Category: Thought Leadership

Don’t Let These 10 Factors Derail Your Cloud Migration Efforts

As businesses continue to embrace digital & cloud transformation, cloud migration has become a priority for many organisations. Cloud migration involves moving an organisation’s data, applications and other IT resources to the cloud to take advantage of the benefits of cloud computing, including cost savings, scalability, and agility. However, cloud migration is not without its challenges, and organizations need to be aware of the factors that can de-rail cloud migration projects. 

At Cloud Lift Services, we work with hundreds of organisations & their cloud migration projects. Lift project managers have identified the top 10 factors (ordered by frequency of their occurrence) that can derail projects: 

  1. Not enough Cloud platform expertise – One of the most significant challenges that organisations face during cloud migration is a lack of in-house cloud platform expertise. Many organisations do not have the required expertise to make critical decisions about cloud architecture, deployment models, security, and compliance. This can result in poor decision-making and can cause delays in the cloud migration project. 
  2. Lack of coordination with upstream & downstream system owners – Cloud migration requires coordination with downstream and upstream application and technology owners. This includes partners and vendors who need to be involved to rewire existing systems for cloud presence. Lack of coordination can lead to mis-aligned prioritisation, misunderstandings, and delays in cloud migration. 
  3. Lack of coordination with business owners – Cloud migration requires downtime for the move. And business owners don’t like downtime! Especially if they are unaware of what’s in it for them. Business owners need to be informed about the downtime required, and it should be planned to minimize disruption to the business. Lack of coordination with business owners can result in last minute changes, insufficient testing, etc., that can all impact business operations.
  4. Insufficient understanding of security implications – Moving to the cloud can introduce new security risks if not managed appropriately. Organisations need to establish clear ownership upfront, have a clear understanding of the security implications of moving to the cloud and implement appropriate security measures (including identity and access management (IAM), encryption, and network security) to mitigate these risks. Lack of understanding of security implications can result in data breaches and other security incidents.
  5. Late involvement of stakeholders – Cloud migration requires early involvement of all stakeholders in the planning phase. This includes business owners, IT teams, security teams, and other stakeholders. Early involvement can help avoid expectation mismatches, ensure required commitment & prioritisation across the organisation, identify potential issues early on and proactively manage risks / issues.
  6. Not enough bandwidth for the initial move – Cloud migration involves moving data from on-premises to the cloud. Organisations need to plan for sufficient network bandwidth needed for the initial move of data to the cloud. Not planning for enough network bandwidth can result in slow data transfer, which can impact the migration project’s plan, approach & timeline.
  7. Lack of planning for application dependencies – Many applications have dependencies on other applications or services. Organisations need to identify and plan for these dependencies to ensure that applications continue to function correctly after migration to the cloud.
  8. Lack of testing and validation – Cloud migration requires testing and validation to ensure that applications and services are functioning correctly after migration. This includes thorough testing for functionality, integrations & performance. Lack of testing and validation can result in application downtime and other issues.
  9. Lack of thorough understanding of the existing IT infrastructure – Cloud migration requires a clear understanding of the organisation’s existing IT infrastructure. Organisations have systems that have been in existence for years, many of which have gone through several updates with little documentation (in many cases). Owners need to assess their existing IT infrastructure to identify potential dependencies & issues that may impact the migration project.
  10. Lack of ongoing support and management – Cloud migration is not a one-time event but an ongoing process. Organisations need to have ongoing support structures, processes & people for their cloud environment in place before migrations to ensure any support needs are addressed promptly.

In conclusion, cloud migration can provide significant benefits for organisations. However, it is essential to be aware of the factors that can de-rail projects. By addressing the above commonly occurring risks, you can ensure a smoother Lift to the cloud. 

The following Lift project managers, who have managed 350+ cloud migration projects amongst them, have provided their inputs into this article: Aditya Khare, Divya Murdeshwar, Harish Venkiteswaran, Parag Agrawal, Praveen Ravikumar, Vinayak Narayanaswamy, Gaurav K Buddhadev, PMP, Prince 2 and Oracle Cloud Certified and Ashish Kashalkar.

The views expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Oracle.

Leadership, Mission & Commitment

I came across this post by Robert E. Quinn recently & had to share it here for the benefit of all.

In the book Timeless Wisdom: Passages for Meditation from the World’s Saints and Sages is a story about an ancient sculptor in India who carves elephants from stone. A king asks the man for the secret of his great artistry. The sculptor explains that once a large stone is secured, he spends a very long time studying the stone. At first he sees nothing, but the rock. Then, over a long period, he begins to feel something. To notice a vague impression, a scarcely discernible outline. As he continues to ponder, with an open eye and an eager heart, the outline intensifies, until the joyful moment when the sculptor sees the elephant inside the rock. At this moment he sees what no other human can see. Only when he sees the outline does he begin the months of chiseling. He is obedient to the revealed outline. The sculptor connects with the elephant inside the stone. He feels the elephant’s desire to come out of the rock and live. With this emotional awareness the sculptor gains an even more intense singleness of purpose. He chips away every bit of rock that is not the elephant. What remains is the elephant (Eswaran, 2008:20). This parable represents the part of leadership that is least understood. Purpose leads to a search for the possible. What do you think it means?

He further responds with an insightful take on the parable. It is insightful in that it expands on a leader’s commitment to a nebulous vision .. and faith in that vision till something more concrete materialises.

The focus is an important component.  And the commitment to that focus.  I would take it one step further and say that focus is purpose. Purpose leads to a search for the possible.  At the beginning there is little hope.  Yet the person of purpose knows to continue in the deep concentration and a vague impression emerges.  Masterful leaders know to attend to impressions.  Openness and attention turn the impression into a vision available to none other.  The visionary becomes the particular future’s only representative in the world.  Disciplined pursuit of the vision stimulates action learning and eventually transformation.   The vision is no longer a concept but a living thing waiting for mortal manifestation.  Love of the emerging future leads to still more disciplined effort until that which could not be seen lives in the present.  The parable explains how to create a positive organization.

Robert E. Quinn is a Best-selling author, Speaker, Co-Founder of CPOS at University of Michigan, and Thought Partner on Leadership and Change. 

 

Lunch With TED

Lunch With TED

Every once in a while, I find myself having lunch by myself – at work or at home. In such situation, a favourite companion has been TED.

This YouTube playlist collates some of these dates with TED that you may find interesting as well:

 

 

Customers *Must* Be Part of the Co-Creation Process

The Economist Intelligence Unit surveyed 226 executives at global enterprises to find out how smart companies innovate as part of a Oracle sponsored study about cultivating business-led innovation.

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One of the key findings of the study has been that “companies furthest along the innovation path utilize customer data and customer participation in their product and service improvements. Fifty-four percent of respondents in this group actively collect customer feedback and analyze customer data for clues to innovate effectively, but in different ways.”

As Oracle SVP Bob Evans blogs: “Customers *Must* Be Part of the Co-Creation Process. As companies of all sizes and across all industries realize that the co-creation of value and of experiences with customers can be a profound way to boost customer loyalty, they also must recognize that relevant innovation in a customer-free vacuum is impossible. Mid-size and smaller companies ($500 million or less) connect directly with customers in interviews about product design and testing, while companies with revenue above $1 billion or more likely to use social technology and sentiment analysis to uncover customer-focused innovations.”

You can find the details of this study & the report at the Oracle feature page or The Economist Intelligence Unit site.