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In our previous article on cloud migration, we discussed the five key factors SMEs need to consider before making their move. This article focuses on what firms need to do once they have made the decision to get the most out of their cloud environment.
1. Build a cloud strategy
Once you have made the decision to move to the cloud, the first step should be to develop a clear cloud strategy. When considering the move, you will likely have identified the key requirements you need from the new system, so this strategy is your chance to make them a reality.
Your strategy should provide you with a comprehensive guide that helps you leverage the full potential of cloud technology, address any difficulties of the switch and explain how to overcome them. Your strategy should also detail how you will deliver a platform that meets your overall goals, giving clear parameters for how the migration should be performed and how operational maintenance will be undertaken.
2. Take the easy wins
When switching to the cloud, you will need to start analysing your infrastructure. This can be a complex process, and the sheer size of the project can often seem overwhelming. However, it’s important to remember that you do not need to view the move as one monolithic migration.
The trick is to break it down into more manageable goals. For example, some applications might already be cloud-ready and have a tried and tested migration path that offers you an easy win. Take the time to engage with your suppliers and those that provide a SaaS (software-as-a-service)-based offering, as this could help minimise the size and complexity of the migration.
3. Get your house in order
Of course, while it is important to make the most of the “easy wins”, not everything will be as straightforward. To reduce the obstacles you might face, make sure any products which do not provide tried and tested migrations are fully supported by the supplier.
Virtual Machines (VMs) that are no longer supported are often unable to move to a cloud supplier and, even if they can, it is usually easier to upgrade than trying to shoehorn them into a cloud platform. Any attempts to lift and shift out-of-support products could weaken the overall security of your platform and potentially invalidate SLAs (service level agreements) as you may be bringing a known vulnerability onto the platform.
4. Build the foundations
A robust and reliable cloud platform must be built on solid foundations. The time to implement the best practices discussed in our last article is before implementing or moving any of your workloads. During this time, establish a centralised control system and implement key policies for managing your cloud platform going forward.
5. Reduce management overhead
Managing infrastructure can be complex and all-consuming for an IT team. Most people who have worked in IT will have their share of war stories including “all-nighters” spent moving servers or recovering from an outage (and, despite their efforts, many will not have received thanks for their heroic efforts).
As the availability of infrastructure becomes more of an expectation, utilising cloud providers can help manage that expectation through key services such as platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and SaaS. With PaaS or SaaS, more of your management overhead and responsibilities are absorbed by the cloud provider, as the Microsoft Shared Responsibility model below shows:

Managing your move to the cloud correctly will help you pass thankless tasks, such as patching or scaling, to the cloud provider. This will free up capacity for you and your IT team, allowing more effort to be focused on managing and securing its operations and suppliers.
6. Right size and optimise
As your workloads move onto the cloud, it can be tempting to take discounts for reserved capacity, which can often be as much as 60% off in some instances. However, you may find that the application you have sitting on 32GB of RAM and an 8 CPU VM never actually required that power in the first place.
In the on-premises world, you tend to deploy workloads and then only check on them again when something goes wrong. In the cloud world, you “pay as you go” for the resources you are utilising, so optimising your workloads is essential to getting the greatest return on your investment.
Are you thinking about a cloud migration or need some advice on how to find the right supplier for your business? Get in touch with 3Kites via [email protected], we’ll be happy to discuss your requirements and explain how 3Kites could assist in your plans.
Luke Axon is a consultant at 3Kites and a former law firm head of IT and former cloud solution architect at Microsoft. This is the 47th article in the series Navigating Legaltech.
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About 3Kites and Kemp IT Law
3Kites is an independent consultancy, which is to say that we have no ties or arrangements with any suppliers so that we can provide our clients with unfettered advice. We have been operating since 2006 and our consultants include former law firm partners (one a managing partner), a GC, two law firm IT directors and an owner of a practice management company. This blend of skills and experience puts us in a unique position when providing advice on IT strategy, fractional IT management, knowledge management, product selections, process review (including the legal process) and more besides. 3Kites often works closely with Kemp IT Law (KITL), a boutique law firm offering its clients advice on IT services and related areas such as GDPR. Where relevant (eg when discussing cloud computing in a future article) this column may include content from the team at KITL to provide readers with a broader perspective including any regulatory considerations.
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