Cloud Readiness Assessment

This is a general question to categorize the captured data by company size.

It is interesting to see what kind of data policies and procedures are present in private and public organizations; therefore, they are distinguished as such.

This is a general question to categorize the captured data by branch.

This is a general question to categorize the captured data by turnover.

If enough data is captured different countries can be compared.

The more servers you move to the cloud the more you can benefit from economies of scale; however, each system is individual and brings its own unique requirements. Technically, this makes it is more challenging to bring a large amount of servers into the IaaS cloud.

It is much simpler to move virtualized servers into the cloud than to start with physical servers, because all of the dependency clarifications and performance tests have already been completed. Often, problems are encountered with external hardware, such as Dongles for specific software, which is not compatible with virtualized drivers, etc. Much more time and effort is necessary to migrate to the cloud if your servers are not virtualized.

Depending where the servers are located, it can take more or less effort to migrate them to an IaaS provider. Having them hosted at an external provider or distributed over different locations makes it slightly more complicated than servers which reside at a single location.

Companies with predominantly mobile users most likely already have some solutions in place to access data remotely. Therefore, these companies are more cloud ready than one with only stationary clients that are connected to the in-house server. Nevertheless this factor does not add a lot of weight to cloud readiness.

The more current ones IT infrastructure is, the higher its state of readiness will be, because new technologies are already in place and therefore can be merged faster and more conveniently to an IaaS provider. The benefits however increase with the age of the hardware, because having old systems would require a reinvestment in new hardware, in which case it might be more cost effective to purchase new hardware and software directly with the IaaS provider.

Migrating to the cloud and an IaaS provider is also a great opportunity to update current operating systems unless you are already up-to-date and want to migrate directly with the present configuration.

The faster ones broadband connection is, the better the cloud experience will be. If you incorporate servers into the cloud, their computing requirements will be fulfilled by the IaaS provider’s hardware infrastructure and will, therefore, not be affected by the speed of your broadband connection. The speed at which you are able to send and receive files / documents will still be dependent on your broadband connection speed.

Storing data and servers at a remote location can cost time, because the performance to access data is less fast; therefore, a fast connection is helpful to retrieve data instantly. Still, there are multiple solutions that support off-site providers and increase data accessibility rates. If for instance you work with an application that runs on a remote server and you access data that is also stored on the remote server, the servers communicate with each other and the data does not need to be transferred to your current location. Accessing such data is instant. However, if you wanted to open a 20 MB Excel Sheet from your remote server folder, it can take up to a few seconds / minutes depending on your connection.

Supporting mobile internet access can strengthen the case for cloud computing because it allows one to access the company’s data at any location. An example scenario would be a virtual desktop connected over mobile broadband allowing one to enter information into the companies CRM quickly and easily from anywhere. Syncing to the server is no longer needed, as the data is directly entered online.

When accessing servers and data at a remote location, a permanent, reliable broadband connection is obviously needed. This is extremely important for cloud readiness!

Depending on how branch specific software is used, the architecture of the infrastructure will vary. Some configurations being more cloud adaptable than others.

Some types of software demand high levels of both graphical CPU and server performance; these types of software are not ideal for cloud usage, while other applications, like CRMs, Office Applications, Data Input / Output Applications are excellent.

Both Unix and Windows Servers are almost entirely supported by IaaS providers; however, Windows Servers are easier to manage and, in general, more IT technicians are familiar with how to operate them.

The kind of client operating system one uses does not majorly impact cloud readiness, even though having a homogeneous set of clients does make integration and connection to the cloud far easier. Microsoft Clients offer facilitated functions so that they can be centrally managed and configured, enabling you to switch servers and deploy new settings and software in a much simpler and faster manner.

The way one backup’s data does not directly influence cloud readiness, but it shows how structured the data is and whether or not processes are automated.

The way one sets data access policies factors in for the cloud readiness. Joining the cloud will provide a structured environment where data structure and access permissions will have to be defined.

This is a very critical question for cloud readiness. Security is generally very high in the cloud and often even better than in individual data centers. Nevertheless do a lot of people fear of losing control over data.

It is difficult for IaaS customers to determine where their data is stored and what happens to it because they lose direct control over physical servers, data location and security measures. Basically, the customer must trust the service provider. There are also many laws concerning data security which either permit or prohibit companies from moving data out of their data centers.

Where one’s data is stored does not directly affect cloud readiness, but it is an advantage if data is already stored at a central location. The more structured data is, the better position one is in to migrate to the cloud.

The quantity of data one has should not be considered a hindrance because storage capacity is dynamic and can be expanded on premise. It does, however, slightly affect cloud readiness due to the fact that the more data you have the longer it takes to transfer it and the harder it will be to migrate to another service provider (lock-in).

This question can be seen as very critical for cloud readiness, specifically concerning access speed of files. Small files will not cause problems, but attempting to access large files can delay file-access speed for the end user. Nevertheless, there are solutions available in order to help minimize the problematic tendencies of accessing large files.

Cloud computing enables new ways of deploying systems; it introduces a new level of elasticity and agility to scaling systems and acquiring resources on demand. Being flexible allows a company to react faster to changes.

This question is less relevant to cloud readiness but instead assesses the value gained when having scalable systems in place.

A high degree of automation enables a company to move faster and with less effort to the cloud. Cloud infrastructure will facilitate future automation possibilities for systems and reduce the amount of time needed to fulfill daily tasks executed by IT technicians.

A high degree of standardization facilitates the move to the cloud because many things are already defined and can be converted and adapted to the systems in the cloud. This means less specification work and less preparation time, which translates into a higher degree of cloud readiness.

A virtualized infrastructure allows one to quickly allocate new resources and deploy new servers to balance and compensate for an increased workload.

From the organization’s perspective, business continuity and disaster recovery are very important.

The less critical the availability of the systems, the easier it is to join an IaaS provider. In surveys, CIOs stated that they were apprehensive concerning the availability of remote systems. Even though many IaaS providers guarantee a very high degree of availability that many internally / private operated data centers cannot achieve.

Good monitoring tools can help to measure data, uptime metrics, throughput, resource consumption and so forth. Having a good monitoring system in place can give information regarding the potential requirements of joining the cloud and also an estimation of costs.

IaaS can deliver high availability systems that are held redundant and can take over within under a second so that no system interruption will occur.

Software that is daily used and not available offline. Stored on companies servers.

It can be an advantage to have internal resources that manage company IT, and who also have the skills necessary to migrate to an IaaS provider. Having resources present that can both assist and work internally to prepare for the migration is a valuable asset. Otherwise, these resources would have to be contracted which would in turn drive up costs.

As we move up through the pyramid from the basic elements of infrastructure to the top layer of applications, the skills and necessary knowledge to build the components decreases. Each layer can be built upon the previous one even if one does not necessarily understand the layer beneath. An organization with limited infrastructure skills can, therefore, purchase IaaS from a vendor and build their own unique platform upon that infrastructure.

It is proven that virtualized and/or hosted infrastructures facilitate and reduce day to day tasks of IT staff.

Changing the systems and transferring them from an internal data center to an IaaS provider can go unnoticed by regular employees. However, the new functionalities of the system that add value to the business require employees to adapt. Often software upgrades are incorporated into a migration and users are forced to deflect.