The journey to the cloud: what led to it and how to successfully migrate to the cloud

Using the cloud is a common reality these days. I’ve been thinking for some time now about the experience of cloud projects and what kind of journey it takes to say “we’ve successfully migrated there”. And here’s what I figured out.

Lukáš Klášterský

Cloud perception and motivation to use it

Almost all of us have embarked on the journey to the cloud in our personal and professional lives. On the personal side, it’s kind of unintentional, because with the advent of smartphones, most applications and services have been provided in a cloud-based way for 15 years. And we are not against it at all, on the contrary, we are excited.

Cloud adoption in enterprises has been and is significantly slower. 10 years ago, it was common to have “good reasons” for not going to the cloud:

We prefer to invest in our own IT.
Interesting technology, but we’ll wait to see where the cloud evolves.
We’re not sure, it’s too new and unexplored technology.
The issue of security is important, and in the cloud it is not in our hands.

Cloud technology was really new, so companies usually waited. A nice example of waiting is the launch of the first directive on cloud regulation in 2017 by the European banking regulator EBA. Yes, this regulation did not come out until 12 years after the first cloud was launched. What is piquant is that the first draft was written in 2006. At the time, only the most adventurous and less regulated organisations were venturing into the cloud.

Time and the steady development of the cloud by major providers Amazon, Microsoft and Google has gradually erased the distrust of companies. Cloud ceased to be unknown and the label of “fashionable buzzworm” disappeared. In the last five years, companies have seen a positive change in their thinking about the cloud. The argumentation already has more positive tones:

We should test the cloud and see how it works.
We deploy MS Teams/Slack, we have no other choice, they don’t exist in on-premise.
Cloud automation options fit our CI/CD pipeline, we will no longer automate on-premise.
We could use the cloud for these applications…
We have a group goal of deploying 30% of applications in the cloud within two years – how to do it?

Defining the cloud, the need for experimentation and surprising insights

Cloud can be defined in many different ways, I personally like the following definition.

“Cloud is a way of providing IT services based on simple principles:

easy to consume services– easy to start and easy to stop,
interconnected computing power– the entire ecosystem is fully automated,
providing services over the network/internet – available anywhere and anytime around the world,
transparent service catalogue – services are clearly defined and have clear price plans,
shared security between providers and users– varies by service type.”

Playing and experimenting is an important element of any innovation process for all types of companies – it helps to find the right technology positioning and use for “my” business.

Anyone who has thoughtfully experimented with the cloud or “just tried it out” will come to many surprising realizations (and we all have 😊):

It’s similar to on-premise, but it behaves differently.
I can bring some practices to the cloud, but I really need to change something!
The cloud environment can be set up, but are my skills sufficient to prevent me from having to redo it several times and in a complicated way?!
The costs are transparently transparent, but a full wallet empties quickly.
The possibilities of automation are amazing, but how do you take advantage of them?
I was concerned about security, but there are too many security features – how do I actually use them effectively?

The cloud is in many ways different from on-premise IT and evokes similar conflicting reactions/feelings from users as the following picture of a mythical animal.

It is this kind of insight from “touching” the cloud that will confirm to each of us that cloud adoption is a big change – bigger than any of us initially think.

Cloud and maths: 1 + 1 = 3

The cloud is a big change and it takes a lot of respect and courage together to adopt it, especially for companies with a longer history in on-premise.

You must be asking: why? Because you have to prepare to manage and operate two environments: on-premise and cloud, which also have to be integrated. Anyone who attempts this knows that strange mathematics comes into play:

In the beginning, you clearly see only two sides of the cloud coin. Applications and infrastructure where you never want to try to migrate to the cloud, and applications with infrastructure where you clearly see the value in using the cloud.

And suddenly you find that a third part appears between these two clearly demarcated sides. Applications and infrastructure whereyou’re not sure whether or not to take them to the cloud. Or rather, that it is close to the cloud in some ways and far from it in others. As a result, there are three areas that you need to consider separately when thinking about the cloud. And the pattern becomes clearer.

The journey to the cloud is not as easy as we might imagine. The easy path to the cloud is only afforded to companies just starting out or those with a short history. For them, the pattern is magically simple:

How to successfully migrate to the cloud?

Deploying the cloud and integrating it into the existing on-premise environment represents a significant change. The formula My IT = Cloud no + Cloud don’t know + Cloud yesshows that you need to prepare very well and carefully for the journey to the cloud.

Experience from many projectsdeploying individual cloud services or the entire AWS or Microsoft Azure platform shows that if we want to successfully deploy and migrate to the cloud, we need to go through five steps:

Strategy – why I want to go to the cloud, what I want to use it for and how to deal with it,
Roadmap– what I want to go to the cloud with and the steps I need to implement,
Architecture – how I need to prepare my environment to evolve with migration and experience,
Migration– how to migrate applications and what I need to prepare and test in advance,
Operation– how will I monitor the environment, applications, security, cost and capacity.

When deploying a single application to the cloud, the overall cost can seem huge, and I agree with you. Most of the time it doesn’t stay with one application. And it is those who have been through the journey of migrating one application to the cloud who will humbly return to the Strategy -> Roadmap -> Architecture -> Migration -> Operations sequence of steps when deciding to migrate another application, precisely because the sequence of steps is important in such a big change.