Overview covering key aspects, best practices and lessons learnt from migrating applications to public cloud, evergreen cloud strategy, cloud operations, application migration, legacy optimization, and regulatory compliance.
DK
by Devendra Kumar
Move to the Hybrid Cloud - Phases
1
Application Discovery
(Understand the Current Mode of Operations (CMO) environment)
2
Assessment & Planning
(Defining Target Landing Zones & suitability to migrate)
3
Migration Planning
(Groups, Waves, Schedule)
4
App Migration Design
(How to migrate to target/FMO end-state)
5
Migration Execution
(Move to Future Mode of Operations)
6
Azure Managed Service Gold
(Setup/ Run)
7
Azure Express Route
(Setup/ Availability)
8
Design/Build
(End State Hybrid Cloud ls = Non Public Cloud)
Key Success Factors
1
Clear Scope and Sensible Plans
Have a well-defined scope and implementation plans that consider program complexity and localization requirements.
2
Suitably Experienced Staff
Ensure you have enough experienced staff within your team and the client's team to successfully implement the program.
3
Trusted Methodology
Use a reliable methodology that provides necessary controls and visibility for the program.
4
Stakeholder Support
Gain support from stakeholders to facilitate smooth business change enabled by outsourcing.
5
Effective Governance
Govern the program at the appropriate level, from executives to individual project level, with a "no surprises" approach.
6
Cloud Provider Involvement
Engage the public cloud provider in pre-solutioning, solutioning, design authority, and expertise (if needed).
TnT Program Influencers
Client
Business and Revenue Criticality
Timelines for regulatory compliance
Internal audit requirements
Government security requirements
Application Owners/Details & Dependencies
Downtime
Business change
User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
Process
ITIL Process
Incident
Change
SRM
Migration Process
Technologies
Azure
Network virtualization
Migration tools - Double take, Plate spin
Backup - Networker, Backup as a Service
Security (encryption..)
High Availability, Disaster Recovery
Oracle, MS SQL Databases
ITSM Tooling
Monitor tooling
People
Azure Cloud Experts
Microsoft Partner
Subject Matter Experts
Migration Experts
TnT leads
Lessons learned: "It's all about the customer applications"
Plan your Migration Waves
1
Infra/Utility
Support applications like security, monitoring, and configuration management. Migrate these first due to dependencies.
2
Simple
Single-server applications with minimal interfaces and dependencies. Quick wins for migration.
3
SAP
Traditional SAP applications hosted on non-HANA databases.
4
SAP HANA
SAP applications hosted on HANA-based databases.
Migration Planning
1
Plan for Wave Duration
Each wave may last 3 to 7 months based on complexity and technology.
2
Migrating Production Environments
Allow 3 to 4 weeks after non-prod migration for prod environment migration.
3
Issue Resolution Planning
Allocate time for resolving application-level issues, interface testing, batch jobs, reports, performance monitoring, and cut-over planning.
Migration Lessons (1)
1
Program Management
Establish clear communication with application owners, plan migrations thoroughly, and coordinate cutover and UAT for each application.
2
Application Compatibility
Ensure OS and database compatibility for Azure migration. PaaS applications may require additional transformation and business support monitoring.
3
Application Availability
Understand the impact of application moves on ITIL processes and ensure proper support for application services.
4
Regulatory Compliance
Implement robust processes to address regulatory requirements, including monitoring, data breach escalation, and encryption.
Migration Lessons (2)
1
Oracle Database Migration
Migrate large Oracle databases with daily deltas using Oracle Replication to Azure Oracle DB.
Upgrade Express Routes to 2 GB links for efficient database transfers.
2
Tooling and Backup
Implement OMS and HP-OM for monitoring VMs, databases, and networks during the migration.
Use Networker with "BUaaS" for faster backup and restore times.
3
Service Support and Availability
Ensure application criticality understanding and mitigate single points of failure to maintain optimal service support and availability.
4
Portal and Backup Challenges
Shift portals to ServiceNow (Azure) with cohesive tooling and process modification.
Address the lack of support for incremental backups in default VM and database backups.
5
Infrastructure Upgrades
Proactively engage with network transformation and support teams for successful infrastructure upgrades.
Deep understanding of data models, flows, and interfaces will ensure a smooth transition to the cloud environment.