Estate modernisation: learnings from Oracle Cloud Experience Day

At Ascend Cloud Solutions, we pride ourselves on helping businesses migrate to the cloud.

And without wishing to blow our own trumpets too loud, it's a process that involves a lot of niche understanding and lots of deep skills. IT has always been a niche – but the cloud is nicher still.

It's also an area of technology that's constantly in flux. The purpose of the cloud hasn't substantially changed but the technologies used to make it work for businesses are always developing.

That's why we were thrilled to participate in the Oracle Cloud Experience Day in September, right here in gorgeous Cork.

Members of our team spoke about Oracle Cloud VMware Solutions, while representatives from Oracle extolled the business benefits of their solutions.

One of the most illuminating talks came from Kevin Eccles, an account cloud engineer at Oracle, on the topic of "estate modernisation". This included a conversation with Donal Mine, the financial information systems manager of Trinity College Dublin.

We learnt a lot about the need for estate modernisation, how it can be approached and how Oracle can help.

Why do estates need to be modernised?

Kevin began by recapping the waves of cloud adoption since 2007. In a relatively short space of time, cloud adoption has moved from startups to front-end customers to back-end enterprises. Each wave of adoption has called for adaptation.

The future, he continued, is cloud-native, with DevOps and Kubernetes on the rise. Estates need to be modernised to fit into this changing landscape.

This is the key driver for estate modernisation. But beneath this headline are a number of valuable business benefits.

Estate modernisation can reduce costs and increase profitability. It can free up personnel and budget by automating IT processes. It provides faster time to value, creating dynamic engagements with customers and employees. It can put data to work. And it can reduce business risks by enhancing cybersecurity and resilience.

All these benefits are available to businesses making the move from on-premise to the cloud. But how can it be achieved?

Approaches to modernisation

Kevin made the bold claim that only Oracle offers a smooth path from on-premise to SaaS. But how?

First of all, Oracle knows the discussion about modernisation has to go beyond workloads. Every step of the journey has to be aligned with business goals. Internally, the conversation has to be holistic and enterprise-wide.

Externally, business and technical experts from Oracle need to be engaged. They have the experience and expertise to help identify individual needs and outline how they will be met.

From this top-down, business-oriented approach, we move to the nuts and bolts of migration itself. Oracle uses the 6-R method: rehosting, replatforming, refactoring, rearchitecting, rebuilding and replacing.

Level 0 consists of rehosting: moving applications to the cloud as-is. Level 1 involves replatforming, refactoring and rearchitecting. This three-pronged process optimises and materially alters code so it can be shifted to a new application architecture.

Finally, workloads are modernised at level 2. They're rewritten from scratch or rewritten and replaced, with new requirements and needs taken into account.

The result is the same workloads in a new, cloud-first environment.

That's the process. So, how does it work in practice? Kevin spoke to Donal Milne, the FiS manager at Trinity College Dublin, to learn more about a successful estate modernisation in his department.

Case study: Financial Services Division, Trinity College Dublin

Donal has worked in IT for 25 years – and his career has covered everything from operations to service desk to application. For 20 of those years, he's been working at a senior or leadership level.

He started by acknowledging that every transformation journey is different. This is a key principle at Ascend Cloud Solutions, too.

Nevertheless, there's much to be learnt from Donal and Trinity's successful migration process – and the road map that's taking them into the next decade.

The main focus of the conversation was why the project succeeded. This was presented as a series of questions that need to be answered before a migration is executed. In our opinion, any organisation getting ready to modernise its estate would do well to ask themselves these questions.

What are the challenges in the business?
What are you trying to change or improve?
Why are you doing it?
When do you need to deliver?
Why does it need to be done in that time frame?
What technology is needed?
What have you not thought about or can't do?
What do you need to do before you start?
Do you have a plan for after you've finished?

These questions cover all the essentials: the alignment of migration with business objectives, the time scales, the expertise and technologies required, and life after migration.

Another key takeaway from the conversation was Donal's reminder that the business should set the objectives and outcomes – never the technology solution.

At Ascend Cloud Solutions, we believe this is vital. Cloud technology is a tool for unlocking potential in businesses. It's never a merely technical exercise. Get this the wrong way round and you'll probably end up overspending and underperforming.

When creating a business case, Donal says, you should establish what the project will cost, how long it will take and whether you have the team and partners necessary to deliver the project.

In other words, the devil is in the details – and in the planning. By thoroughly preparing and aligning the 6-R migration process with your business goals, you put yourself in the best possible position to unlock the business benefits of the cloud.

Conclusion

We loved hearing Kevin and Donal discuss the need for estate modernisation and then bring it into focus with a real-life example. We hope you've learned something, too.

Looking for a cloud solutions company to help you modernise your estate? Ascend Cloud Solutions is a trusted Oracle Partner staffed by former VMware employees. Don't hesitate to get in touch for a no-obligation consultation.

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