Cloud - Manual or Automatic?

The starting point for cloud migration is usually where you are planning to move to, rather than where you are now and how can it be improved? The main reasons for migration are cost, delegating responsibility and reliability, but unless you know the starting point it is hard to measure or prove improvement.

The best starting point is to measure your application workload performance, the capacity of the elements it uses, and cost. For large enterprise this is typically outsourced to consultants who investigate your systems armed with clip boards and spreadsheets. This is a very manual intensive approach and engages many consultants. There are now platforms that allow auto-discovery of your entire IT infrastructure, that drill down into workload response times, network throughput and server, fabric and storage capacity. The platform approach is not only faster but far more accurate and less expensive. Gartner call this HDIM (Hybrid Digital Infrastructure Management) and is a new and fast paced category.

The ‘know before you go’ approach will ensure that you can select the correct host (moving host to host is expensive and difficult) and then set an SLA with your new suppler based on expected capacity, performance and cost.

Moving to a new host for your critical IT systems is not a small task so using the latest, most analytical, platform will stand you in good stead.  You must, however, prepare to have your business management approach it with an open mind, as you may find that the host you initial liked the look of provides a worse, slower and more expensive solution. It’s better to know that before you commit, and an HDIM platform can prove the results before you commit your IT budget.