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A Custom Technology Adoption Profile Commissioned By CloudHealth Technologies | May 2017

Due Diligence Is The Cornerstone Of Public

Cloud Migration Success

Improve Migration Results Through Discovery And Planning

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OVERVIEW SITUATION CHALLENGE OPPORTUNITY CONCLUSIONS


Due Diligence Is The Cornerstone Of Public Cloud Migration Success

Overview

Cloud adoption continues to gain momentum, but organizations are finding limited success in their cloud

migrations to date. The reason? Poor organizational planning and inaccurate cost estimates during

discovery and planning can stymie success before the migration even begins. Organizations must

re-evaluate what they are doing before they begin their migration, or success may prove elusive during it.

This CloudHealth Technologies-commissioned profile of US IT decision makers at firms that are currently

migrating or have migrated workloads to public cloud platforms investigates common strategies and

challenges associated with public cloud migration in order to identify what organizations can do during

discovery and planning to ensure a successful migration.

Demographics

Geography

› US: 100%

Demographics

Company size

› 20,000 or more: 19%

› 5,000 to 19,999: 31%

› 1,000 to 4,999: 50%

Demographics

Title

› C-level or VP: 30%

› Director: 28%

› Manager: 42%

Demographics

Workload migration status

› Currently migrating: 77%

› Already migrated: 23%

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The Future Of Cloud Strategy Is Hybrid

Public cloud adoption continues to accelerate as organizations

migrate existing applications to the cloud and build net-new

applications in the cloud to capitalize on benefits like improved

infrastructure flexibility and cost savings. Forrester’s Business

Technographics Global Infrastructure Survey 2016 shows that one-

third of North American firms have adopted public cloud today, with

an additional 13% planning to in 2017.

But as cloud maturity increases, organizations realize that cloud is

not a one-size-fits-all solution, and that multiple cloud deployment

types are needed to best handle different workloads and satisfy

business expectations. Forrester’s data shows that using multiple

deployment types is a top priority for most organizations. In fact,

68% of firms that have adopted public cloud say that they are

pursuing a hybrid strategy.

A hybrid and multicloud strategy requires a systematic approach in

order to continually assess applications and identify the best fit

platform and architecture. Complete and comprehensive workload

profiles during the discovery and planning phase are critical to

optimize costs, maximize benefits, and ensure the overall success of

cloud migration.

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Public cloud migration is not

easy: Less than half of

respondents (43%) considered

their most recent migration to

public cloud as a success overall.



Less Than Half Of Firms Report Public

Cloud Migration As Successful

Many firms aggressively prioritize cloud services under the

expectation of improved performance and cost reduction. However,

less than half of firms migrating workloads to IaaS thought that their

most recent migration met or exceeded most of their goals — a

scary figure if you are the one responsible for reporting the results of

your migration to the CEO. Our survey shows that firms find the

following aspects of their migration particularly difficult:

› Costs. Less than 40% of firms met or exceeded most of the goals

related to both migration and run costs.

› Business satisfaction. Only 41% of firms met or exceeded most

goals related to business satisfaction

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Costs tend to be higher than

expected: Most firms today

underestimate costs associated

with cloud usage and migration.



Firms Struggle To Accurately Forecast

Cloud Migration And Operational Costs

A major component of dissatisfaction with public cloud migration is

cost complexity. Cloud platforms promise greater agility and

flexibility using dynamic cost structures to align spend with usage.

While this pay-per-use model has the potential to curb spend on

transient workloads, unpredictable user patterns translate to

unpredictable costs. As a result,

› Less than 40% of firms were able to predict cloud platform costs,

with 58% claiming run costs were higher than estimated.

› Firms also underestimated nonplatform costs associated with

running and maintaining service quality on a public cloud.

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Unprepared organizations

struggle to leverage the

benefits of public cloud: Firms

struggle to close the skills gap

introduced by cloud, citing the

difficulty of properly training staff

both during and after migration.

