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All very good points to include Jfrazier so many thanks. Every company has common pain points but also specific just to them. Whatever they are, should all be captured and measured as it's all useful data to see what changed and hopefully, for the better.

Glad to be of service!

Hopefully, this article can assist a little :-)

Completely agree with the lack of monitoring and management of such custom equipment/OS etc. Companies producing them could do better to keep up with the times and make them interface better and securely. And yes, a bit of consultation before purchase would also go a long way :-)

Continuity is indeed important with such projects as the team working on the project understand all the requisite context and decisions and the project moves faster as a result.

Great to see such comments asheppard970 and reaction. I agree with "C" and the problems you and rschroedermentioned it brings when the due-diligence is not done as to what impact the new shiny thing will have on everything else. ... and it's a problem everywhere really! :-)

rschroeder Firstly, many thanks for the great comments. I agree and hope that the Cloud Architect is also considered one of those who may require training, especially if that's the next step in their career. Nobody is born a Cloud Architect! Typically, a person who is trusted technically is automatically assigned that job…

To some, planning is boring but there is undeniable truth in what I quoted in the end. Nobody gets fired for preparing properly (unless one keeps planning and never takes the first step )

I can understand that. Technology reasons are typically due to disparate systems organically grown within acquired companies and not all clouds will be 100% compatible. Political, Business but also even compliance and data sovereignty concerns can be factors in choosing many cloud platforms. That said, in such big…

I suspected that might be the case and hence the last bit :-P

All great pointsrschroeder Thanks for this addition and these points are definitely going into my notes

Absolutely! Any project of substantial size should follow the same principles and is very valid for, say, another private cloud (or other solutions for that matter).

df112 There are countless people doing a great job in IT and while there was a time when it was not recognized at all, I think things are changing and companies are realizing the value of a skilled IT team.

Exactly right! Too much data is really a thing.

Hopefully not and at their own peril! :-)

I know! And to think there weren't many providers (or services) only a few years ago. The more, the merrier - I say!

Absolutely agree and not saying providers should get away with not providing the service they've promised. For that reason, SLAs should absolutely be part of the evaluation, especially if they cover services that the company cares about. But I am also mindful that when evaluating the platform, SLAs coverage will have…

Good point and can easily be forgotten. Data flows and patterns change as a result of migration to the cloud and one has to have a close look at what is suitable and in-scope for migration. Not everything is suitable for migration and it can depend on various factors. Complexity can be one of them too.

Absolutely! Hope you saw my next post about why a team of people, their skill and commitment to the cause is so important for such projects: Cloud Migration Is No Drama – Or Is It?

Absolutely! Sometimes it will be the technology but sometimes compliance. Falls neatly into the Suitability header

Good call rschroeder But then, cloud providers are quite crafty when it comes to SLAs and some are so well-established that they know customers will come to them anyway. Not great but typically what happens, unfortunately.

Indeed!

Absolutely! Without an audit beforehand, there's no visibility of the challenge ahead. Even if there's a workaround available for the showstopper, it is typically very expensive either in terms of cost or effort (or both!)

Couldn't agree more!

That's right! It's extremely important to define success criteria and to make sure that's being aimed for at every stage so that at the end of the process, there's something concrete to test success against. That can't happen unless the evaluation exercise is done before taking the first step.