Attending to the Cloud: How IWO will help you propose cloud migration
This weblog is the second in a collection on public cloud optimization. Additionally see “Scale back Public Cloud Spend with Intersight Workload Optimizer,” and keep tuned for the third weblog within the collection on how you can simplify multi-cloud operations in AWS, Azure, and GCP.
Not too long ago I sat down with Mohit Vaswani, technical options architect for Cisco Intersight Workload Optimizer (IWO), to speak about how organizations can obtain value advantages provided by the general public cloud via efficient cloud migration planning. The next is a recap of our dialog.
Q: Why are organizations shifting workloads to the cloud?
A: For years now, organizations have been shifting purposes to the general public cloud for a number of causes. One of many largest motivations is finances and agility. IT departments see the promise of the general public cloud as a possible approach to decrease prices, both from eliminating capital bills and monitoring solely operational bills as a finances line merchandise or from spending much less as a result of they’ll extra simply modify assets primarily based on their workload necessities. This feeds into the concept whereas conventional knowledge middle assets are finite (you must buy extra {hardware} in case your necessities improve), assets within the public cloud are infinite (you possibly can spin up assets on-demand with out investing in associated capital bills). As well as, the power to make assets obtainable to builders inside minutes via the general public cloud is a game-changer to speed up innovation. Whereas conventional on-premises knowledge facilities carry extra baggage with value and complexity, the pliability of the general public cloud provides the opportunity of faster transformation, probably resulting in progress sooner.
Q: What does it imply to maneuver purposes and workloads to the cloud?
A: Essentially the most primary approach to transfer purposes to the general public cloud is “raise and shift.” This implies shifting purposes and their workloads to the general public cloud with none modifications; you merely copy them out of your knowledge middle and shift them as-is to a public cloud setting.
Whereas this method is well-liked and easy, it’s a double-edged sword. Except you’ve thought-about the aim and standing of your utility and what you’re aiming to attain, you don’t even know if shifting an utility to the cloud is the most suitable choice. Some up-front evaluation may present that re-architecting, retaining, or retiring the applying could also be a greater strategic possibility than shifting it to the cloud. And if you happen to simply go forward with raise and shift, chances are you’ll be growing your prices from the get-go.
For those who do resolve emigrate an utility to the cloud, do you actually need all of the assets you’re presently utilizing on-premises to make sure the applying performs effectively as soon as it’s within the public cloud? Many organizations fall into this lure and overspend on storage that’s not tied to any compute, on too many reserved situations, or in different methods, equivalent to sustaining zombie VMs (VMs they’re fully unaware of, that don’t have house owners, or which were deserted).
“45% of organizations that carry out a lift-and-shift migration will
overspend by 70% through the first 18 months of their new structure.”
– GCN, March 2022
For those who haven’t requested questions on how your utility is performing in your knowledge middle and optimized your workloads there, you then’re merely carrying over potential methods to over-spend within the public cloud. You’ve defeated the aim of optimizing public cloud assets earlier than you’ve even moved your utility. It’s essential to know this data earlier than migration to verify the cloud arrange is optimized to assist utility efficiency on the lowest value.
Q: How can organizations benefit from the guarantees of the cloud with out overspending?
A: I like to consider it as being proactive relatively than reactive. As an alternative of shifting an utility to the general public cloud after which asking how it may be optimized, the most effective apply is to think about the person parts that influence general public cloud prices earlier than migrating the applying to the cloud.
Let’s take a working example. Utilizing Intersight Workload Optimizer (Cisco’s utility useful resource administration resolution), you are able to do “what-if” state of affairs planning for cloud migration. A Migrate to Cloud plan simulates migration of on-premises VMs to the cloud, or migration of VMs from one cloud supplier to a different. The plan focuses on optimizing efficiency and prices by selecting probably the most appropriate cloud assets to your VMs and the volumes they use. To additional optimize your prices, the plan can advocate shifting workloads from on-demand to discounted pricing and buying extra reductions.
The plan calculates prices based on the billing and value changes that you’ve negotiated together with your cloud supplier. Prices embody compute, service (equivalent to IP companies), and license prices. The plan additionally calculates low cost purchases for VMs that may profit from discounted pricing.
The plan outcomes present:
- Projected prices
- Actions to execute your migration and optimize prices and efficiency
- Optimum cloud situations to make use of, combining environment friendly buy of assets with assured utility efficiency
- The price advantage of shifting workloads from on-demand to discounted pricing
- Reductions you can purchase

You may also see the distinction in dangers (together with efficiency dangers, effectivity alternatives, and compliance dangers) if you happen to merely raise and shift an utility to the general public cloud versus if you happen to optimize earlier than you progress the applying to the general public cloud. IWO additionally offers a price comparability breakdown between raise and shift and optimized utility migration.
It’s essential to keep in mind that optimizing workloads for efficiency and value is an ongoing course of. When you’ve migrated to the cloud, IWO offers efficiency and cost-related suggestions together with particular actions to attain these financial savings (equivalent to shopping for reserved situations, deleting volumes, scaling VMs, and optimizing reserved situations). It drills down into buy portions really useful, upfront prices, breakeven interval, and financial savings.
Watch “Intersight Workload Optimizer in Action: Reducing cloud costs with recommended actions” to study extra.
Q: How can somebody study extra about planning for cloud migration with Intersight Workload Optimizer?
A: Intersight Workload Optimizer is a SaaS resolution that features a free 45-day trial. Anybody can join the trial and use the cloud migration state of affairs planning functionality to see the kind of data it offers.
Detailed data on the state of affairs planning is accessible within the Cisco Intersight Workload Optimizer User Guide, and our cloud optimization specialists can be found for one-on-one demos to stroll via particular situations.
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