Are you ready for the cloud?
Moving to the cloud is a major decision for any business, and presents a large opportunity for the people involved in leading the migration.
But it’s also a decision that can bring a wealth of benefits (and savings) to your business. Readiness is everything.
To help you improve your migration readiness, we’ve set out the three questions you need to answer before you start your journey to the AWS Cloud.
By answering them, you’ll know where you stand and what you need to do next to make your migration a success.
"There is no compression algorithm for experience"
— Andy Jassy, CEO, AWS
1. Can we handle this alone?
The first step is to assess your in-house experience.
It may be that migrating to the cloud is nothing new to your team, in which case with a bit of planning you’ll be ready to hit the ground running.
However, if cloud migration is a step into the unknown, you’ll want expert support.
It’s not simply a case of researching the pitfalls. Some of the real issues of large-scale technical projects are the ‘unknown unknowns’—the issues that you don’t even think about looking into until they hit suddenly.
The only real way to avoid them is experience, but it can feel like a paradox—you can’t start without the experience, yet you can’t get the experience without starting.
The first step is to assess your in-house experience.
It may be that migrating to the cloud is nothing new to your team, in which case with a bit of planning you’ll be ready to hit the ground running.
However, if cloud migration is a step into the unknown, you’ll want expert support.
It’s not simply a case of researching the pitfalls. Some of the real issues of large-scale technical projects are the ‘unknown unknowns’—the issues that you don’t even think about looking into until they hit suddenly.
The only real way to avoid them is experience, but it can feel like a paradox—you can’t start without the experience, yet you can’t get the experience without starting.
Luckily you don’t have to go it alone. Nor do you have to build a brand new team yourself.
Instead, you can work with another team who have been there before.
Through our Migration Competency Program, we have identified specialist partners who can assist you with every step of your migration.
These partners (including companies like Accenture, Capgemini, Cloudreach, and Cognizant) can offer you the support you need to move to AWS whatever your size—whether you’re a small organisation taking your first steps towards the cloud or a multinational enterprise looking for complete migration, or something in between.
We have created a Migration Competency to help customers choose partners that have been vetted thoroughly by our migration experts. These partners have proven that they have the experience, qualifications, and scale to help customers with even the most complex migrations.
Luckily you don’t have to go it alone. Nor do you have to build a brand new team yourself.
Instead, you can work with another team who have been there before.
Through our Migration Competency Program, we have identified specialist partners who can assist you with every step of your migration.
These partners (including companies like Accenture, Capgemini, Cloudreach, and Cognizant) can offer you the support you need to move to AWS whatever your size—whether you’re a small organisation taking your first steps towards the cloud or a multinational enterprise looking for complete migration, or something in between.
We have created a Migration Competency to help customers choose partners that have been thoroughly vetted by our migration experts. These partners have proven that they have the experience, qualifications, and scale to help customers with even the most complex migrations.
2. Have I got the right tools?
A seamless cloud migration requires tools and software solutions that you probably don’t have access to yet.
Normally it would take time, effort, and money for your team to build or source these tools for themselves.
But with AWS you get access to a marketplace full of curated solutions that will help to get you up and running swiftly and, most importantly, securely.
The AWS Marketplace hosts solutions across data migration, storage, network topology, application profiling, and many other areas where your business could benefit from pre-built tools.
If you want to get started with the AWS Cloud, migrations solutions in AWS Marketplace could be a great first step to see what tools are on offer for you.
3. Have our people got the right skills?
Question one looked at whether you have the business-wide experience to implement a cloud migration.
This question looks at a more individual level—do your employees have the skills they need to thrive during and after a move to the AWS Cloud?
A fear of skill shortages are a common concern we hear from companies thinking about a cloud migration.
Of course, you will need people with the right skills and expertise to manage your system, but most businesses will find that, with the right training, their existing employees will be well equipped to handle it.
The benefits are that it’s often faster, cheaper, and easier to upskill existing staff rather than to hire new people.
3. Have our people got the right skills?
Question one looked at whether you had the business-wide experience to implement a cloud migration.
This question looks at a more individual level—do your employees have the skills they need to thrive during and after a move to the AWS Cloud?
Skill shortages are a common concern we hear from companies thinking about a cloud migration.
Of course, you will definitely need people with the right skills and expertise to manage your system, but most businesses will find that, with the right training, their existing employees will be well equipped to handle it.
The benefits are that is it’s often faster, cheaper, and easier to upskill existing staff rather than to hire new people.
The data supports this approach—IDC research shows that comprehensively trained organisations are:
We offer training online or in locations around the world (and we can even come to you). That means your staff have the flexibility they want to gain the new skills they need. We even offer 300+ free digital training courses to help you learn the foundations of AWS.
Then, once your team feels confident in their new skills, we can help them to get certified.
Getting AWS certified provides an industry-recognised credential, and there are ten role-based and specialty certification exams for your people to achieve.
○ Improved ability to meet customer requirements
○ Faster troubleshooting
○ Faster project completion
○ Increased productivity
○ Improved ability to meet customer requirements
○ Faster troubleshooting
○ Faster project completion
○ Increased productivity
And those benefits become even more apparent when you achieve ten percent certification within your organisation. Psychologists have shown that when just ten percent of a group are passionate adopters of an idea, the majority tend to follow suit.
That means you get the kind of business-wide adoption that will make a real difference.
Ready to make your move to the cloud a success?
Get in touch with your Account Manager or Migration Partner and ask them to help you with a Migration Readiness Assessment (MRA).