CHALLENGES IN
CLOUD MIGRATIONOur guide on how toavoid or mitigate them

What are we seeing in Cloud Migration? We’re seeing customers that want to moveaway from outdated and inefficient legacy infrastructures, such as aging servers
or unreliable networks. We’re seeing customers seeking to replace hardware orsoftware solutions that are no longer performing optimally. But mostly we areseeing customers who are struggling to realise the expected benefits ofmigration, because Cloud Migration is harder than was first thought.
The early promises of rapid workload movement to thecloud and its associated financial benefits have in manycases failed to materialise as planned.
If we take away simple one tier workloads then applications
are often multi-tier, with data sources, integration points,
and security/access policies.
The last thing our customers need when migrating any
workload into the cloud is to be hit with unforeseen issues,
either technically or commercially. Stalled migrations,increased costs, mediocre performance, and increased
security risks to name just a few. However, these can be
mitigated or reduced through preparation and planning.

Darren Franklin
Solution Leader - Data

When we decided to write about these challenges,
and what we are seeing in the market, we stood backa little and looked at the Computacenter “Cloud Migration
Pathway”, the value we add, and how we focus on ourcustomers’ key imperatives that sit at the heart of thesechallenges, the ones that keep our customers awake atnight.

FOUNDATIONSERVICESASSESSMENT

DETAILEDDISCOVERYMIGRATION
PLANNING

MIGRATION
DELIVERYOPTIMISATION

TRANSFORMATION

Multi-Cloud
Landing Zones

Business and operational
assessment of data andapplications

Detailed technicaldiscovery anddependency mapping

Migration planningand design. Build outof the platform

Migration execution infactory-based approach

Optimise data andapplication via cloudnative PaaS services

Applicationtransformation via CNAP,
workload and data
mobility ond multi-cloud

From our 25 years of migration experience from the data
center to the cloud, we have identified several common
areas to consider.

Paul Nearn
Solution Leader - Public & Multi-Cloud

Computacenter Cloud Migration Pathway

DON’T FORGET ABOUT DATA
Data must be considered as an imperative in cloud migration,it cannot just be a conversation on server or workload migration.
One of the biggest benefits of the cloud is the way you can leverage
additional cloud services to gain value from the data that youhold. The last thing you need is to create yet another secure silothat gives nothing back to the business. Look to any migration as
an opportunity to align to wider data management and sharing
initiatives. As such, understanding the following is not an option
anymore, it is a necessity.

ONE OF THE BIGGEST BENEFITSOF THE CLOUD IS THE WAY YOU
LEVERAGE ADDITIONAL CLOUDSERVICES TO GAIN VALUE FROM
THE DATA THAT YOU HOLD”.
DARREN FRANKLIN

HOW MUCH DATA IS BEING MOVED?
Not only is this a key question to understand timelines for any migrationand for calculating potential cost of the target platform, but it is also
key in the ongoing operational efficiency and data management. We areaware that at times there are external drivers that force us into moving
quickly, meaning that we might have to forsake certain due diligencesteps that we may have taken should time be in our favour, Data centerclosure, legacy platform issues etc. How many times have you really hadtime to fix issues once the pressure is off and other things take priority?
It’s likely that the data you migrate will remain where it is for a significant
time before you get the chance to remediate, all the time being added to,
making the swamp even deeper.
DATA PROTECTION AND SECURITY
Protection and security are key to any migration planning activity.
Knowing how critical your data is to the business will dictate the level ofprotection and resiliency needed and will give the business confidence infuture migration plans.
KNOWING THE STORAGE PROTOCOLSIs the data you have now and the way you access it really the best way to
do it in the cloud? Possibly not, but either way it needs to be understoodand possibly rearchitected to make the best use of future cloud services.

