OREANDA-NEWS. June 30, 2016. Digital IT transformation seems to be on every CIO’s mind and budget. MarketandMarkets estimates that by 2020, the global digital transformation market, which includes integrating technologies such as cloud, social, mobile and analytics, will be \\$369.22 billion. Given how critical this transformation is to compete in the digital economy, CIOs will want to get this right the first time.

We have some recommendations for a smooth transformation, starting with two foundational components that are vital to your success ̶ “network transformation” and “cloud transformation.” These are the underpinnings of any digital IT transformation strategy and need to be accounted for up front.

Network Transformation

Look at your network first… and think three to five years beyond your existing infrastructure capacity requirements. Perform a quarter-to-quarter analysis of future headcount, applications, business models and product growth to estimate ongoing capacity requirements. Then do a competitive analysis of the available network aggregation choices – whether it is within a carrier-neutral, colocation facility or using a hybrid on-premises/network managed services model. We don’t recommend single sourcing your networking capabilities, but rather finding the best possible solutions for different workload capacities, at the lowest possible price.

Next, in preparation for your cloud transformation, perform a full audit of your corporate network topology (where it is, what’s on it, bandwidth capacity usage, etc.). From this assessment, you can develop the “engine” for virtualizing your IT infrastructure, while at the same time maintaining your legacy physical IT infrastructure.

Cloud Transformation

After completing your network audit, begin prioritizing your applications/services for cloud migration. What needs to be migrated first to make the most impact? What are the cost savings? Does the application/service have “cloud-ability?” We recommend leveraging third-party analysis tools (e.g., CloudPhysics, ScienceLogic, ThousandEyes) to help define typical cloud deployment and cost models. These tools can also help you better understand the cost profiles of moving data in and out of the cloud, including analyzing the transport methods that you are using (public Internet vs. private cross connects or switches) to move the data between a cloud and your IT infrastructure, or between clouds.

Be sure to set realistic expectations for your cloud transformation execution and ROI. It never goes as fast as one would think, especially if you skip the network transformation step! For example, on average small businesses without a lot of legacy IT “baggage” could take days or weeks to migrate workloads to the cloud; medium-sized enterprises could take months; and large enterprises could take multiple quarters. 

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Stepping Through Your IT Transformation

Once the fundamentals of your network and cloud transformation strategy are nailed down, we recommend that you take the following four steps as you embark on your digital IT transformation journey:

  1. Evaluate – Assess your existing IT infrastructure, strategize your execution and define your success criteria. Choose trusted partners and skilled consultants with technology and industry expertise as “fresh eyes” for an objective evaluation.
  2. Define – Design your IT transformation and validate that design either internally or with the same advisors mentioned in Step 1. Many of the third-parties we referenced for cloud transformation analysis can help here as well. Also, you can leverage multi-tenant solution validation testing centers to run real-world proof-of-concepts against your success metrics.
  3. Construct – Start your IT transformation deployment process, along with sourcing third-party professional services expertise to help facilitate and accelerate installation and migration plans.
  4. Deliver – Evaluate your installation to validate that you’ve achieved your success criteria – benchmark performance and security, address any issues and optimize your deployment using third-party expertise and testing services, if needed.

Once you have all of these pillars in place, you can perform semi-annual evaluations on your network and application performance to see if you are getting the metrics and cost results you were trying to obtain. This also gives you a benchmark for new application and end-point deployments so you are not recreating the wheel.

By building the right network and cloud foundation and using the right steps and resources to evolve, your organization will have everything it needs to meet your ambitious digital IT transformation goals.