Legacy IT to the Cloud IT transformation

With the advent of the Cloud, the IT department will also have to transform and change how it operates. In a traditional IT model, the IT unit owns all layers of the technology stack and is responsible for end-to-end phases from evaluation to installation, configuration, management, and maintenance of all the resources in the stack.

As the organizations move partially or completely into the public cloud the technology stack ownership will change depending on the cloud service model services (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS et. al) you decide to use from the cloud provider.

A key point to note here is that regardless of what model you use the underlying infrastructure (data centers, servers, routers, etc.) is owned by the cloud provider and they are on point to manage and maintain the physical and network infrastructure.

According to Rashim Mogha,?Business Executive and Startup Advisor:

“A successful cloud migration strategy is not just about technology; it's also about culture—people, processes, and tools. Every cloud migration conversation should center on setting realistic expectations with stakeholders, driving a cultural change, and enabling teams. One key element is to bring diversity to thought in this conversation and making sure that these conversations are inclusive.”

So, what does that mean for you as an organization planning to move to the cloud?

Some key benefits of migrating to the cloud will include no cost for the data center, accelerated experimentation, faster deployment, and overall reduction in IT costs. This means that the consuming organization can focus on its core business functions and customers and not on its data center and infrastructure maintenance. It also means that the IT unit will not have full control over the technology stack for their cloud services, as they are used to in a traditional on-premises data center. For organizations that want to maintain both their on-premises data center and use the cloud, you will still need to maintain the full technology stack for it including the infrastructure.

There are several strategies to consider when starting public cloud adoption and usage. You can start with signing up for and using some independent public cloud services, running some experiments, and/or moving non-production and dev/test workloads into the cloud. Once you are confident about utilizing the public cloud, you can start with moving some non-business critical production workloads to the cloud. Most of the mid-sized to large organizations will take this phased approach before they decide to move their business-critical applications into the cloud utilizing a hybrid cloud.

?If you are a small organization or a startup, you will just go straight to the public cloud instead of worrying about setting up an on-premises data center or private cloud. Public cloud has thus, spurred the movement of innovation and experimentation and has made it easy for tech. startups to get access to the resources and compute power in the public cloud that traditionally only larger enterprises had in their on-premises data centers.??????

A cultural change

Moving to the cloud will be a cultural change for an IT department. IT staff and personnel will need to think differently when working with the public cloud. Internal operational processes and procedures will also have to be reworked to adapt to the nature of the cloud.

With change and loss of control of the complete technology stack will come the fear and insecurity of losing jobs. Such cultural challenges are much tougher and harder to handle than technological challenges. To ensure that there is a personnel and team buy-in on cloud adoption, CIO and IT senior leadership should have a clear cloud strategy defined and constantly communicate to the people being affected on what the change is, why it must be done, how to adapt to it and what is the long-term vision for the organization for public cloud usage.?

While there will be a lack of control of some of the resources in the technology stack, the IT unit, and its staff will still have ample management and maintenance control for the provisioned cloud resources. Cloud providers, in the last few years, have gone out of their way to ensure that there is plenty of backend access, APIs, logs, and self-help tools provided to organizations to manage, maintain, and troubleshoot their cloud resources and infrastructure.

Reskilling your IT department

Cloud adoption and usage does not necessarily equate to the elimination of jobs.?There may however, be some cuts that may be made in your IT unit, from some of the responsibility of the stack moving to the public cloud providers. In most cases, cloud adoption will end up creating more jobs and roles to help manage the cloud environment.?If a hybrid cloud or a multi-cloud is going to be setup, you will end up hiring or creating more cloud roles internally to help with setting up and managing the highly complex hybrid cloud and multi-cloud environments.

Depending on the public cloud provider you are going to go with or if you are going to set up a multi-cloud environment, you may want to consider getting your IT personnel certified in one or more public cloud. All top cloud providers (AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform) offer cloud certifications for their cloud.??

Considering the cloud adoption timelines, you may opt to bring in third-party consultants to assist with onboarding to the cloud initially, but your long-term strategy should be to train and reskill your IT personnel. This will help you effectively manage the public cloud resources.?Traditionally, some of the roles that have existed in the IT department such as Help Desk Support, Network Administrators/Engineers,?Systems Administrators/Engineers, Deveelopers (Frontend, Backend, Full-stack), Database Administrators will morph into cloud-based roles such as DevOps professionals, Cloud administrator/engineer, Cloud developer, and Cloud solution architect. With the advent of machine learning and AI now being utilized in most business use cases, Machine learning/AI developer and Data scientists will also become prominent.

Build a Cloud Center of Excellence (CoE)

As you start your journey to start using the public cloud, one of the key cloud strategies is to consider setting up a Cloud Center of Excellence for your organization. Typically, the IT unit will take a lead on this with CIO’s sponsorship and there will be representation from all other business units in the organization.

?The goal behind this CoE is to have an entity that provides leadership, best practices, research, support, and/or training for anything concerning the organization’s cloud computing strategy. CoE can be on point to set up a cloud and security governance framework which will be used across all the units in the organization which are planning to utilize the public or the hybrid cloud.?

The world of public cloud is changing with public cloud providers adding features, functionality, and new services on an almost daily basis. It should be the responsibility of the CoE to stay on top of the ever-changing public cloud to continue to refine the governance framework, best practices, and other guidelines.

?The CoE will also play a key role in helping accelerate innovation and experimentation in the cloud with recommendations and best practices for all the units in the organization, which are interested in using the cloud for their proof-of-concept ideas and experimentation.

In summary, the IT unit is going to be affected with the organization adopting and using the public cloud. Roles and responsibilities are going to morphed along with IT department playing a key role in helping with innovation, experimentation, managing & maintaining the cloud, and taking a lead in all cloud-based digital transformation intiatives. __________________________________________________________________________

Liked my article? Then, check out my?paperback?and?e-book?on Amazon to understand Digital Transformation and how emerging technologies are being utilized to enable many enterprise digital transformation journeys.?Are you interested in Digital Transformation, Cloud, AI, ML, IoT, Blockchain, other emerging technologies, Education, Training, Leadership, and other related topics? Then, let's also connect on?LinkedIn?and/or?Twitter.

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