CLASSIFYING DATA
D ata c l as s i f i c ati on i s key. We h ave s een m u l ti pl e exam pl esof c u stom ers u n abl e to m ove data to th e c l ou d bec au s eth e data i s n’ t wel l u n derstood an d h as n ot been s u i tabl yc l as s i f i ed. Th i s l eads to s ec u ri ty team s preven ti n g c l ou dadopti on an d m i grati on program m es .
BACKUP AND RECOVERY
It’s also crucial to be able to operate with a wider range of data protection
tools or to leverage and expand the cloud capabilities of your known andunderstood on premises tools.
PREVENT ATTACKS SUCH AS RANSOMWARE
Cyber resilience for data seems to have become a table stakes capability
for most if not all enterprise data protection vendors, e.g. Immutability, Air
Gapped, Vaults and encryption. All migration conversations about securing
data pre, post and during migration should hinge on the understanding ofits criticality to the business and how much or little attention you should
pay to this level of capability. Let’s not forget, not all data is equal, either inimportance or value - so why should you spend more in protecting it thanwhat it’s worth to the business?

LET’S NOT FORGET, ALL DATAIS NOT EQUAL, EITHER IN
IMPORTANCE OR VALUE”.
DARREN FRANKLIN

MAKING YOUR BUSINESS MORE AGILE ANDSCALABLE TO KEEP UP WITH BUSINESSDEMANDS COULD, AND MAYBE SHOULD,BE ONE OF THE MAIN DRIVERS FOR ANY
MIGRATION TO THE CLOUD”.

UNDERSTAND THE COSTS
Being able to reliably predict and manage thefinancial cost of migration is also an imperative
to simplify, expedite, and reduce the cost ofcloud migration and achieve the expected
objectives and meet business cases.

DEFINE A UNIT-BASED PRICING TO GAIN VISIBILITY
By creating a well-defined set of processes and automation around migrationfrom discovery, design, execution, and test, you can get to a unit rated cost model,
or a PxQ (Price multiplied by Quantity] to effectively predict the cost of migrations
per workload. This can only be done with experience such as data points exist
to model the effort required across the different stages. When aligned with afactory-based approach, industrialised migration patterns provide lowest cost,risk mitigated workload migrations.

USE A FACTORY-BASED APPROACH WITH AUTOMATION
By using a factory-based approach to migrating multiple workloads
simultaneously this can drive standardisation in migration to provide confidencein “right first time” migrations. A migration factory consists of teams, tools, andprocesses that work together to streamline migrations in a systematic way,incorporating lessons learned from previous migration waves. It also allows formigration at scale. As an example, Computacenter have led migration projects
with customers ranging from 20 virtual machines/workloads per day up to 100.

PAUL NEARNDESIGN MIGRATION EFFORTS TO SUPPORTMULTIPLE CLOUDS
The multi-cloud nature of workloads now needs tobe carefully considered. Our enterprise customers
are increasingly multi-cloud, both private and public.
The 2023 Flexera State of the Cloud report shows
87% of enterprise customers now have multi-cloudstrategies and 71% see migration as a top challenge.

ABSTRACT DATA FROM PLATFORMS
As respected cloud strategist lead David Linthicum from Deloitte states - “Data should betreated independently of the underlying cloud infrastructure. This enables movement andintegration across various platforms. I’m not sure why this message hasn’t been heard.”
The need to design for data and workload portability is growing. Data sets need to beeasily moved between on-premise and cloud, from cloud to cloud and from application
to application. Thus, providing this data abstraction layer is increasingly important todecouple data from platforms ensuring portability and interoperability.

USE BEST OF BREED MIGRATION TOOLS
When looking at migration tooling, process, and governance we believe there is a need toabstract these away from the native hyperscaler services and use best of breed platform
agnostic tooling with standardisation. This provides commonality in migration processes
and reduces risk by removing disparate tools and processes.

PROPERLY ASSESS AND
UNDERSTAND THE APPLICATIONSThe need to accurately assess workloads
prior to migration is vital, as it is to have adeeper understanding of what to migrate,
when and how.

