it was determined that the initial phases of the cloud transformation, such as defining the business objectives and the cloud operating model, had not been worked through. Governance was missing. This led to over-provisioning without a possibility to take corrective action and reduce reserve performance capacity to the actually desired level.

Example 2: Successful ransomware attack

Problem: In an internationally active company, the individual subsidiaries enjoy a lot of freedom when it comes to IT purchases. This led to a proliferation of software and cloud offerings and a multi-cloud environment that emerged unplanned through the back door. As a result of this, a ransomware attack was able to encrypt parts of the company’s IT.

Cause: A review with the Cloud Adoption Framework revealed that the first steps of the transformation were not carried out carefully. There was no company-wide cloud strategy and, therefore, also no holistic security concept that would have regulated the use of and access to the individual applications and ensured the required level of security.

Example 3: Lack of governance in data processing

Problem: An internationally active industrial company operates a heterogeneous application landscape, which has been insufficiently integrated into the central IT landscape. On-premises solutions are used as well as cloud offerings from various manufacturers. A planned new application had to be stopped shortly before the go-live because the security issues regarding data processing and storage could not be clarified.

Cause: The CAF once again revealed that a basic strategy and governance were missing. There was no classification for data and applications, and also no rules or regulations regarding procurement. There was therefore a lack of clear guidelines that could have been used to control data security and also costs.

Freedom vs. Governance

These three examples also show that governance is one of the biggest hurdles when it comes to cloud transformation. Clear, company-wide rules are confronted with the freedom enjoyed by individual departments or subsidiaries. Company-wide governance inevitably leads to restrictions. And this harbours the potential for conflict, which can only be solved with time-consuming persuasion – if at all. One thing is sure: Companies that use a Cloud Adoption Framework early on have a better chance of reaching their goal and avoiding such conflicts.