The Doppler Quarterly Special Edition 2019 | Page 95

Our move to Azure had some hiccups. We had very little
understanding of the time it would take to do the migra-
tions. Our culture didn’t put a premium on scheduling –
doing little things like spinning instances down on the
weekends when nobody in the organization would need
the resources. That cost us a lot of money because the
controls weren’t there.
We also did not instill a direct relationship between our
on-ramp to the cloud and our using on-premises gear.
These were seen as two separate processes that were not
connected. Control and transparency between environ-
ments is essential when you are making the transition
between VMs and the public cloud.
If we were to do it all over again, having a Cloud Business
Office to direct traffic and manage those relationships
would be critical to the success of the project. A CBO gives
structure to the business owners and makes sure all func-
tions are handled – everything from security to procure-
ment, to finance, to executive reporting. The CBO holds
people accountable and ensures the project is done right.
Conclusion
These days enterprises face stiff competition from cloud-
borne companies that are not saddled with legacy costs
and processes. Cloud-first transformations can help enter-
prises close competitive gaps and get ahead. But they can
be a challenge to pull off, given the number of obstacles
companies can encounter along the way. At HPE we
learned a lot of lessons on our sometimes circuitous jour-
ney to the cloud. With a little more planning and a little
more understanding of the migration process, other com-
panies can follow more of a straight line to get to their own
cloud destinations.
Written by Scott Anderson, Vice President of Global Cloud
Advisory, HPE.
SPECIAL SUMMER
EDITION 2018
2019 | THE DOPPLER | 93