Cloud Migration - Business Template

Business Case Template - Cloud Migration 

This article presents a business case template for organizations considering migrating an application to the cloud. It emphasizes the importance of building a business case to assess costs and benefits, identify and mitigate risks, align the migration with business goals, and engage stakeholders. The template covers the following key aspects:

• Executive summary
• Communication plan
• Background information
• Objectives and purposes of cloud migration
• Proposed solution and alignment with the organization's cloud strategy
• Benefits and costs of cloud migration
• Risks associated with cloud migration and their mitigation
• Timeline for the migration process
• Conclusion and recommendation

Organizations can use this template to decide whether to proceed with the migration based on a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis and risk assessment.

Business Case Template - Cloud Migration 

Building a business case before migrating an application to the cloud is crucial for several reasons:

1. Cost-Benefit Analysis: Migrating an application to the cloud involves high costs, such as cloud services, migration tools, and training. A business case helps assess the costs involved in the migration against the potential benefits that can be realized from the move, such as cost savings, improved performance, scalability, and security. This cost-benefit analysis helps organizations make informed migration decisions.
2. Risk Assessment: Cloud migration involves various risks, including technical, operational, security, and vendor lock-in risks. Building a business case requires identifying and assessing these risks, which helps organizations implement mitigation strategies to minimize potential disruptions and loss of productivity during and after the migration.
3. Alignment with Business Goals: Building a business case also helps organizations align their cloud migration strategy with their business goals. The migration objectives should be measurable and specific and align with the organization's goals and vision.
4. Stakeholder Engagement: Migrating an application to the cloud involves various stakeholders, including business owners, IT teams, end-users, and external partners. A business case helps identify and engage these stakeholders throughout the migration process, ensuring their needs and concerns are addressed and they are informed about the migration's progress and changes.

Building a business case for migrating an application to the cloud helps organizations make informed decisions about the migration, assess the costs and benefits, identify and mitigate risks, align the migration with their business goals, and engage stakeholders throughout the process.

BUSINESS CASE TEMPLATE – CLOUD MIGRATION

Executive Summary

This business case outlines the benefits, costs, and risks of migrating the [application name] from on-premises to the cloud. The proposed solution will enable the organization to reduce costs, improve performance, increase scalability, and enhance security.

Communication Plan

The communication plan for the cloud migration project is designed to ensure stakeholders are informed about the project's progress and changes throughout the migration process. The communication plan includes the following elements:

1. Stakeholder Analysis – Identify stakeholders impacted by the cloud migration project and their communication needs. Stakeholders may include business owners, IT teams, end-users, and external partners.
2. Communication Channels – Identify the channels that will be used to communicate with stakeholders, including email, project status reports, meetings, and newsletters.
3. Communication Schedule – Develop a communication schedule with stakeholders, including frequency and timing.
4. Communication Content – Develop content that includes project updates, key milestones, risks, issues, and changes.
5. Feedback Mechanism – Develop a mechanism for stakeholders to provide feedback and suggestions about the migration project.
6. Escalation Plan – Develop a plan for escalating issues and concerns to the appropriate stakeholders and decision-makers.

The communication plan will be reviewed and updated regularly to remain relevant and practical throughout the migration process.

Background

[Provide a brief background about the application and why it needs to be migrated to the cloud.]

Objectives

[Describe the objectives and goals of migrating the application to the cloud. These should be measurable and specific.]

The objectives of migrating the [application name] to the cloud are to:

1. Reduce costs associated with on-premises infrastructure.
2. Improve application performance and availability.
3. Increase scalability and capacity to meet changing demands.
4. Enhance security and compliance.

Solution Overview

[Provide an overview of the proposed solution for migrating the application to the cloud, including the cloud platform and services used. Explain how the solution aligns with the organization's cloud strategy.]

The proposed solution for migrating the [application name] to the cloud involves the following:

1. Leveraging the AWS cloud platform and services.
2. Migrating the application and its data to AWS with minimal downtime.
3. Optimizing the application and infrastructure for AWS to improve performance and scalability.
4. Enhancing security and compliance by leveraging AWS security services.

