Cloud transformation isn't always a straight line, so careful strategic planning is vital. Watch our webinar where we explore how to get your cloud migration on the right path.
Cloud transformation may not be as much of a buzzword as it once was now that artificial intelligence (AI) has made such an impact on the market, but it remains important. Without moving relevant parts of your application landscape into the cloud, you can't leverage innovative technology like AI.
Not to mention, without the operational cost savings that cloud migration can unlock, you may not be able to afford to add new capabilities to your IT landscape. From simply being cheaper, to offering scalability, to reducing expensive complexity, the cloud is simply less costly than traditional on-premise options.
Despite this cost saving, the market is increasingly seeing organizations that previously migrated to the cloud return to on-premise. This isn't because cloud transformation isn't beneficial, but because their cloud migration failed to achieve the promised value due to poor implementation.
We recently held a webinar to explore how organizations can start their cloud transformation journey the right way, so they only need to do it once. Let's explore what we covered in the webinar and how you can leverage our strategy for a successful cloud migration.
Watch our professional services manager, Jan-Thomas Suetter von Loetzen, and senior consultant, Alay Merchant, discuss cloud transformation strategy. View the whole video on-demand now:
Cloud transformation is dependent on careful and thorough planning in advance of implementation. Skipping this phase means “half of cloud-native transformations are abject failures,” according to Matt Barrington from EY.
If only cloud migration was as simple as a 'lift and shift' of your IT landscape from on-premise to the cloud, life would be much simpler. To succeed, however, you need to optimize your landscape for the cloud before you migrate it, or you'll never achieve the full potential of your cloud initiative.
In completing an application modernization, you'll naturally surface the best way to prepare for the cloud. Not to mention, you'll discover what parts of your landscape will be more effective in the cloud and which are actually better off remaining on-premise.
Whether you have regulated applications that you cannot legally host on the public internet or vital applications that have to run at peak performance, regardless of your internet service status, there will be software that is better off staying with you. This is why organizations are walking back from a full cloud migration to a hybrid approach.
In fact, a Citrix(https://www.infoworld.com/article/2336102/why-companies-are-leaving-the-cloud.html) survey recently found that 25% of the organizations they spoke to had already moved at least half of their operations back from the public cloud. This was mainly due to the aforementioned regulatory security issues.
To avoid the expense of a wasteful 'Hokey Cokey' migration to the cloud and then back again, you need to get a view on your optimal hybrid cloud landscape before you begin your migration. Thankfully, all the information you need to do so is readily at hand, as long as you have the right tool to capture it.
Cloud transformation planning requires gaining a deep understanding of your application landscape before you begin. That's why you need SAP LeanIX.
Begin by defining the information that you need to gather for each of your applications. You can do this by creating a template fact sheet within SAP LeanIX, listing all the drivers in your decision about whether to migrate the application.
Next, create automated surveys to be sent to application owners and stakeholders in order to complete all the fact sheet fields. You can even tailor these surveys depending on the audience, and the answers can be compiled and added to your fact sheets.
SAP LeanIX fact sheets can also be customized for different audiences, allowing you to share them with stakeholders to confirm the information is correct and comprehensive. All your stakeholders can be granted read-only access to SAP LeanIX at no additional cost.
We also recently enhanced our visualization capabilities with greater presentation features. You can now create, annotate, combine, and share reports and diagrams from directly within SAP LeanIX, without the need to export into other applications.
This ensures that everyone in your organization has full visibility of your application information before you even begin planning your cloud migration. Next, you need to complete a cloud readiness assessment to see what parts of your landscape should be migrated, or you can allow SAP LeanIX to do that automatically.
Cloud transformation is a complex process and enterprise architects need to use their best judgment to ensure success. However, this can be accelerated with the support of automated recommendations.
Once all your application information is stored in SAP LeanIX fact sheets, it's time to perform your cloud readiness assessment. The advanced artificial intelligence capabilities of SAP LeanIX will take the first steps for you.
Using the information you've provided to it, SAP LeanIX will make a recommendation for each part of your IT landscape based on Amazon's "6Rs":
Of course, these recommendations are just that. You don't have to take the automated advice of the platform, but it gives you a starting point.
Call in your stakeholders and advise them that SAP LeanIX has suggested a course of action for their application and have an open discussion on whether this is the best course of action. Either way, you can document which of the 6Rs will be the fate of each application within LeanIX.
Taking this information, you can build comprehensive reporting on the road map for your application modernization and cloud migration initiative. You can even analyze the effort and budget involved in migrating each tool.
This will allow you to build a target state for your cloud application portfolio and a road map to get you there within SAP LeanIX. You can even move a slider to see the transition to the cloud progress through your road map.
Armed with this information, your cloud migration planning will become comprehensive and intentional. This will set you up to start your cloud migration the right way.
Cloud transformation is empowered by detailed information about your application portfolio and IT landscape. SAP LeanIX allows you to gather the data you need from your stakeholders and feed that directly into your decision-making process to make your cloud transformation data-driven.
You can then share that information with all of your stakeholders from directly within the application to evidence your decisions and ask for feedback. Bring all of your stakeholders on-board and make your cloud transformations professional, organized, and above all else, successful.
To find out more about how SAP LeanIX empowers your cloud migration initiatives, and for a demonstration of the platform in action, watch our webinar on-demand: