Uila Inc. recently announced the results from a first-of-a-kind survey panel with VMware vExperts on the state of the Hybrid Cloud initiative.  The survey was focused on Hybrid Cloud Migration and Monitoring challenges and techniques, topics of discussion that are perfect for these industry experts to weigh in on.  To find out more about this survey and the results, VMblog spoke with Dilip Advani, VP of Marketing at Uila. 

VMblog:  You recently conducted a new survey with the VMware vExpert members.  What does the survey cover and why was this data important to discover?

Dilip Advani:  The Survey is focused on Hybrid Cloud Migration and Monitoring challenges and techniques and reveals the realities of the challenges organizations and IT teams face during migration to the new Hybrid World. Everyone out there is talking about Hybrid Cloud migrations these days and asking a lot of questions and providing opinions, but no one had spoken to the experts in the industry, who are in the forefront of these migrations in their roles as architects within their organization or as consultants for other organizations. And who better than the VMware vExperts to guide IT teams worldwide on how to take on this initiative. 

VMblog:  What interested you the most about the findings and why?

Advani:  Our ultimate goal with this survey is to spread the opinion of the vExperts on the pitfalls or things to take care of during the migration process to every IT person who is thinking about taking on the same task. That is why in the survey, we touched on the most important aspects for any strategic project, whether it is migration or anything else. This included understanding the state of the hybrid cloud world roll-outs, migration methods, concerns and challenges with migration and post-migration monitoring. With the survey, we want to bring the ultimate guidance specifically on what IT migration teams can do to speed up the project, without compromising business continuity for any application.

VMblog:  What were the most important findings from the survey?

Advani:  I would say that there were three of them that every migration project team member must know. They are:

1. Pure-play Private Cloud is not dead  and 18% of vExperts feel organizations will stick to it. This is where we at Uila say that you must never-say-never, and IT teams in those organizations must constantly evaluate the changes in their business needs, and see if they must take that hybrid or multi-cloud plunge.
2. 80%+ of the panelists strongly suggest that knowing the Application interdependencies is critically important for pre-migration assessments.
3. 2 out 3 panelists responded that organizations are trying to build the Application dependency mapping manually, which is error prone and time-consuming and majority of them (45%) would not recommend doing this manually.
   

VMblog:  2 out of 3 vExperts responded that organizations are trying to build the Application dependency mapping manually.  Why do you think that is?  And where do you think the current solutions are failing?

Advani:  This shocker from the vExperts, who see these migration projects day-in and day-out and that they see 2 out of 3 organizations do things manually, should be an eye opener for everyone out there. Migration projects are not just another project, and every care must be taken to ensure that they are completed as quickly and accurately as possible.

Even though IT teams maintaining good documentation are common, in this scenario where it is important to be on top of the latest updates for every link in the multi-tier application chain, manual documentation or efforts may not cut it. Documentation could be obsolete the moment it is created, because of employee turnover or just that the IT team is so busy keeping the lights on.

Also many existing tools out there that can map dependencies automatically, call for the installation of agents. And that in most scenarios does not fly with the IT operations or migration teams that are involved with the pre-assessment.

So being able to get information on all assets and their dependencies automatically, without installing agents and updating the dependency changes on the fly, is what every migration project needs.

VMblog:  Was there anything in the survey results that surprised you?

Advani:  There were 2, so called "ah-ha" points in there.

First was around the top 3 concerns with migrations.  They included security and compliance at the top as expected and spoken about in many other surveys or conferences, but the big "ah-ha" piece of data was the importance of the "knowledge of the applications interdependencies (Service Mapping)", right at the top along security and compliance.

The second was about rollbacks. Everyone thinks, once you move to the Public cloud, it will just solve all your problems or get rid of every user complaint ticket you get. You don't hear about roll-backs all the time, or even infrequently, but according to the vExperts, they do happen. And when they do, it is not only expensive to the organization because of sunk effort and costs for the migration project, but also the downtime in application availability. And just think what that does to the IT team involved with planning and executing that migration project. Even though unknowns in these situations may not be avoidable, it is important for the IT teams to do everything they can to minimize that likelihood. Planning with good current operations analytics and understanding the current architecture is critical. This not only prevents unexpected performance challenges after migration, but also helps in investment control for the cloud resources to be allocated. This can be achieved by conducting pre-migration assessments where you have full visibility into the most up-to-date application and infrastructure assets, and their current usage patterns.

VMblog:  What do you think will be the driving forces that ultimately push the market to migrate to a hybrid cloud environment?

Advani:  I think the tailwind is already behind the Hybrid Cloud architecture for major application workloads across large or even smaller organizations. What is needed is being able to do that efficiently and successfully to avoid any embarrassing mishaps or roll-backs. If they are armed with accurate and up-to-date information, that is available to them at their fingertips,  they can confidently support any migration effort. This is what will take the Hybrid Cloud initiative to the next level.

The vExpert recommendations report can be downloaded from: https://www.uila.com/resources/whitepapers/vexpert-recommendations-on-hybrid-cloud-migration