Microsoft Azure offers a range of benefits for organisations looking to modernise their IT infrastructure, such as scalability, flexibility, security, and innovation. However, moving from on-premises to Azure is not a simple or straightforward process. It requires careful planning, preparation, and execution to ensure a successful outcome.  

Best Practices for Moving to Azure

1. Define a Cloud Strategy and Business Outcomes 
Before you start your migration journey, you need to have a clear vision of why you are moving to Azure and what you want to achieve with it. This will help you align your cloud adoption with organisational goals, priorities, and values. Identify the objectives and key results (OKRs) which will track progress and measure success. 

2. Assess your Current State and Readiness 

To plan your migration effectively, you need to understand your current IT environment, including your applications, data, infrastructure, and dependencies. Evaluate your cloud readiness and maturity, and identify any gaps or risks which need to be addressed. A Migration Assessment can help you analyse your potential costs, savings, and benefits of moving to Azure.  

If you want to assess your readiness, please contact us if you’d like us to complete an Azure Migration Assessment for your organisation.  

3. Establish a Cloud Operating Model and Governance 

Moving to Azure requires a shift in your IT operations and processes, as well as your organisational culture and mindset. You need to define a cloud operating model that specifies the roles, responsibilities, and skills of your cloud team, as well as the policies, standards, and guardrails that will ensure security, compliance, and quality (remembering your OKRs). Frameworks like the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure to guide you through this process and help you adopt best practices and methodologies – a great partner like Rapid Circle doesn’t hurt doing this either. 

4. Design and implement Landing Zones 

The landing zone architecture is a conceptual architecture that provides the necessary components and configurations for your Azure workloads. It covers several design principles including elements such as resource organisation, networking, security, and automation. A well-defined architecture will enable you to deploy and manage your applications in a consistent, scalable, secure, and repeatable manner. 

5. Leverage the Azure Well-Architected Framework 

The Azure Well-Architected Framework is a set of guiding principles which can help you improve the quality and performance of your Azure workloads. It covers five pillars of architectural excellence: reliability, security, cost optimisation, operational excellence, and performance efficiency. When migrating or designing workloads, apply these principles to ensure your workloads will be reliable, secure, cost-effective, manageable, and scalable. 

Risks of Moving to Azure

1. Underestimating the complexity and scope of migration 

 Moving to Azure is not just a matter of lifting and shifting your existing applications and data. It involves a holistic transformation of your IT landscape, as well as your business processes and culture. You need to consider the impact of migration on your users, customers, partners, and stakeholders, and plan accordingly. You also need to account for the technical challenges and dependencies that may arise during migration, such as compatibility, performance, security, and integration issues. 

2. Lack of skills and expertise 

The right set of skills and competencies that may not be available or sufficient in your current IT team. You need to invest in training and upskilling, as well as hiring or outsourcing if needed. You should also establish a cloud centre of expertise that can provide guidance, support, and best practices to your organisation. A partner like Rapid Circle can help you bridge the skills gap and accelerate your cloud adoption. 

3. Poor communication and collaboration 

Any migration is cross-functional and multi-disciplinary endeavour that requires close collaboration and communication among various teams – and not just technical roles. You need to establish clear roles and responsibilities, as well as a common language, and vision, for your cloud adoption. Engage and involve your key stakeholders throughout the migration process and solicit their feedback. 

4. Lack of monitoring and optimisation 

You need to track and measure your cloud performance, usage, and costs (to avoid bill shock), and identify any issues or opportunities for improvement. You also need to adopt a culture of learning and experimentation and leverage the innovation and capabilities that Azure offers. A tool like Azure Monitor can help you collect and analyse your cloud data and insights. 

5. Ignoring security and compliance

Compliance and security can’t be neglected when moving to Azure.  While there are many elements which become the responsibility of Microsoft, you need to ensure that your cloud environment and workloads are protected from threats and vulnerabilities, and they comply with the relevant laws and regulations. You also need to implement a security-by-design approach, and use the tools and services that Azure provides, such as Azure Defender, Azure Policy, and Azure Security Centre. 

Moving from on-premises to Azure can be a rewarding and beneficial journey for your organisation, but it also comes with challenges and risks that need to be addressed. By following the best practices and avoiding the pitfalls that we have outlined in this opinion piece, you can increase your chances of a successful and smooth migration.

If you need any assistance or guidance in your cloud adoption journey, feel free to contact us at Rapid Circle. We are here to help you achieve what’s next with Azure. 

Written by Gavin Lewis, Head of Azure Capability, Rapid Circle