Some of the key items I've come across when considering a cloud move are listed below:
- Cost of current software licensing, performing tuning, upgrades, fixes, patches & equipment maintenance are some of the cost of an on-premise solution that needs to be considered and compared with the cost of moving to the cloud. A TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) analysis is vital before considering the move.
- Understand the business areas and process that can be broken down into smaller chunks before moving to the cloud. Phased approach seems to be the most widely used cutover model used by most organizations, make sure you go for something small that can be pulled back at an early stage if things go "pear" shaped.
- Make sure that the organization has the ability to be able to manage roles for people in the cloud. Most of the cloud solution these days focus on user experience which states the fact that its mostly going to be user role base.
- Choose the right partner - Like any IT implementation, make sure you choose the right vendor who is going to support you throughout your organization's transition to the cloud.
- Be open and honest about what is available currently within the organization. IT infrastructure has got to change, people's thinking needs to change and the businesses need to have an adoptive culture, if none of these can be done, cloud is not for you at least not until you get these issues sorted first.
- Get the business involved, this is an extension of my previous point, make sure you get the business users to also buy in on the cloud move. Moving to the cloud is not just an IT Strategic decision is also a business operating decision , keep in mind that this is something that's going to have an impact on the entire business & its operating style.
Hope you found these tips useful, this is by no means an exhaustive list but I believe this is a good starting point to address if your business is "Cloud Ready" or NOT.
