This section of the playbook outlines the steps an agency will need to go through to evaluate the overall cloud readiness of their infrastructures and applications.

A. Setup an initial structured 2-3 day Workshop with one of the Cloud Providers for the executive and staff as your first step to help identify desired outcomes and business goals.

White-Paper: The Cloud Adoption Blueprint: 10 Best Practices for Success

B. Perform a Cloud Readiness Assessment

Analyze (Perform assessment)

Build Plans

Calculate initial Total Cost of Ownership

Migrate

Run

C. Cloud Readiness Assessment Tools

AWS - Cloud Readiness Assessment tool - is a self-guided checklist to gauge your level of preparedness for a smooth transition to the cloud. The AWS Cloud Adoption Readiness Tool (CART) helps organizations of all sizes develop efficient and effective plans for cloud adoption and enterprise coud migrations.

AZURE - AZURE Migration Center - cloud migration tools and guidance that uses proven migration plans so you have a smooth transition to the cloud.

Google Cloud Platform - GCP Migration Center Solutions - Google Cloud migration solutions help you navigate your custom cloud journey.

1. Classify Applications / Workloads for the Cloud

Perform a thorough assessment of your current situation to lay the foundation for important decisions you’ll need to make.

You should:

1. Create your application baseline (Template will be provided by your Engagement Manager)

2. Audit your current infrastructure, applications & identify each business owner

3. Use below criteria to document all application dependencies & interfaces.

4. This classification will help you determine which applications are candidates for cloud.

5. Choose one of the following Cloud Deployment models for each application: (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS).

Architecture

Security

Availability

Performance

Scalability

6. Document Physical / Virtual Infrastructure details

7. Prioritize your application migration order

8. Review current cost and resource levels

1. Create a Business Case for the Cloud

a. A cloud migration is a big endeavor, you’ll need to create a business case in order to get management buy-in.

b. Outline your current costs (including cost of hardware, software, real estate, staffing, and any others) to maintain your data centers

c. Identify each line item that will be impacted by your cloud migration and where the savings will come from

d. Perform a SWOT analysis

e. Cloud First means all of your applications and data will move to the cloud unless there is a compelling reason to remain on-premise.

f. Without a Cloud First strategy you simply will not be able to dedicate the appropriate resources to fully establish the organizational change necessary to make a measurable difference.

g. Requires assigning dedicated teams and making a decision to properly fund and manage your cloud program.

2. Teams to include in Cloud meetings and workshops;

Executive Sponsors – Director, CTO, CIO, etc.

Application Owners – Business units, development teams,

Security – CISO, SecOps people

GRC – Governance, risk and compliance experts

Finance – Procurement, Accountants

Lead Architects – Cloud and existing infrastructure leaders

Database – Lead DBAs, data architects

IT Operations – Leaders, networking specialists

2. Select a cloud migration partner

Identify your project team or Partner to be used for the migration activities. This can be done with in house staff, staff augmentation or through a Partner.

3. Determine what type of cloud environment you need

Public, Private, or Hybrid? - Weigh pros and cons of each environment and how they fit with your Agency’s strategy.

4. Choose the right cloud provider

Review the goals that you’re trying to achieve by migrating to the cloud then determine which cloud computing company provides all of the components you need and performs well in the primary objectives you’re trying to achieve.

5. Plan your migration approach

A well thought out migration approach is important so everyone on the team stays in sync with the execution and knows exactly what needs to be done each step of the way.

Questions to consider:

Set up re-occurring cadence calls with all team members.

Build up your teams Cloud skills and enthusiasm around the project.

Large deployments should use an agile approach w/ mini sprints to track progress.

What is the order in which applications and environments will be migrated?

What does a successful migration look like to your Agency?

Who is responsible for what should be tracked in a RACI Matrix.

What will the new cloud environment look like?

What methods will you use to deploy your new cloud environment?

What processes will change as a result of the migration?

What kind of training is necessary to ensure a smooth transition?

What will you do with your on premise resources once the work is completed?

You have multiple options when it comes to working through your Total Cost of Ownership costs. Use one of the three Cloud TCO calculators below or if you have the VMWare tool use it to compare your current to future Cloud costs.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) - Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Calculator

Microsoft Azure Pricing Calculator - Microsoft Azure’s Pricing Calculator

Google GCP Pricing Calculator - Goggle Cloud Platform Pricing Calculator

1. Execute the Migration Plan

Execution is critical! Here’s what you need to do:

Back up your servers and data

Deploy the cloud environment

Migrate servers, data, and applications (the order is dependent on your specific situation)

Validate and tweak the production environments as needed

2. Migration tools

AWS Migration Hub provides a single location to track the progress of application migrations. It allows you to choose the migration tools that best fit your needs, while providing visibility into the status of the migrations. It also provides key metrics and progress for individual applications, regardless of which tools are being used to migrate them

AWS Application Discovery Service helps you plan migration projects by gathering information about your on-premises data centers. AWS Application Discovery Service collects and presents configuration, usage, and behavior data from your servers to help you better understand your workloads.

AWS Server Migration Service - This procedure describes setting up the AWS Server Migration Service for either of the two supported platforms, VMware vSphere or Microsoft Hyper-V/SCVMM.

AZURE Migration Service - Azure is the only hybrid cloud to help you with cost-effective, flexible cloud migration paths. Get all the tools and resources you need to migrate your apps, data, and infrastructure at your own pace, with confidence.

Once you successfully migrate Applications to the Cloud coordinate with your Integration vendor or with one of the Cloud Architects from AWS, or AZURE to run through the following checklist.

Basic & Enterprise Operational Checklist Documentation

AWS Well Architected Review Documentation

AZURE Onboarding Guide for IT Organizations

1. Monitor Production Environments - Implement cloud monitoring tools and processes to ensure the new cloud environment is kept stable and works as designed.

Below is a checklist that was created for State of Arizona Agency's Operational teams to review and manage their Cloud Infrastructures during their migration Journey.

Billing & Account Governance

- Develop an approach for billing, charge-back and account management?

Security & Access Management

- Develop a strategy for managing API, console, operating system, network, and data access?

Asset Management for Cloud Resources

- Have a strategy for identifying and tracking Cloud provisioned resources?

Application HA/Resilience

- Confirm what applications will need high availability and resilience requirements?

Backup and Replication Management

- Confirm all resources and applications have established backup and replication processes in place and are operational?

Monitoring & Incident Management

- Implement appropriate monitoring tools and integrate your Cloud resources into your incident management processes?

Configuration & Change Management

- Have a configuration and change management strategy for your Cloud resources?

Release & Deployment Management

- Determine how application releases and deployments work with your configuration and change management strategy?

1. Build dashboard metrics to track your overall progress

a. Build KPI's to track progress and performance of your applications.

b. Build in steps for application acceptance testing.

2. Leverage Integration Partners / Cloud Provider Solution Architects to help design

3. Implement key practices throughout the entire process of migration:

a. Communicate constantly to all stakeholders

b. Organize a cloud strategy team

c. Set up sandboxes or development environments where people can experiment

d. Define your Business goals

e. Define your Technical goals

f. Understand your Agency governance (most important is data classification)

g. Understand financial impacts

h. Develop checklists for application/infrastructure requirements

i. Perform a security gap analysis and follow best practices from the Cloud vendors

j. Use Well Architected frameworks for each application/workload migrated to the Cloud