It is a new year, and for many of us, we are focusing on bettering ourselves but why stop there? This could be the year your business achieves new heights. Here is how you can focus on bettering your business in the Cloud.

At this point in your process, you have decided on the reasons as to why the cloud is right your business and after you have decided the strategic direction in which the cloud should take your business. While the direction and strategy are critical to the operation, the timing is what you will need to focus on next.

The outline or plan of the following events will lead to successful cloud adoption. Firstly, a timeline should be developed in order to create some sort of accountability for specific deadlines. This way, the process becomes more predictable and easier to manage. The timeline should be highly visible among the implementation team, keeping everyone on the same page will help.

Let’s continue following our cloud guide.

1 - Timeline:

At this stage, an overall timeline of the plan of the implementation process should be presented. Milestones and crucial steps should be made noted to ensure the overall progress of the migration. Some steps are more important than others and some steps not completed correctly or in time could derail the entire migration. The implementation process should follow a road map to ensure a successful cloud adoption.

2 - Implementation:

Identify your cloud leaders and those who will be leading and assessing the overall scope of the project. During this step, try identifying specific deliverable(s) that the process must achieve. Sticking to the timeline and each step will provide the best results. The plan should also be shared with stakeholders or C-level executives. It is at this time that the implementation team may also be negotiating contracts with different vendors in order to determine which cloud-service offers both performance and cost efficiency.

3- Planning:

Over time, your environment will need to be updated. During the initial implementation process, it is useful to plan out how and when each upgrade/update will take place. Planning these steps far in advance could facilitate the infrastructure upgrade process which in turn will reduce delays and overall downtime. Upgrades to your security and changes to your active directory are a couple of things that need to be updated. However, before the implementation even begins, it is important to understand the impact adopting the cloud may have on your networks. An increase in bandwidth may be needed to successfully employ a cloud strategy.

Once these crucial planning stages are completed, your cloud adoption can start to take its shape and will lead you right into the design of your businesses Cloud Architecture.

Part One            Part Two