Why successful cloud migration extends beyond technology

The most recent cloud survey from the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) found that 60 percent of state IT organizations have incorporated the cloud into their operations, with more than 88 percent planning to expedite their cloud adoption in 2024.

As the demand for digital government services increases, the cloud has become an essential resource for SLGs to remain adaptable, resilient and effective. Cloud solutions enhance operations and service delivery for essential government functions, such as claims processing and case management-based workloads. As a result, residents can quickly and reliably access the services and information they depend on.

Despite these benefits, only 30 percent of survey respondents have completed a cloud strategy or roadmap to optimize the cloud’s potential.

As SLGs create these roadmaps, it’s imperative to recognize that cloud migration is much more than a technical project. The shift to cloud-based operations is transformational and will impact every person and process in an organization.

The role of organizational change management
Many technology initiatives failed because of organizational resistance, cultural friction, and lack of readiness and support from stakeholders. As such, it’s imperative to take a human-centered approach to cloud migration to ensure the process is sustainable and worth the investment.

Often, employees and other stakeholders may resist a change due to inadequate or ineffective communications, experience and knowledge gaps on the best practices, concerns about job security, and cultural resistance to changes. Therefore, holistic and strategic organizational change management (OCM) is a foundational component of any cloud migration initiative.

Like any IT modernization project, cloud migration is only as valuable as the organization’s ability to deploy and operate the new technology successfully. SLG leaders should focus on workforce development, culture changes and business process optimization throughout the migration to ensure a successful shift to cloud-based operations.

Transparency, organization-wide awareness, timely and accurate communication and candid discussions about the migration’s impact are paramount to build trust and ensure personnel are enthusiastic about the change. Fostering this trust begins with discovery and data-capture activities that align with strategic goals, business process design and cross-functional collaboration.

The scope and impact of cloud migrations are extensive, and there are various obstacles associated with the transition to cloud operations for daily users. Therefore, a deliberate and detailed alignment of training activities is essential to realizing the payoff of cloud migration efforts.

How FinOps can keep cloud costs down
SLGs often face resource and funding constraints. As a form of utility computing, cloud services expense needs to be managed vigilantly and effectively to deliver sustained cost and performance benefits. Therefore, every cloud migration project should be built upon a comprehensive understanding of cloud economics.

FinOps (financial operations) is an operational framework and cultural practice that maximizes the business value of the cloud. It ensures financial accountability, efficiency and overall cost control by forecasting, optimizing and reporting the cost of running applications in the cloud.

FinOps increases visibility into current and past costs in cloud environments and can help with proactive financial management. For instance, real-time monitoring and analysis will uncover over-provisioned resources, idled and orphaned cloud services, and improper resource configurations or utilization. Advanced FinOps solutions can provide change recommendations and automate continuous resource rightsizing for cost optimization.

Notably, AI-powered automation and analytics have been applied to FinOps practices. AI-powered tools can help refactor legacy applications into modern, cloud-ready applications and identify the optimal container configurations, significantly reducing strain on SLG employees and accelerating the cloud migration process. It also reduces the overall technical risk for a large and complex application refactoring project.

Key considerations for private-public sector collaboration
NASCIO’s cloud survey also reports that 53 percent of CIOs consider workforce skill shortages and lack of staff an impediment to adopting cloud services at their organization.

Cloud migration is a technically complex process that demands significant time and resources. While the benefits of cloud-based operations are well worth the effort, many SLGs lack the training and resources to execute a complete cloud migration independently.

Security is paramount when managing sensitive citizen information and government data. A zero-trust framework is required to ensure the confidentiality and integrity of cloud environments. Cloud service providers and their public sector partners have a shared responsibility to adhere to the major pillars of zero trust, including full visibility in the cloud and least privilege access policies.

By partnering with trusted industry partners that can deliver innovative technical capabilities while accounting for the nuances of public sector security standards and regulations, SLGs can expedite the cloud migration process.

Cloud computing requirements and government mandates evolve constantly, and it’s challenging to keep pace. Industry partners that understand the latest best practices and regulations can help SLGs thrive amid these rapid changes. Moreover, collaborating with private sector partners ensures the SLG workforce can focus on mission-critical public services and meet their community’s current needs, as opposed to risking disruptions due to working on a cloud implementation.

SLGs and their industry partners must account for cloud migration’s technical, financial and organizational change management components. In addition to finding a partner that can design, engineer, deploy and monitor cloud applications and infrastructure, SLGs should collaborate with organizations that understand the critical role of FinOps and OCM in maximizing ROI and ensuring employee engagement.

Simultaneously prioritizing the technical, strategic and human aspects of cloud infrastructure and application modernization will better position SLGs to successfully leverage cloud computing to serve their communities.

Dr. Gary Wang is the chief technology officer at DMI. He is responsible for defining technology strategies and overseeing the development and delivery of innovative technical solutions to support external customers, DMI employees and DMI growth operations. He is also responsible for DMI global IT and information security operations. Dr. Wang has more than 20 years of experiences in leading strategy development, creating differentiating solutions and impactful innovations, driving business growth and consistently outperforming competitions. Prior to DMI, Gary has served as a technology executive in many large technology and engineering services companies, including Perspecta, SAIC, Unisys, IBM, and Lockheed Martin.