The Future is Cloud: How to Transition with Confidence
Mauro Di Pasquale
Telecom | Cloud | Google Cloud Certified Cloud Architect | PMP Certified Project Manager | Machine Learning | Digital Transformation | Business Consulting | IoT | Innovation | Mexico Permanent Resident Card
Why Are Organizations Moving to the Cloud?
Have you ever wondered why companies of all sizes are rapidly migrating to the cloud and what steps they take to maximize their chances of success?
In this article, I’ll show how organizations get started with the cloud and I’ll walk you through the key reasons organizations are moving to the cloud, the challenges they may face, and common cloud adoption patterns. Finally, I’ll share some tips on accelerating your cloud journey by migrating existing applications.
Benefits and Challenges of Cloud Migration
Moving to the cloud offers numerous advantages, but I will focus on three key benefits:
1. Flexibility
With the cloud it's very easy for customers to experiment and find the right solution to their unique challenges. For example, workloads can run on Virtual Machines (VMs) or containers. Containers, in turn, can be deployed on a serverless platform like Cloud Run, which is a fully managed Kubernetes orchestration platform,with Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) in autopilot mode, or using a more traditional Kubernetes cluster with GKE in standard mode.
2. Cost Savings
The cloud can generate savings at least in two different ways:?
- Pay as you use: The cloud enables organizations to pay only for what they use, eliminating the need for upfront investments in physical hardware that might be underutilized.
- Proof-of-Concepts (POCs): Running Proof of Concepts (POCs) becomes significantly less risky. Instead of committing to costly infrastructure purchases, businesses can spin up cloud instances, test their ideas, and shut them down when finished. This reduces financial risk and shortens deployment times compared to the traditional on-premises approach.
3. Reliability
Google Cloud acts as an extension of your Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) team, managing infrastructure and ensuring security. On serverless platforms, Google Cloud handles almost all operational tasks, while on other platforms, it takes care of a significant portion of the workload. This reduces the burden on IT teams and allows organizations to focus on business objectives.
However, while cloud migration has clear benefits, there are also some challenges to consider:
- Complexity: One thing I've personally done a few times is underestimate the complexity at first glance. Moving to the cloud involves multiple teams and interconnected systems. As projects unfold, unexpected dependencies may arise.
- Resistance to Change: People often fear new technologies and processes, leading to hesitation in adoption. Additionally we can get caught up in the whole “if it ain't broke don't fix it†mentality where we see good enough as being the desired end state.?
- Overwhelming Choices: Another challenge I have seen is that people can be overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices when it comes to cloud-based software and services. Learning how to best leverage all of these choices will require operators to develop new skills which while is potentially a challenge it's also a benefit. It's rarely a bad thing to add tools to your toolbox.?
- Expectation Management: Cloud migration is a journey, not an overnight transformation. It’s essential to select initial projects that maximize the chances of success and avoid expecting instant results.
Selecting a Cloud Migration Approach
To ensure a smooth transition, businesses should start with a clear business objective for migrating to the cloud. Rather than focusing on individual applications, they should take a platform-centric view to optimize the overall system. To simplify Cloud migration strategies generally fall into three main patterns:
1. Lift and Shift
This is the simplest approach, where applications are moved from on-premises servers to cloud-based VMs with minimal modification. For example, a MySQL database running on a VM could be transferred as-is to Google Compute Engine (GCE). In some cases, you can go a level deeper, you might actually choose to move that to a managed service like Cloud SQL rather than onto a generic VM with mySQL installed, for better scalability and maintenance.?
2. Selective Refactoring
Organizations can gradually modernize their applications by breaking them into smaller components. For instance, after migrating a monolithic application to a GCE instance, businesses can move the database to Cloud SQL, isolate the payment processing service in a separate container, and run the authentication service in another. This hybrid approach balances modernization with minimal disruption.
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3. Cloud-Native Rebuild
For long-term scalability and efficiency, some businesses opt to rebuild applications from the ground up using cloud-native technologies. While this approach takes more time, it provides better integration, improved scalability, and greater cost optimization.
Identifying the Right Applications for Migration
When considering a cloud migration, businesses should prioritize workloads that offer the highest potential for success.?
Key considerations include:?
- Answering the question what applications are best suited for me to move. In a lot of cases migrating existing workloads is going to be easier than developing an application from scratch whether that's a brand new application or a rewrite of an existing application. But even if it's easier to lift and shift an existing application you still need to figure out what application has the highest target for success.?
- Deciding how that application is going to run in Google Cloud: are you just going to migrate them from an on-prem VM to a Google Cloud instance? Do we want to containerize that application? If you containerize it, should you run it on Cloud Run or GKE? The answers to these questions are going to be a combination of what makes sense for your business and what is technically feasible.?
Fortunately Google Cloud has several specialized tools that can help with assessing the technical feasibility of migrating existing VM based workloads to Google Cloud:
- Migrate to Compute Engine: Moves workloads from on-premises VMs to Google Cloud.
- Migrate to Containers: Converts applications into containerized workloads.
- Database Migration Services: Simplifies the migration of databases to managed cloud services.
Conclusion
I specialize in helping companies transition to the cloud seamlessly, and I’d be happy to assist you on your cloud journey.
The first step is a thorough assessment of your existing infrastructure and applications, which typically takes 3 to 6 weeks, depending on complexity. After the assessment, I will provide:
- A comprehensive 360-degree overview of your infrastructure utilization.
- A detailed migration plan that includes different phases of migration.
- A clear Return on Investment (ROI) analysis, making it easier for you to justify the migration decision.
The best part? I can perform the assessment phase free of charge for you.
If you’re ready to explore how cloud migration can benefit your organization, drop me a message with “Migration to the cloud†at mauro.dipasquale@thepowerofcloud.cloud. ?and start the conversation!
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Written by Mauro Di Pasquale
Google Professional Cloud Architect and Professional Data Engineer certified. I love learning new things and sharing with the community. Founder of Dipacloud.
Managing Partner at zConatus
1 周zConatus captures and stores the hidden complexities within an organization’s systems and business processes daily. It makes no assumptions about the data input, as it cannot predict the user's intentions. Instead, it offers a comprehensive set of filters, enabling users to retrieve exactly what they need from the database whenever they need it. It also associates business rules with every function and process to enhance the understanding of the output within the context the user desires. The results are always displayed in visually appealing diagrams with nodes and edges, ensuring clarity and providing immediate insights at a glance.
Telecom | Cloud | Google Cloud Certified Cloud Architect | PMP Certified Project Manager | Machine Learning | Digital Transformation | Business Consulting | IoT | Innovation | Mexico Permanent Resident Card
1 周Very good questions, Fernando. Let's start with what is really being moved. Apart from technology, you business is being moved on the cloud. The moved is always driven by business needs. And I am not talking only about saving money, which is often the case, but also about flexibility, scalability and security, allowing you to focus only on what really matters for.you business! Said so, the process of the as-is assessment, the migration plan and the validation afterwards, is not always as easy at it may seem. My suggestion is to ask support to an expert.
Managing Partner at zConatus
1 周Without thorough knowledge of the current processes, system flows, data structures, and distributions, I always wonder: what is really being moved? At the end of this cloud migration, the entire spectrum of existing functionalities and data should be present and working satisfactorily in the new environment. My question is: How was the intelligence of the AS-IS state collected? How is it being mapped to its new home? And how will it be validated in the end?"