Lift & Shift, Move and Improve, Lift & Extend - Golden Rule #1 Business First & Technology Second

Clearly the Cloud is here to stay and despite on-premises operations still going strong in some quarters and vertical markets, CTOs and CIOs are under increasing pressure to migrate applications to their preferred cloud platform.  Key question is do they really know what is their best approach for time to value (TtV), their preferred platform and more importantly why that is?

The large Research companies such as Gartner and Forrester offer an immediate birds-eye view of those key players and Vendors they believe to be leading, and those who have some work to do.  What I would welcome insight on, however, is an industry specific led view of market share for the key vendors (sure this exists so pointers welcome) - organisations take some understandable comfort if businesses in their same competitive marketplace have made that journey already.

What are the options and choices for Modernisation that face organisations today and how do we know what is right for your business.  Below are just some of the key approaches:

• Application Re-write using cloud concepts such as PaaS
• Re-factor applications using native cloud technologies.
• Lift & shift i.e. move to a co-location model or more beneficial an IaaS model perhaps
• Lift & Extend i.e. well publicised taking your existing system across but adding greater or new functionality
• Do nothing – is this really an option? You only need to look at the big digital disruption scenarios i.e. Blockbuster Versus Netflix etc. to know how they ended for the ones standing still.

An over-riding theme that is evident across all Application Strategy and modernisation, however, is whether the business has the necessary skills and experience to execute?  Where and how do you start your modernisation journey?

At DSP we have a team of solution architects who approach this with the client’s business needs at the forefront of their minds i.e. not the technology needed to execute.  Teaching Grandma to suck eggs but a refresher never does any harm:

• Assess and quantify the challenges / pain your business is experiencing and how the cloud will address them.
• Invest the time with the business and key stakeholders to define objectives
• Plan, Design and Execute your Cloud strategy to maximise returns.
• Prioritise those Applications and where they would most likely sit based on their complexity i.e. Public, Private or Hybrid cloud.

There remains some nervousness from organisations to put their trust in a single cloud provider.  Make your decision.  When you reach the technology part of the discussion, where more sensible place to start than with the Vendors you have trusted your on-premise applications with for all these years e.g. Oracle Database & Applications – Built by Oracle for Oracle users!

There are certain exceptions to the rule, but the software authors should be a starting point in assessing the most suitable cloud partner technically to execute your strategy.

For more information please contact our team and learn from the successes we have delivered for other businesses.