TAKING ACTION ON THESE
CONSIDERATIONS CREATES REPEATABLE,
EFFICIENT, FLEXIBLE PROCESSES THATCAN PROVIDE SUCCESSFUL MIGRATIONS,ROLLBACKS AND CUTOVERS, TESTING,
AND REAL TIME REPORTING”.
PAUL NEARN

UNDERSTAND APPLICATION FATES
The most critical early phase in a cloud migration project is a full application assessment, as it
helps to determine which cloud migration approach should be used on a per application basis.
Failing to fully assess workloads to be migrated is a common mistake, resulting in incomplete
specification of migration requirements and an increase in scope during execution. Therefore,
the need to carry out Application Migration Assessments to see if and how these workloads canmove to cloud is a necessary exercise.

USING APPLICATION DEPENDENCY MAPPING
Many native migration tools offer a high-level overview of the assets that could be migrated
alongside a TCO-based analysis. However detailed Application Dependency Mapping is acrucial step in assessment to mitigate issues that may arise during migration. Having a clear
understanding of integrations, underlying data stores and network topology provides a better
understanding of how a move to cloud can be achieved and the complexity of the task.

CONSIDER OPTIMISATION AND
TRANSFORMATION AFTER MIGRATION
Migration and transformation are often confused but
shouldn’t be. Trying to both migrate and transforma workload or application at the same time can be apainful exercise. Separating these activities is more
effective, something that the Application Assessment
activities should draw out.

OPTIMISATIONAfter a workload has been migrated to the cloud, can further optimisation be achieved?
Perhaps by using cloud native services or database modernisation. Further, is theincreasing consumption of more cloud resources being effectively measured against spend
through services such as Cost Optimisation?

TRANSFORMATION
Looking through a longer-term lens can or should we achieve transformation through Cloud
Native Application platforms (CNAP) to decouple applications from platforms and follow
a microservices type approach? Should an application be ported then transformed or
rearchitected by development teams to a microservices based approach?

BUILD SUSTAINABILITY INTO MIGRATION
Any Cloud migration activity must now
consider the sustainability impacts asorganisations strive to reduce theircarbon footprint. Whether it’s on-premises
to cloud, cloud-to-cloud, or repatriationfrom cloud to on-premises - clearlymeasuring and evaluating sustainability
impacts must form part of any migrationassessment and planning activity. Someof the key areas we have seen include:In line with multi-cloud abstraction, using a cloud-agnostic sustainability assessment tool
is recommended. Clearly each hyperscaler touts significant benefits of their platforms but
they all report their ESG targets in different ways, so providing an agnostic view throughthird party ISV tools provides a non-partisan view.

Aim to create a sustainable cloud architecture, which promotes energy efficiency andresponsible carbon emissions. These help companies stay compliant with regulations
such as the European Union’s ERP (Energy Related Products) Directive.

Using cloud efficiently through elasticity, auto-scaling, and Cloud Native Applications(CNAP) promotes more sustainable usage of resources. And as this is mutuallyinterconnected into FinOps you save money, too!

IN CONCLUSION
Fundamentally, cloud migration is just a form of technology refresh, and our customers have been doing this in one formor another since the digital world came into existence. Moving onto a newer more efficient platform in order to evolve,
reduce costs or scale has been a challenge for years, it just so happens that the cloud enables this change to take placewith technology and choices that live outside the boundaries of our own facilities. Importantly, let’s not forget that thecloud exists to make things simple. Therefore, it may well be that it’s the existing processes, procedures, and operating
models that are the barrier to successful adoption and having flexibility in these areas will help significantly in making
any migration to the cloud more palatable.
We hope this has given a flavour of the challenges our migration teams are seeing within our customers and the areas weare suggesting, which can reduce cost, increase velocity, create commonality, and move workloads to cloud securely andefficiently. These challenges and considerations are significant but there is a path through to success, we just need tomake sure that the correct choices and decisions are made early and with conviction.

Computacenter (UK) Ltd
Hatfield Avenue, Hatfield, Hertfordshire AL10 9TW, United Kingdom