So, you may start by asking yourself….”What is the value of starting with an assessment?” and/or “Why not jump right into your cloud migration journey and smart moving stuff?” I’m going to tell you the value of an assessment, what to consider, and how to get started. 

What’s the Value in a Cloud Assessment? 

Often, we run into clients who have moved forward, quickly, to migrate to the cloud. Their IT department spun up an account, lifted and shifted a few virtual machines, and they are theoretically off to the races in their cloud journey. Right? 

Yes…. but not entirely. There is so much more to consider and much of it is non-technical. A cloud journey is more than shutting down a data center so you can run it somewhere else. Let’s dive in. 

1) Assess Your Organization (No, REALLY assess it – closely) 

There are so many questions to take into consideration when you start assessing your organization closely. Does your staff have the appropriate skills to maintain a cloud environment? What do they need to know? How will you get prepared? 

Are you secure? Are you cost optimized? Do the capabilities of your new platform align with your business objectives? Do they fix problems or introduce new ones? How would you architect things appropriately given your organizational goals? Are you taking advantage of the features the cloud offers? Do you know what features and benefits are? 

An assessment takes a deep dive into the following areas and scores your readiness for each, making sure the right stakeholders are providing input: 

KEY OBJECTIVES
ASSET INVENTORY
BUSINESS OPERATIONS
IT OPERATIONS
EXISTING IT PLATFORM
APPLICATIONS
SECURITY
WORKLOADS 
2) Know What You Have; Stop Guessing 

Many times, clients have a colloquial, historical view of their IT assets and environment. An assessment provides tool-based data analyzed by experts that provide an accurate, exhaustive view of what reality is. Believe it or not – we often complete an assessment knowing more about a customer’s IT environment than they do. Why? Because we’ve taken the time to carefully analyze tool-based data, interviewed stakeholders, and looked at it directly. Plus, we do this ALL the time. 

That data, coupled with interviews and workshops with stakeholders, facilitate real-world, data-driven recommendations that minimize the politics and ambiguity in decision making. They help optimize future state environments for simplicity, agility, and cost. We call that a Migration Readiness Assessment (MRA). 

Have you analyzed your licensing and how it may be optimized with cloud migration? Well – an Optimized License Assessment (OLA) is a great tool for moving, smarter; and getting a review of your current compliance in the process! Some vendors’ licensing models are very complex and overbearing. Wouldn’t it be great to move away from that? Maybe unpack a way to optimize what you have so you can save money or eliminate superfluous spending? 

3) Build Your Business Case 

Do you understand your Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)? Have you had an objective third party analyze and compare future state to current state, and the associated costs and business justification? 

We include a business case TCO as a part of our assessments. 

4) Get Funding 

A great way to undergo a formal assessment is the funding that cloud vendors provide. Yes, there’s the money they throw into a project, but there’s also the expertise and proven approaches they promote. They want you to be as successful on your new platform as you do, and they’re willing to invest time and money to see it happen. Not only that, but you’ll also work with partners they have vetted for expertise in these areas and stand behind. 

CleanSlate is one of those partners! We work with our cloud vendors and client partners to provide world-class, best practice, professional services to you in a fun, innovative, and enjoyable way. 

LET'S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS

Assessments are intelligent action plans to make your business future-ready. So, whether it’s time to migrate an application to the cloud or assess your current infrastructure and configuration – our team of experts will provide you with a strategic roadmap detailing your best path forward.