UNISYS | Don’t Talk to Me About Cloud: What CIOs Really Want to Know

© Unisys 2021 9 Implementation questions focus on establishing the most effective processes and technologies to execute the cloud migration. This involves extensive discovery, validation, assessment, and planning. What data and applications are to be migrated? How will the infrastructure be rationalized? And of prime importance, how will cloud security challenges be assessed and remediated? During the readiness stage, the questions are mainly about the organization’s current state and aspirations: its current IT state, security and risk posture, governance, skills components, and the challenges posed by its legacy systems and organizational structures. It also involves a detailed cloud strategy and design tightly tied to the planned business outcomes, paying special attention to the challenges posed by legacy systems and organizational structures. Readiness Implementation The evolution stage challenges CIOs to take the longest view of all. Questions and answers in this stage almost always focus on how to reduce the organization’s cloud spend and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). These questions seek to identify mismanaged resources, eliminate waste, review performance levels, and establish the optimal capacity. Clearly, each stage requires extensive guidance by cloud-knowledgeable professionals deeply experienced in each of these four crucial stages. Once solutions are running in the cloud, organizations face decisions about simplifying ongoing cloud management, particularly related to hybrid and/or multi cloud scenarios. CIOs need to ask and answer questions that strengthen security and compliance governance, enhance comput- ing performance, and control costs. Budgets can take unexpected turns that need to be addressed. Are usage predictions unfolding as expected? Are vendors meeting SLAs? Evolution Management Clearly, each stage requires extensive guidance by cloud-knowledgeable professionals deeply experienced in each of these four crucial stages. Conclusion Today’s ever more remote, global, and data-intensive organizations have all the incentive and motivation they need to continue their migration to the cloud. At every step of the way, they will be making high-impact decisions and investments that merit the most rigorous assessments, objective guidance, and informed counsel. Now you’re ready to talk about cloud.