Lack Of Organizational Readiness Stymies Success Both During

And After Migration

In addition to costs, organizations struggle against legacy processes and from lack of internal support and

skills. During migration, firms struggled to secure approval from the security and financial stakeholders,

and after migration, organizations took a productivity hit, underestimating developer hours required for

app redesign and time spent on staff retraining. Compounding these challenges, less than a quarter of

respondents involve their security and AppDev teams in cloud migration planning. Firms must collaborate

across all stakeholders in order to properly realign processes and skills to support cloud usage.

Base: 108 US IT decision makers responsible for public cloud (IaaS) strategy at firms migrating workloads to public cloud IaaS

Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of CloudHealth Technologies, April 2017

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Incomplete workload

assessments invalidate cost

projections: 63% of firms

struggled with app profiling,

adding to uncertainty of cost

estimates given the relationship

between workload patterns and

platform costs.



Migration Success Requires Deep

Understanding Of Workloads And

Interdependencies

Today’s cloud migration complexity means hidden dangers lurk in

the form of costs to rework applications for cloud infrastructure and

escalating costs from apps that are not optimized to run on cloud

platforms. To ensure a successful cloud migration, firms must make

sure they take the time in discovery and planning to identify what

workloads would run best in public cloud and understand the

interdependencies between the apps that are migrating. But these

things are easier said than done. In particular, organizations struggle

with workload dependency mapping — 69% of survey respondents

say this is challenging or very challenging.

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Continuous improvement requires continuous feedback:

While 69% of firms claimed to leverage cost modeling and

scenario analysis tools, 46% of firms require additional tools to

increase performance visibility.



Firms Invest In Visibility And Education To

Improve Migration Success

For most organizations, cloud migration is not a one-time affair and

is often part of an ongoing modernization initiative. Not only do app-

centric strategies require upfront profiling, but continuous migration

assessments are required as architectures shift, apps reach end of

life, and new services are built. With each successive migration,

firms must learn from their prior challenges in order to increase the

success of future projects. In order to improve the outcome, during

the discovery and planning phase firms should strive to:

› Increase visibility, education, and time spent on application

profiling to ensure performance, organizational competence, and

cost optimization during and after cloud migration.

› Involve more business stakeholders in order to realign security

and budgeting processes for a cloud-first mandate.

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Greater visibility will improve

success: Not only will

increased visibility help to

optimize performance and cost,

but holistic information serves

as a collaboration point across

stakeholders



Project Director

Andrew Magarie

Senior Market Impact

Consultant

Conclusions

Cloud migration should not be thought of as a one-time project, but a continuous process that requires

thoughtful re-assessment and re-alignment to maximize the potential value of cloud. For most

organizations:

› Cloud migration is not easy, and most struggle to achieve all stated goals

› Cost complexity is the largest source of confusion and misaligned expectations

› Due diligence in the discovery and planning phases are critical to identify the best fit workloads and

prepare the organization for this transition

METHODOLOGY

› This Technology Adoption Profile was commissioned by CloudHealth Technologies. To create this

profile, we leveraged Forrester’s Global Business Technographics Infrastructure Survey, 2016 and

surveyed 108 IT decision makers responsible for public cloud (IaaS) strategy. The custom survey was

completed in April 2017. For more information on Forrester’s data panel and Tech Industry Consulting

services, visit Forrester.com.

ABOUT FORRESTER CONSULTING

Forrester Consulting provides independent and objective research-based consulting to help leaders succeed in their

organizations. Ranging in scope from a short strategy session to custom projects, Forrester’s Consulting services connect you

directly with research analysts who apply expert insight to your specific business challenges. For more information, visit

forrester.com/consulting.

© 2017, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. Information is based on

best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. Forrester®, Technographics®,

Forrester Wave, RoleView, TechRadar, and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other

trademarks are the property of their respective companies. For additional information, go to forrester.com. [1-11OWNY8]

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