Cloud Migration Primer for Federal Agencies

As an update to the original government Cloud First strategy, the 2019 Federal Cloud Computing Strategy (i.e., Cloud Smart) offered a path forward for agencies to migrate to a safe and secure cloud infrastructure. Though many agencies are still facing challenges fully embracing enterprise-wide cloud strategies to be fully Cloud Smart.

While breaking down cultural barriers is a big part of effectively embracing the cloud, we are offering this simple guide to help federal IT teams and program managers to get started in understanding the basics.  

Does Everything Have to go to the Cloud?: The Hybrid Cloud

The hybrid cloud combines both on-premises infrastructure with a public cloud – with data and apps being able to move between the two environments.

For many business models, a 100 percent cloud-based solution may not be feasible.  A hybrid cloud-onprem solution can meet the regulatory and compliance constraints, while taking advantage of public cloud services.

A hybrid cloud platform also offers agencies greater flexibility, additional deployment options, security, and compliance, while also getting more value from their existing infrastructures.

How Do We Move to the Cloud?: For Example, the Forklift Migration

One of the most common ways to start a cloud migration, the forklift migration works exactly as the name implies, where we move a single workload to the cloud as a unit. This strategy is typically used for tightly coupled applications or self-contained applications.

Essentially, this “lift and shift” approach allows you to move virtual machines into a public cloud with minimal changes to the environment.

Often this is low-impact, and does not significantly disrupt employee workflow, as system migrations can be performed while the application remains on line.  Once the workload has been successfully transferred, a cutover is performed, which can be scheduled to minimize disruption. This is a true one-to-one migration. In addition, if something goes wrong, the original environment remains fully intact.

You are also moving from a known to unknown environment, which can potentially create some issues. In addition, it is recommended to not make any major systems upgrades during this migration, since applications are being duplicated into a new environment.

Here are some additional challenges with this option: 

• Increased latency for applications that are highly time sensitive.

• Moving into a new environment will require network changes.

• Compute performance, while often improved, can be impacted.

To mitigate these challenges, we recommend a cloud readiness assessment, detail planning, security and performance impact analysis, and before-and-after regression test to ensure optimal performance and functionality. We highly recommend avoiding any changes or updates that could impact a successful lift and shift task. It is important to note that this is only a small step to full cloud modernization.  

I’m in the Cloud. So What Now?: Cloud Modernization

Once migrated in the cloud, now you can start by taking advantage of some of the native cloud services.  With auto scaling, your applications can add and remove servers on-demand based on key factors. 

For example, when a monitor reports the average CPU usage of the web services exceeds a threshold number, you can automatically add X number of web servers until a new desired average is achieved. You can also automatically remove servers the same way, thus avoiding unnecessary cost.

Geographic redundancy is also built into the public cloud.  This allows you to deploy your servers in multiple regions to reduce the impact or geographically isolated incidents.  This feature can also be used to set up disaster recovery.

In addition, edge caching maintains a copy of static content close to your end users.  By serving content from the local region, the user’s experience is enhanced. There are also many more cloud features, including “serverless services,” which we highlight later in this post.

What’s the Next Step in the Software Maturity Model?: The Serverless Environment

The next step in the software maturity model is incorporating a serverless solution. In many cases cloud providers or other vendors offer serverless alternatives to commonly used feature sets. For example, AWS provides a Relational Database Service (RDS) which provides a serverless implementation to most common relational databases. If our application is running on an Oracle database, RDS offers a managed Oracle solution. We then pay for utilization of the service, not individual servers, therefore providing cost savings. Makpar has been offering managed Office 365 cloud migrations using this approach for federal agencies. 

By moving to a serverless solution, federal IT teams are no longer managing the operating resources, which frees up internal resources to focus on more strategic-level IT work. It is also a highly scalable option, and costs can be easily managed by only enabling features as they are needed.

Key considerations include revamping of IT architectures, and detailed analysis and expertise to help guide agencies through the migration.

Conclusion:

As federal IT teams and program managers evaluate how to help their agencies with Cloud Smart strategies, it’s good to understand how the forklift method is a rapid and easy way to get started on a cloud migration journey – with minimal risk.

However, if your requirements call for the other options, technical support and insights from the right partners can help with these migrations.  

Overall, cloud migrations are completely feasible for any federal agency. By first addressing any cultural barriers, then determining which of the approaches are best – and multiple options at once could be ideal – for your agency, you will be on the right path to your cloud journey, and Makpar is here to guide you on that journey.

Makpar has deep expertise in helping agencies determine and execute the best option to migrate to the cloud, ultimately offering increased effectiveness of data health and IT systems performance, and major savings in an agency’s IT budget.

Please contact us here for more information about how help get your agency on the path to the cloud.