Despite its tantalising benefits, moving to the cloud isn't always an easy feat. Without the right plan or by using the wrong toolset, you can cause your business a lot of pain.
In fact, a staggering 74 percent of IT decision-makers report they have moved applications back to their on-premise infrastructures after a cloud migration. While there are differing reasons for these U-turns (such as security implications), it's important to note that moving applications off the cloud is just as complex as moving applications to the cloud. It's the equivalent of moving house for a second time right after you've unpacked all your boxes; costly, disruptive and tiring.
However, scenarios such as this are completely avoidable with the right tools and data-driven recommendations.
With that in mind, we'd like to walk you through the science behind our AppScore platform and how it can transform your cloud migrations for the better.
AppScore's science-driven mentality
We know just how difficult it can be to understand your on-premise environment and plan a transformation. That's why we built AppScore.
There are three scientific steps our platform takes to help you produce a transformation plan. Here's how AppScore helps you move to the cloud:
Step 1. Collating valuable data points
Firstly, AppScore turns data from 1st generation discovery tools - such as Azure Migrate, AWS Migration Evaluator or Cloudamize – into something useful, enabling you to bring business and application context to your assessments. The process uses an iterative approach to ensure you gather the right amount of information and avoid ending up data rich and decision poor. After all, there's little point in capturing a full set of data for an application you can retire.
AppScore uses the following phases to capture and understand your data:
- Signposting – this is a short set of questions, combined with server data, that produces 6Rs assessments
- AppScore – an enriched set of questions that produce risk, complexity and benefit scores
- Current State Assessment – a more detailed set of questions to provide a current state assessment of the application
- Deep Dive - a further set of questions that dive deep into the application for future state design
It's worth noting, however, that only the 'Signposting' and 'AppScore' phases need to be completed in order to produce an application score and fully utilise the planning and cost modelling features.
Step 2. Applying intelligent, data-based algorithms
Once the relevant data points are collated in AppScore, it uses proprietary decision logic to determine the best route for each of your applications. This is based upon the 6Rs model.
The logic is driven from a short set of data points that define the application’s characteristics.
To bring a deeper understanding to transformation, AppScore uses its proprietary algorithm to score each application for the risk and complexity as it is today. Additionally, scoring is performed for the risk, complexity and benefit of each Rs option, enabling you to understand what changing the application involves.
Provided are several template scoring sets for different types of transformation, for example: medium-sized or large enterprise, secure environment etc.
Examples of scoring in each category are:
- Complexity – How old is the technology or application code? How many interfaces does the application have? What is the usage pattern of the application?
- Risk - how critical is this application to your business, what are the security or data sovereignty requirements?
- Benefit – will transformation of this application remove technical debt? Can cloud optimised models be deployed to reduce run costs?
Of course, it's important to note that different organisations have different needs and goals. As such, the scoring model is customisable to fit your own unique transformation needs. You can choose from the list of available Rs recommendations to suit your specific scenario.
Assessment results are created entirely automatically and can be printed into actionable documents in Word or PDF format.
Step 3. Automated planning
Finally, the AppScore platform takes the hassle out of planning your migration. With the data points gathered, in step three, you form move groups based on a wide range of criteria.
AppScore automatically creates migration schedules and calculates transformation costs based on the risk and complexity scores. Should any underlying application data be updated, schedules and costs can be revised automatically.
Moving to the cloud: your trustworthy roadmap
You’ve undoubtedly heard the long list of benefits the cloud has to offer businesses, from increased scalability to heightened security. But, to grasp these great benefits, you need to go beyond lift and shift.
Moving the untidy 'unknowns' of your on-premise applications to the cloud won't sort out the mess. Instead, it'll end up costing you more to run than it does today, and you’ll still have the same issues that stand in the way of business success.
That's where our science-driven platform, AppScore, steps in. AppScore helps you turn spreadsheets full of data from 1st generation discovery tools into an application-centric view of your estate, bringing business context to determine what's there, how critical it is, and where it's best placed. And, best of all, it's all handled for you automatically, from the data discovery to the transformation plan.
The result? You get a data-based transformation strategy that'll allow your business to get in the cloud with complete confidence.
If you're ready to find out the true power of AppScore, request a demo today.
