Taking the leap from traditional servers architectures to the cloud seems daunting for many organizations. I have worked with dozens of companies that are considering the transition of their IT infrastructure, operations, and applications from traditional on-premises to a cloud computing platform. And many of these engagements have started the same way with the question “How do we do it?”
But before we dive into that question, why are you considering this transition?
Many companies find they have to shift to the cloud to increase innovation, lower costs, and most importantly, remain competitive in their market. It is highly likely that their competitors are already starting their own cloud adoption journeys. Public Cloud Computing offers many advantages over traditional on-premises or private-cloud offerings:
- Practically limitless capacity
- Increased innovation through a wide selection of services.
- Increased agility through speed and automation
- Improved security and compliance
So back to the question of how do you get started.
It can be overwhelming to start the cloud journey as you might have the idea of where you want to go (to the cloud) but no idea of how to actually get started. It is a journey, indeed, that will require a shift in perspective in how you view your organization, people, DevOps, InfraOps, and Security to be successful.
I will map out this cloud journey, through the lens of a typical company, using the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) as the path for our Journey. Through a series of blog posts, I will cover the primary stages of cloud adoption, from taking the first step and ending with the transformation and modernization of your business by leveraging the advantages of Cloud Computing. While this series will cover the journey from the perspective of the AWS CAF, it will be with the added perspective of what it actually means to an organization, based on the experience gained through meaningful interactions with customers that are on or have completed their journey to the cloud.
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Paul Sears is a Solutions Architect focusing on AWS with more than 25 years in IT Operations, Networking, and Security.