| | July 20169CIOReviewinfrastructure, but also the culture and mindset of doing things differently. Needless to say this small team cannot accomplish the migration by itself. They are agents of change in a hub-and-spoke model, who become embedded within existing technology teams to drive the project forward. Put Things in OrderIt is important to categorize the applications in terms of size, complexity, fit for the cloud, and criticality to the business. Based on this a calendar can be developed as input into a project plan. This is an important tool for getting all teams both technology and business on the same page about what is coming up and what to prepare for. Prepare your Partners at Finance (and may be Real Estate)The cost structure of cloud infrastructure is obviously very different than owned and operated data centers. Large occasional capital expenditures (upgrades and refreshes) become ongoing operating expenses. Structure and size of internal teams will change. And if the project is done right it will allow the technology organization to completely decommission and vacate an entire data centers. If the company owns or leases any of these data centers, a conversation with the real estate management team needs to take place. Security ­ a New DesignWhile the core concepts of cyber and network security remain the same, network design as well as roles and responsibilities around management of connectivity will change. Virtual Public Clouds and vendor-specific solutions such as CloudPassage offer increasingly robust solutions for securing applications in the cloud. Not Just IaaS any MoreWith the rapidly growing ecosystem of products and services around public cloud offerings, the "cloud way" of managing applications now means a lot more than simply the physical location of storage and compute. There is a host of opportunities to automate and bring efficiency to application management. They involve, getting serious about DevOps, building true Application Teams, automating deployments and QA, as well as modernizing the approach to 24x7 monitoring, alerting, and application management. CultureFinally, the journey to the cloud not only requires, but provides an opening for a change in culture across technology and business teams. Back in the late 19th century if you wanted to build a sizable manufacturing plant, it would require building your own power plant next to it. Later in the 20th century as public power grids became reality, it no longer made sense to build your own power plant. The realization of that change gave birth to a new era of industrial and technological development. A similar sea change has been underway in information technology infrastructure management within the media industry. It is similarly exciting and transformational. Migration to the cloud is not a simple change that can be completed in a few weeks or even months
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