Benefits

Migrating the [application name] to the cloud will provide the following benefits, which will directly contribute to the objectives outlined above:

1. Trade fixed expense for variable expense – Instead of investing heavily in data centers and servers upfront, the organization can pay only for the computing resources consumed, resulting in significant cost savings.
2. Benefit from massive economies of scale – Cloud providers such as AWS can offer lower pay-as-you-go prices due to the aggregation of usage from hundreds of thousands of customers, resulting in lower variable costs for the organization.
3. Stop guessing capacity – Cloud computing eliminates the need to guess infrastructure capacity needs. The organization can access as much or as little power as needed and scale up or down in minutes.
4. Increase speed and agility – Cloud computing enables the organization to rapidly deploy new IT resources with just a few clicks, reducing the time to make resources available to developers from weeks to minutes.
5. Stop spending money running and maintaining data centres – The organization can focus on projects that differentiate their business rather than infrastructure maintenance by migrating to the cloud.
6. Go global in minutes – Cloud computing allows organizations to deploy their application in multiple regions worldwide easily, providing customers with a better experience at a minimal cost.

Costs

Migrating the [application name] to the cloud will incur the following costs:

1. Cloud Services - The cost of the cloud services will depend on the platform and services selected for the migration.
2. Migration Tools – The cost of the tools required to migrate the application to the cloud.
3. Training Costs - The cost of training employees on the new cloud platform.

However, the cost-benefit analysis indicates that the organization will realize significant cost savings by migrating to the cloud.

Risks

Migrating the [application name] to the cloud involves several risks that must be identified and assessed to ensure a successful migration. The following risks have been identified:

1. Technical Risks – The application migration from on-premises to the cloud may require application code or infrastructure modification. There may be compatibility issues with the cloud platform or services that may cause downtime or loss of functionality.
2. Operational Risks – The migration process may disrupt business operations, cause delays, and lead to a loss of productivity.
3. Security Risks – Moving the application and its data to the cloud may expose the organization to new security threats, such as data breaches, loss of data control, and regulatory compliance issues.
4. Vendor Lock-In Risks - The organization may face the risk of vendor lock-in with a cloud provider, making it difficult to switch providers or move back to an on-premises solution.

To mitigate these risks, the organization can use tools such as AWS LNA to assess the skills and knowledge of employees regarding cloud migration and security. AWS LNA can help identify areas of need and create targeted, cost-effective training and certification plans that address the needs of employees and the organization. In addition, the organization can work with experienced cloud migration experts to ensure a smooth and secure migration process.

Timeline

[Provide a detailed timeline for migrating the application to the cloud, including the migration strategy, testing, and cut-over.]

Conclusion

[Summarize the business case and provide a recommendation for whether or not the organization should proceed with migrating the application to the cloud. This should be based on a cost-benefit analysis and assessing the risks and benefits outlined above.]

In conclusion, this article provides a comprehensive business case template for organizations considering migrating an application to the cloud. By following this template, organizations can evaluate the potential benefits, costs, and risks associated with cloud migration and make informed decisions on whether to proceed. The template emphasizes the importance of aligning cloud migration with business goals, engaging stakeholders throughout the process, and assessing the cost-benefit and risk factors. Ultimately, organizations should use the insights gathered from this template to determine if cloud migration is a strategic move that aligns with their objectives and contributes to overall growth and success.

Reference:

O’Hara, C. (2017) The right way to present your business case, Harvard Business Review. HBR. Available at: https://hbr.org/2014/07/the-right-way-to-present-your-business-case (Accessed: March 5, 2023).

Whitepapers - Overview of Amazon Web Services - Six advantages of cloud computing (no date) Amazon. Earthpledge Foundation. Available at: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/latest/aws-overview/six-advantages-of-cloud-computing.html (Accessed: March 6, 2023).