Libor Bešenyi (CTO)
We have looked at hybrid Cloud solutions that are inevitable in the beginning of our journey to the digital transformation.
Nowadays IT managers are still reserved with regard to Cloud solutions (see this link), yet there are some who prepare their company for digital transformation. If your company wants to prepare appropriately for migration to the Cloud and digital transformation, your IT department should focus on the following steps:
Let's implement flexibility in the company
IT departments must at least be prepared to respond flexibly to any business needs. This refers to two aspects:
- Flexibility of people and readiness of processes (the ability to deal with the varied requirements of the arket and the ability to convert new ideas to real outputs in short time)
- Technological flexibility (processes and technology must be able to incorporate changes quickly)
Let's map and critically evaluate our existing systems and processes
For a well-designed system, it should not be a problem to get into the Cloud. It's definitely a sign of quality and foresight of our architects. If an audit of our systems shows that migration to the Cloud would be complicated for us, we will analyse our options and costs.
Let's concentrate on the modularity of systems, the management of users. Phase the project.
Minimizing the risk of migration to the Cloud lies in phasing the process. The phasing is necessary because of planning finances. Thus, if we can divide the system into small segments, thanks to the Cloud we will know how much the individual segments cost us and of course we will be able to scale performance of incriminated parts of the system (not only the system as whole).
In such cases, the so-called Hybrid Cloud Solutions occur, when part of the system runs as it did before and part of it is already in the Cloud. At this stage, it will be a key to deal with user management.
Trends are that these `mini-systems` used to build our information system will be in the future used as building stones in the systems of our partners or other corporate products (the so-called SaaS integration). Therefore, the issues of user management are vital for migration to the Cloud and "home" solutions should be avoided.
Put emphasis on processes
In a similar way in which it is not appropriate to transfer the entire system to the Cloud at the same time due to huge risk and potential huge financial investment, we need to pay attention to the processes. IT processes should be well mapped in isolated from each other. Thus, the often-criticised data duplication occurs. This itself is not a problem in case the project is well-managed, such model can make the migration to the Cloud considerably more effective.
Communication is just as important as the right technological implementation
The objectives and strategy of Cloud migration should be suitably communicated to the entire company. This is what the IT department does a partner to the company management. IT strategy goes hand in hand with the company's business strategy. To have a real benefit from your IT strategy, you must initiate enthusiasm in people. It is only possible to achieve this by open and targeted communication across the company.
