TECH TALK: NEIL CAMPBELL
Data is a major driving force in today’s economy and, correctly used, fuels innovation in businesses. We are seeing a fundamental shift in the use of data as organisations strive to use the power of cloud for data management, while remaining compliant with legislative and sectoral rules.
It is also the lifeblood of digital services and the organisations they support. Yet, often data is stored in solutions that are built on legacy technology which prevents organisations getting the most from it.
These systems are often costly to maintain, difficult to integrate and at risk of failure.
The Challenges of Data Migration
Migrating data to the cloud is not without its challenges. One of the first obstacles you must overcome is understanding what you have currently and what are your options for change.
Thankfully, many other organisations have been down this road already which has led to several established processes and tools. These tools can quickly and efficiently establish the suitability of current solutions for migration to cloud.
Such tools can look deep into highly complex systems such as Oracle databases and analyse table structures, feature use and even PL/SQL code.
This type of analysis is critical for organisations to understand the correct direction of travel for their data whilst understanding their options.
Beware hidden costs
When reviewing your current systems, it is easy to forget about the on-going software support and licence charges that are being paid each year.
When considering the costs of a solution, whatever it may be, it is important that you factor in what savings you may be making long term, moving away from a licensing model to a cloud, “pay for what you use” type model.
Achieving Data Migration Success
The key to migrating your data to the cloud is having access to the right expertise at the beginning of the project. This could mean recruiting a team of people, or working with a partner who specialises in this area.
Many organisations we work with take a hybrid approach. They choose to engage initially with a partner who helps the client to hit the ground running and accelerate delivery until the appropriate skills are developed in-house.
Whatever option you choose, make sure you have the right expertise on board before discovery and requirements gathering. This stage is critical to understanding the options for migration, re-platforming or system replacement.
Cloud is giving us unprecedented access to power and technology previously out of reach of most organisations and doing so at an affordable price.
But if organisations are willing to take a critical look at their “as-is” environment and identify what is possible then they can migrate their data to the cloud and, by doing so, obtain flexible, sustainable and cost-effective IT delivery.
In the process this will unlock the full potential of data on the cloud.
Neil Campbell is head of cloud & cyber at Exception, a digital services and solution provider dedicated to driving value through the power of technology
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