Navigating Cloud and Multi-Cloud

Editor's Notes

• #5: The core focus here is to discuss with clients the current state of cloud transformations. Here we highlight all the challenges and delays a client can experience in their cloud journey. It comes down to managing these layers of complexity that stops the process. Industry analysts always highlight the technical debt. This speaks to the pressures of doing more with less and just keeping the lights on. They haven’t moved into the cloud with a unified security model. Managing security policies from on-prem as well as from multi-cloud service providers just adds to the complexity. Dealing with multiple vendors while adding cloud options takes up additional time and cycles. As with security, organizations require the same control and governance across all their IT environments. The complexity and lack of transparency here can often result in cost overruns. The pressure to retain and keep top talent is only going to increase. The knowledge to keep all these different technology stacks maintained and in sync will be expensive. One of the big benefits of using a cloud service provider like Expedient is that we provided specialized skills focused on a client’s unique needs. We move them past just keeping the lights on.
• #6: The core focus here is to discuss with clients the current state of cloud transformations. Here we highlight all the challenges and delays a client can experience in their cloud journey. It comes down to managing these layers of complexity that stops the process. Industry analysts always highlight the technical debt. This speaks to the pressures of doing more with less and just keeping the lights on. They haven’t moved into the cloud with a unified security model. Managing security policies from on-prem as well as from multi-cloud service providers just adds to the complexity. Dealing with multiple vendors while adding cloud options takes up additional time and cycles. As with security, organizations require the same control and governance across all their IT environments. The complexity and lack of transparency here can often result in cost overruns. The pressure to retain and keep top talent is only going to increase. The knowledge to keep all these different technology stacks maintained and in sync will be expensive. One of the big benefits of using a cloud service provider like Expedient is that we provided specialized skills focused on a client’s unique needs. We move them past just keeping the lights on.
• #8: Why are most organizations stalled at a 15 to 30% success rate when moving to the cloud? When you think of the big reasons why it comes down to tech debt being a drag on future progress. Organizations need to keep running their existing environments while integrating the new cloud option pieces. The initial success of moving to cloud has been achieved with the more difficult workloads and applications still waiting to be shifted over. The decision and buying process has become more complex within organizations. Getting agreement, consensus and sign-off is much more difficult these days. The evaluation process is taking longer. People want to secure business outcomes versus buying a new technology. The benefit expectations of moving to the cloud has taken a hit. If a client moves an application to a hyperscaler and it hasn’t delivered the value anticipated, it will erode support from a leadership perspective. By not doing proper alignments on the front-end it can actually stall future migrations. We encounter many stories like this at Expedient. We can provide insights into what applications and workload work best on which platforms.
• #9: This slide captures the evolution of cloud computing. Before 2008 (before VMware), everything was on prem. From 2016 to 2020, the push to Cloud First model became very prevalent. Everything was going to move into the cloud. Applications were going to be refactored, this lift and shift approach has turned out to be very costly. Plus, different cloud providers had different benefits. Around 2022 the term multi-cloud emerged. This meant enterprises using different hyperscale providers (AWS, Azure and GCP) to get the benefits of the cloud operating model. No cohesive plan or migration strategy being adopted by internal IT teams. Using multiple cloud service providers also added more complexity. As we move forward to 2024, the definition of multi-cloud will evolve. Instead of having multiple hyperscalers, enterprises are going to look for different modes of cloud. Similarly, when you think of transportation: boats, planes and cars all have different benefits and purposes. Enterprises will look at how best to leverage what they have. Hyperscale doesn’t = cloud.
• #10: This slide focuses on the different approaches companies can take to make their cloud transformation a reality. The red line at the top highlight how easy it is to do along with the level of risk involved. The 3 different areas covered are: Rehost or lift and shift (or what Expedient will call lift and optimize). We leverage our assessments and migration process to optimize operations along the way. Companies typically need 30% IT fewer resources after going through this process with Expedient. Think of it as a lift and optimize approach. Doing the right sizing on the front end of your cloud migration. In the middle you are dealing with modernizing or refactoring, where the focus is on the automation and provisioning of IT resources. Clients can refactor applications by deploying them on a container platform. We provide the tooling for clients to do just that. The challenge with the highest risk is to do a complete cloud native rebuild. This is where clients rewrite applications to a function as a service within an organization. This is where infrastructure becomes code. This is the longest and most costly approach but for those applications that require a high degree of scaling it can deliver immense value.
