More agility, more security, more innovation, and more business value. This was, and still is, the promise of hybrid cloud infrastructure. But a decade after the first enterprises began to phase-out their legacy systems and move their workloads to the cloud, some unexpected problems are still apparent. We spoke to Hamut Pascha, Director, Cloud Economist EMEA at Nutanix, and Jeremy Rader, Intel’s GM, Enterprise Strategy & Solutions Group, Data Platforms Group, to find out more about these obstacles to migration and how they can be overcome.
What are the biggest barriers to hybrid cloud migration?
Hamut: One of the biggest challenges has been the high price of migration. Many companies have been subjected to a flood of hidden costs due to over consumption which, when combined with the cost of running lingering legacy systems, makes the whole infrastructure far too unwieldy and expensive.
Many companies also don’t anticipate just how long migration to the cloud can take if it is poorly managed. For example, it is not unusual for large multi-nationals to migrate just two out of 200 apps to the public cloud in 12 months, racking up additional costs of around $1.5 million in the process.
In addition to cost and time-to-value, what are the biggest technical challenges?
Hamut: The technical challenges include the three Rs of refactoring, rebuilding, and rehosting apps, so that they work as desired once they’re hosted in the cloud.
- Refactoring and re-architecting require distinct levels of redevelopment and code modification, including a potential shift to a new architecture – a process that can take six to eight months or more per app.
- Rebuilding involves a complete rewrite of the app, potentially as a SaaS-based application, and will require a redevelopment process.
- Rehosting an app involves migrating it to a different infrastructure without modifying the application code or features.
To what extent do enterprises need to re-think the migration process?
Hamut: To say that migration to the hybrid cloud hasn’t gone as expected is an understatement. Faced with the unacceptable cost, complexity, and time-to-value, IT leaders will need to adopt new approaches that enable them to take back ownership and find new ways to ensure their cloud journey fits their business needs.
How important is it for companies to plan thoroughly ahead of migration?
Hamut: It’s absolutely critical. The cloud migration journey is new for most companies and so it requires detailed planning to overcome some significant challenges. Despite this, CIOs and their teams are under so much pressure to show a return on investment that they often under-prepare and fast-forward to the project execution phase too early.
This can be a fatal mistake. Teams should not implement anything until they have completed a full review and produced a detailed migration plan for every individual app. A wholesale lift-and-shift approach may seem attractive on paper, but key challenges, such as security, cost efficiency, and performance requirements must not be overlooked. Each enterprise app is likely to require careful handling during migration in order to avoid the need for excessive refactoring, which is likely to slow down time-to-value and increase cost.
How widely should CIOs cast their net during this planning phase?
Hamut: CIOs are well advised to plan their migration strategy with all cloud options in mind – public, private, multi-cloud, and hybrid cloud solutions included. This is because C-suites often focus on the benefits of public cloud to the exclusion of everything else, even if a pure public cloud approach is not the perfect fit. For many years companies have adopted a multi-vendor strategy which has served them well. During the migration to the public cloud, however, many companies are tempted to do the opposite.
Jeremy: The first step is to develop a cloud strategy and operating model that extends from private to multiple public cloud, edge, [and] managed service providers. A cloud strategy provides that structure to link your business goals for cloud to your cloud operating model or tactical plan. It’s also good practice to anticipate and address likely barriers and risks to success up front. A lack of visibility, inconsistent security models, heterogeneous user policies, and diverse management tools all increase complexity and if not understood up-front, can jeopardise the success of the transformation projects. I also want to point out that you’re not on your own. Engage with experts to assist – your trusted vendors, cloud providers, and partners including Nutanix and Intel, can help. Let us bring our experience, insight, and expertise to help guide you through your transformation.
What is the key to success when migrating to the hybrid cloud?
Hamut: It’s difficult to generalise, but choosing a range of cloud solutions, each depending on the requirements of individual apps is very important. The prevailing opinion within the IT industry may be that public cloud remains the right choice for some workloads, particularly early in their lifecycles. But different applications have different requirements, and these factors should be taken into account.
Jeremy: While many early forays into cloud were the result of top-down mandates for ‘cloud first’ or even budget cuts, organisations now recognise that a more cohesive strategy can improve success. There’s been a paradigm shift: from tactical modernisation efforts with cloud, to more strategic transformation - it’s not about prioritising the public cloud as a location, it’s about driving the right business outcomes.
What should organisations look for in a hybrid cloud solution?
Hamut: Market-leading hybrid cloud solutions do have answers to all of the challenges we’ve discussed. Best-in-class solutions use a single data plane, which enables companies to move their applications with ease to the public cloud, without the need to refactor apps or adjust business and IT processes to support cloud workloads. We often see organisations achieving 1-2 years faster time to public cloud and thus time to value. They also ensure data security and compliance protocols are maintained between multiple clouds and on-prem products
Leading solutions also enable reversibility. This is the ability to move apps from one public cloud provider to another, or back to their own on-prem solutions, multiple times. Organisations in all sectors including banking, insurance, healthcare, and the public sector, need to look at the service catalogues of their public cloud projects and ensure they have this freedom of movement, and at a minimal cost. Reversibility is key to futureproofing a hybrid cloud strategy. It is also particularly important if companies are to remain flexible in their response to new environmental, social and governance (ESG) requirements and remain agile in the face of the energy crisis.
What kinds of cost and time savings can we expect from such solutions?
Hamut: The best hybrid cloud solutions using pure AWS or Azure can deliver average savings of more than 30% compared to a native public cloud. These solutions also require lower time and expertise investment for app refactoring, and they enable IT teams to manage all of their cloud solutions through a single pane of glass. This single view ensures superior cost governance and better forecasting, as expenditure can be calculated in advance.
Is this journey tech-centric or are there important human considerations as well?
Hamut: So far, we have discussed IT systems’ requirements, but retaining human capital is another important challenge when migrating to the hybrid cloud. The IT sector skills shortage means that it is crucial CIOs involve and empower their IT teams as they embark on the data centre transformation journey. Without doing so, they face the prospect of employee anxiety and frustration, which is likely to lead to reduced productivity and ultimately employee attrition and an IT brain drain from the organisation.
CIOs are advised to consider a hybrid cloud solution that takes employees on the migration journey, enabling them to learn about and familiarise themselves with the new cloud environment in the data centre before it is extended to the public cloud.
What are your final words to CIOs involved in this process right now?
There are countless IT vendors selling ingenious tools designed to make the cloud migration process smoother, but ultimately a market-leading hybrid cloud solution, which is well-planned, offers the freedom to choose, delivers reversibility, and is implemented by an experienced strategic partner will always be the best option. Find out more about Nutanix.