Cloud migration – Your next house move
15 October 2020
I’ve often likened cloud migrations to a house move, one of the most stressful events in life, a chain of events, with a dependency on every one of them to go right…. where often they don’t.
….but when it’s done, the positive impact it has can be immense.
Your Next House Move
With some of our friends moving house, they found themselves calling a family member in a flux, asking for lodging for a few weeks, all whilst frantically trying to secure furniture storage for their prized 10 person dining table.
For my husband and I, it was a burst pipe flooding our living room days after moving in.
But the good news is, we all learn from our experiences, and make sure we have a plan B for next time, and as we sit in our new homes and enjoy the extra space and comfort, we know it’s all been worth it.
Just like the phrase ‘house move’, the words ‘cloud migration’ can strike fear into the hearts of many a technologist or data enthusiast. It’s easy to dwell on those past chain of events, what was missed from your testing plan, or the times where you really needed a plan B.
But the opportunity to accelerate your governance, controls and data strategy in one fell swoop is worth the struggle. Many organisations spend years and years trying to get this ‘right’.
“Stop worrying about missed opportunities and start looking for new ones.”
The Benefits of Cloud Migration
1. Clutter free happiness
One thing that has always gone right for us however, is the clear out!
For me, there is nothing more therapeutic than organising your 10 year old shoe collection, getting rid of the questionable trainers from your retro phase you’ll never wear again, or labelling them neatly in boxes, knowing you’ll never have to raft through shoe boxes to find the right pair in your new home ever again….or at least for a year or two.
Just like the ‘Shoe Selection’, taking the time to assess your current data landscape brings the opportunity to identify, prioritise, cleanse and define your data assets, dispose of data you don’t need which you may be tirelessly maintaining and paying unnecessary storage costs for, and accelerate your data governance roadmap.
2. A safer environment
And then there is the nice big flashing cameras and security system that came with the house….No longer do I jump when I’m home alone, and the dog decides to do a midnight dash to the window to bark at the neighbour’s cat.
Seldom do we consider the opportunity to assess our current and future security and business continuity plans, both key areas to consider and also hopefully improve upon, as part of the cloud migration process.
3. Knowing what you need to do
There is nothing more overwhelming than trying to work out how to fill with wood, set the controls on, and fire up a big new biomass boiler on move in day. So many buttons, so much flames…I liken it to NASA trying to launch a rocket up to the International Space Station.
And once you’ve got the operational part out of the way, you then need to get to grips with how you report regular servicing to energy regulators.
Putting the right knowledge transfer mechanisms in place and assessing potential regulatory risks are an essential part of a cloud migration, and a wonderful way of creating a defence as part of a wider operational risk and control framework.
4. Sorting out the admin
The admin fees for changing over home address on certain home policies were of course nuisance. We did however sort out more comprehensive buildings and contents cover and made a few savings whilst we were at.
Now I know if our 100+ year old roof caves in, we are (sort of) ok.
Frequently we do not consider the smaller benefits of a cloud migration, such as improving administrative and maintenance processes or audit trails.
The opportunity to support the business in all future business-as-usual tasks is the low-hanging fruit we do not readily align to our expectations of what a cloud migration may achieve.
‘Get excited about the opportunities that come with your next cloud migration’
So, the next time you are faced with a cloud migration, think about how it will add extensive value to your business, and not the many pitfalls that a migration programme can bring.
Having an experienced partner helps too….
