Executing an enterprise-scale migration requires careful planning, alignment of stakeholders, and effective governance, in addition to the technical skills and capacity. SADA recently worked with Google to pilot their Google Cloud Rapid Migration Program (RaMP) to create an optimal cloud migration pathway for businesses in any industry.
The RaMP program helps organizations build a solid business case, drive stakeholder alignment, ensure readiness across people, processes, and technology, establish a Cloud Center of Excellence, and execute a well-defined migration plan.
Before your organization can optimize your migration with RaMP, however, we strongly suggest putting in a little preliminary work to set yourself up for success.
4 steps to plan a successful migration
Once you decide to migrate to Google Cloud, it’s time to bring in all your organization’s relevant stakeholders, put your heads together, and proceed through the following four steps.
- Articulate a clear business case that aligns executives across different departments. The more communication and buy-in happens up front, the better.
- A tailored learning plan should be implemented to equip individuals with the skills necessary for the migration process and address any fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD). (SADA Change Management experts can always help ease the pain!)
- Establishing a Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE) team is crucial to collect and disseminate best practices, set up the landing zone, define principles, and drive program governance.
- Maintaining a well-defined set of goals or OKRs enables progress measurement, inspection, and quick issue resolution.
Once you’ve established a strong baseline of understanding, support, and processes, you should be in good shape to take advantage of Google’s streamlined migration. Time to RaMP up!
Introducing Google RaMP
Google RaMP aims to consolidate Google’s product portfolio and best practices into a unified and holistic approach. This program provides customers with a step-by-step guide to:
- Build a compelling business case
- Align stakeholders
- Evaluate and close readiness gaps
- Prioritize workloads for migration
- Establish a secure landing zone
- Choose appropriate tools
- Implement a training plan
- Create a Cloud Center of Excellence
- Set measurable goals
- Select the right partners
- Meticulously manage the migration process
Google called upon SADA to contribute to RaMP for good reason–we’ve managed myriad successful, enterprise-level migrations and understand best practices and worst-case scenarios alike. With every successful migration, SADA has internalized key customer concerns and developed methods to minimize costs and disruption to critical business processes.
Understanding the RaMP Flywheel
[Source: https://cloud.google.com/solutions/cloud-migration-program]
Think of RaMP operating on a cycle of success, represented by a flywheel that facilitates a smooth and intelligent migration program.
Let’s break down the four stages of the RaMP flywheel:
- Opportunity Evaluation: The first step involves gaining a comprehensive understanding of your IT landscape to determine your ideal cloud-based options. By mapping out your current infrastructure, you can identify workloads that are suitable for migration and lay the foundation for your cloud transformation.
- Foundation and Planning: Once you’ve identified the workloads to migrate, it’s crucial to plan and build the necessary foundation in the cloud. This phase involves strategizing how to migrate each workload effectively and efficiently while ensuring a seamless transition to the cloud environment.
- Migrate and Validate: Starting with workloads that are best suited for the cloud, you can begin the migration process. During each step, continuous analysis and evaluation are conducted to fine-tune your migration strategy for upcoming workloads. This iterative approach allows for refinement and optimization as the migration progresses.
- Optimize and Operate: After completing the migration, the focus shifts to assessing the performance of workloads in the cloud. Any necessary adjustments or optimizations are made to ensure optimal functionality. This stage also involves fully transitioning operations to the cloud-based environment, maximizing the benefits of cloud computing.
Sounds a little like an OODA loop, right? By following the RaMP flywheel, businesses can generate a positive feedback effect. Knowledge and experience gained from migrating workloads compound over time, refining your business case, strengthening your foundation, accelerating subsequent migrations, and facilitating workload optimization. Improvements made to the flywheel’s components benefit not only a single migration project, but create a powerful knowledge-sharing ecosystem.
Miles Ward, SADA CTO, was instrumental in helping Google develop RaMP. “We’ve worked with Google to focus on what really matters during the adoption curve, carefully coordinate joint management for the duration, and ensure we get folks to positive business outcomes as fast as possible,” says Ward. “Google RaMP establishes much-needed structure to simplify what can be an extraordinarily complex undertaking. Having performed 1,000+ successful migrations in the last few years, SADA understands how to stick the landing.”
Optimize your migration with Google RaMP
With Google RaMP, your organization can adopt a comprehensive strategy that covers every element of your migration journey. By aligning stakeholders, closing readiness gaps, establishing a Cloud Center of Excellence, and following the RaMP flywheel, your business can streamline your cloud transformation and ensure long-term success in the cloud.
Contact us today to discuss how Google RaMP can optimize your migration.
