Is your agency’s cloud environment chaotic, siloed, and lacking resilience? You’re not alone. Many government agencies are facing these same challenges. Keep reading to learn why the answer to a more streamlined, resilient cloud environment is multi-cloud.
With a multi-cloud strategy, agencies can reduce their reliance on a single vendor, providing more flexibility, greater success mitigating security risks, and increased resiliency in the event of an individual cloud outage. Agencies can leverage the unique strengths and capabilities of different cloud providers to optimize performance and cost efficiency.
It’s clear that embracing a multi-cloud strategy is the way forward, but you may be wondering where to begin on your cloud journey.
This spring at our VMware Explore In Focus: Public Sector Roadshow, we brought government and industry leaders together across three cities to explore how today’s cloud solutions can help shape the future of digital government. According to our panel of state government IT leaders, here are five must-do’s for any government agency looking to implement a cloud-smart strategy:
Use tomorrow’s process
Embracing multi-cloud requires a forward-thinking approach. It may involve more effort and innovation, but it’s what’s going to lead to a successful migration.
Matt Van Syckle, CTO of the State of Montana, reflected on some of the mistakes his organization made during the early stages of their cloud migration: “When we’ve tried to adopt tomorrow’s technology, we’ve used yesterday’s processes using employees that had yesterday’s training and pretended that was going to be successful.”
Many think that multi-cloud will help them become a more agile organization, but the truth is that you need to be agile before moving to the cloud. Agility is a prerequisite for a successful migration, so adopt an iterative approach and embrace change.
Keep end user experience top of mind
Before jumping in and adopting cloud technology, take a step back to first understand the end user experience. Whether your objective is to improve service delivery to your constituents or increase efficiency, collaboration, and cost savings within your workforce, avoid fixating on specific products or tech stacks, and identify your end user’s needs to determine whether moving everything to the cloud is the best solution. For instance, maintaining an on-premise infrastructure or using a private cloud may make more sense for an organization that has highly sensitive or regulated data that requires strict control and physical proximity.
Once you have a good idea of what success looks like from the end user perspective, work backward from there to design a solution that meets their expectations and leads to a positive experience.
Tackle complexity first
While it may be tempting to move over the “easy” things first when transitioning to multi-cloud, this approach can result in technical debt and hinder your agency’s progress. Brian Smith, Deputy CIO of the State of Idaho, learned this lesson firsthand. He discovered that starting with simple migrations, such as the bean commission or the wheat commission, only gets you part way there. It’s crucial to set the right tone by addressing the more complex aspects of cloud migration early on, ensuring that your agency has a clear understanding of the technology costs and is well-equipped for success.
Avoid vendor analysis paralysis
Technology research can become a never-ending rabbit hole. Sure, you can always take another call or schedule another demo to investigate how new technology compares to the ones on your existing shortlist, but all that does is delay.
While it’s essential to evaluate various vendor options, it’s equally important to avoid analysis paralysis. Brian Smith recommends finding a solution that’s going to take care of 80% of your agency’s use cases. For the remaining 20% of fringe cases, consider how you can tweak or customize the solution to fulfill your specific requirements. Strive for a balance between comprehensiveness and practicality, focusing on finding a solution that delivers tangible benefits and aligns with your overall mission objectives.
Inspire a culture of change
Choosing the right technology is the easy part of adopting multi-cloud. What’s really going to accelerate your agency’s cloud migration is getting stakeholder buy-in early and finalizing the vendor contracts and costs in a timely manner. Complications at the internal-selling phase are where deals die.
Bob Osmond, CIO of the Commonwealth of Virginia said it best: “It’s not the tech that kills migration.”
This is why culture matters. You need buy-in from the right people and a culture that embraces change, growth, and adaptation. Without it, the procurement process will never finish. One of the best ways to build the right cultural foundation for technology innovation is by starting at the top of your organization. By securing executive support first, your leaders can set the tone for the rest of your team and foster a culture that propels migration forward.
Define success first
We’re often in the habit of opening POs and charging credit cards the second we have made the purchase decision. But don’t open that PO just yet! There’s one step that needs to happen before then: Define success.
Migrating to the cloud is one thing, but how do you define multi-cloud success? What’s your motivation for adopting a cloud strategy? How will you measure success and ROI? Take a beat to answer these questions so you go into the migration process with an outcome-oriented mindset. That will set you up for long-term success.
By following these five proven best practices for implementing a cloud-smart strategy, you can navigate the multi-cloud migration process more effectively and set your agency on the path to success.
Unlock more best practices for multi-cloud migration in government by watching the session recordings from our VMware Explore In Focus: Public Sector Roadshow, now available On Demand!