• #11: When most people use the word “cloud” they are referring to Hyperscale cloud and are unaware that other modes of cloud exist so when they talk about a cloud migration they are focused on moving workloads to the public hyperscale cloud.
• #12: Companies go into a migration of applications to the public cloud with the belief that they can setup a transformation factory that systematically moves applications to the public cloud by leveraging their existing staff and that they can accomplish the project on budget and on schedule. If they didn’t think they could successfully accomplish the task they would execute the project. The often underestimate the difficulty and proper factor in the drag their existing operations can place upon the project.
• #13: The direct jump to hyperscale cloud is often a larger leap from existing internal operations than companies anticipated. They often take longer and cost more than expected as they are learning along the way and didn’t go into the project with the needed skill sets. As a result companies often pivot the strategy when the progress of their transformation project plateaus away from refactoring/replatforming to more of a lift and shift. This leads to greater cost overruns and erodes the confidence of the leadership team to the benefits of the overall cloud transformation and can reflect poorly on those leading the project.
• #14: This slide highlights why we haven’t seen more successful cloud migrations. This quote comes from a Forbes article that quotes some research done by Google. We talk about technical debt, but few can define the impact it is having on an organization. Here we quantify it as being 1.6 times less productive.
• #15: This slide helps put technical debt in context. What does this 1.6 times less productive really mean to your team? So if you have an IT team of 100 employees you are wasting 78,000 hours per year or 37.5 employees. So by removing technical debt you do more with less. In today’s market of trying to retain and maintain skilled IT workers this matters (higher retention rate while staying focused on more meaningful and interesting work).
• #17: Order matters in a cloud transformation. Just like the order you do things in a math equation matters, the same applies to a cloud migration. You should look to eliminate the complexity out of the system first, and then move towards a hyperscaler and cloud native model. This way clients can complete their cloud migration much faster.
• #18: There is another approach to cloud transformation the increases your chance of success and accelerates how quickly you can recognize the benefits of a cloud operating model. It is likely something you have preached internally for years as the best way to deliver a successful project when leveraging new technologies. CWR = Crawl, Walk, Run
• #19: The majority of companies still run most of their applications on VMware based infrastructure but have a smaller footprint in Hyperscale cloud. This has actually led to a more complicated environment as they are trying to straddle two very different platforms for their applications that have to be networked and secured separately. Most organizations also didn’t go into the “cloud” with a strong approach to governance or formal training program for their employees which now has to be reigned in and cleaned up.
• #20: This is a time where you can really benefit by slowing down to actually speed up. By taking a step back and recognizing that the weight of your internal infrastructure operations and the associated technical debt is acting as an anchor that is holding back the desired progress of your transformation. If you leverage a different mode of cloud as your first step in your transformation you can actually achieve your cloud transformation goals much faster.
• #21: Step 1: Exit your internal infrastructure ASAP by moving to a VMware cloud and leverage the standards of a service provider. This can be accomplished in a matter of months by having the service provider perform the migration & optimization as this is what they do everyday. Your team is no longer spending time dealing with hardware vendors, updating infrastructure or focused on capacity planning. You are on a platform where significant portions of your expense are now aligned to your consumption of resources and you are no longer trying to forecast your needs years in advance like when making capital investments. You have easy access to ongoing cost and performance optimization and can leverage inherent automation platforms of the cloud to improve the ongoing operations of your environment.
• #23: Now you need to shift the thinking of your team from keeping the lights on to how you can be a more strategic part of the business. This is the time to setup an evaluation process inside your team to determine which ”mode” of cloud (enterprise or hyperscale) is best for each application. It is likely that most of your existing workloads remain on an enterprise cloud if they are virtual machines and aren’t being refactored / rewritten. For those applications that would benefit significantly from Hyperscale's PaaS offerings (AI/ML, big data) you should invest in upskilling your staff so that when you start rewriting those applications you get maximum benefits from the providers capabilities and your team doesn’t spend most of their time just trying to learn via trial and error. By changing the order of your transformation you likely end up with the applications you wanted to put into a hyperscale cloud in the same amount of time but you have also accomplished a full move off of your internal infrastructure and improved the standing of IT within your organization.
• #24: The final component of getting to a full cloud operating model is solving for day two operations. If you don’t have proper governance and a standardized way to manage security, automation and ongoing optimization it is easy to end up back with the technical debt you were trying to run away from. The Expedient CTRL suite is designed to solve for this and ensure you recognize ongoing benefits from your cloud transformation no matter your mix of private, enterprise or hyperscale cloud.