Session Information:

Infrastructure Modernization; How to choose the right modernization path for your environment

New products and solutions are provided at high-speed form different cloud providers. With the current changes and new norms of working from home, businesses need to adapt quickly and efficiently to the cloud. In this session, we will shed the light on the GCP options provided and how to choose according to where you are standing now in your cloud journey.

In this session you will learn;

• GCP solutions for IT infrastructure modernization 
• Key points to consider when choosing from the different options provided 
• Benefits of modernizing your IT infrastructure.
• Why going forward with your transformation journey is important during such challenging times 
• How Cloudypedia as a google cloud partner can help

Session Transcript:

Please enjoy the session, so, Dana, if you would be kind enough to switch your camera on and join us.

Hey, action, very glad to see that data.

Let me leave it with you, and I look forward to your presentation.

Thanks, Ryan.

So, hey, everyone.

As Brian introduced me, I'm Dina ..., from ..., Google Cloud Console, and we're going to go through today IT modernization and infrastructure modernization, and really, with the current business condition, it's essential to empower facts, knowledge, and best practices. So, you can prioritize your investments and optimize your cost, And we will focus today on how business prioritize their investments and create operation efficiency. There's many ways Google Cloud really can help you through your digital transformation journey.

And digital transformation is truly an exercise in, in change management, requiring data, and require really a massive amount of effort and focus focused leadership across people, processes, and, of course, technology domains. And it, just as much as a cultural shift, as it's a technology ramp. But the rewards, and velocity, and productivity are certainly worth the journey.

When you decide on a migration strategy, we really recommend taking a comprehensive view, including not only technical requirements, but also consideration of your business goals, present and future. Any critical timelines you're in and your own internal capabilities, because depending on your situation and yield these, concentration may necessitate a particular approach. And you may be in a tight timeline when you need to lift and shift your environment or you may have the time we need to invest in lift an optimized roadmap.

And it's really important, prior to any decision, you're going to take regarding your infrastructure, to analyze your application stack do, in order to design an appropriate transformation strategy. Because, as I mentioned, Google Cloud really has many pathways for you to move your applications and get it managed by Cloud.

And based on your assessment, you can either go with a Google Cloud Platform managed service, or maybe use the Google Kubernetes Engine, maybe, Compute Engine, or maybe v.m-ware Engine.

Or it move some of your legacy applications through a permanent solution.

And as we mentioned, cloud offers a wide range of solutions that meets businesses wherever they are in their cloud journey. And it's free, and it may look complicated, really, and may make your decision harder. However, it offers an answer, almost every use case. And it helps you accelerate your digital transformation journey.

And at that point, partnering with a weather GCP partner, at this point really helps understanding your environment and designing, designing the best solution that suits your current and future demands.

And we're going to go through the solutions, really, in summary, to have an overview understanding of what they offer and what they are most suitable for.

So starting, really with sorry.

Yeah. Starting with a Compute Engine, it's about lifting and shifting environment and have it run on your, on Google Cloud. And it's a product, really, which can migrate your VMs from on prem or any other cloud directly into Compute Engine in delivering really fast, frictionless, and migration. And it's the simplest way, really, and the fastest path to the cloud. And it gives you an ability to scale up and down according to your business needs. And this most suitable for businesses who have applications that, that is not ready for containerization.

This is going to be your perfect way to go to the cloud.

Another solution, which has answers and answers, is, application modernization platform for hybrid and multi cloud environments. Includes a packed and integrated set of Cloud Native tools and services based on leading open-source technology like Google Kubernetes Engine. And it helps with licensing, training costs, and increased development, speed, and efficiency of operating teams.

So, as we mentioned, the Compute Engine, if you, if your application stack is not ready for customization, it's your go. But if you're ready, this is the most applicable solution.

And for sap users, as we know, it's the most critical application in the enterprise, and, of course, is the most costly and encourage my environment. We really rely on a mess of the, especially for consumer products, retail distribution. And many, many organizations now specially, or depending on sap more than ever. and.

Worldwide, businesses, really, And maybe are looking for stability, or looking for cost reduction opportunities, such as migration, migrating lung production, workloads, like disaster recovery, test and development, to pay only for uses and uses as it happens. Moving to the cloud really offers a way to solve all of these challenges. And, and also, Paves the way for a greater business agility, in many cases, a simple shift and lift force up infrastructure to Google Cloud can, approximate, you'd take from 6 to 8 weeks. But now, due to the president on Preceded Times, where you were going through, ..., introduced an accelerated program for moving sap workloads to the cloud, which is great. And and, and if you're looking for for a fast ramp to the pound.

Another solution, which is actually a new addition to the Google Cloud Platform, is v.m-ware Engine.

And you can migrate to a fully managed v.m-ware environment and Google Cloud using Gatsby and would Engine. And this is a really great option for businesses that understand the benefits of moving to the cloud. But find out of a challenging, It's not just moving applications in this solution. You are moving disaster recovery backup and changes insecurity as well. And by taking advantage of Google Cloud v.m-ware Engine, you can run v.m-ware natively in the cloud, without major modifications like you do, like you do run them on prem. And this means that existing v.m-ware based workloads can benefit from the performance and scale, and security of the cloud, without major refactor.

And with Google, you can provision your v.m-ware environment really in minutes and migrate your v.m-ware based environment without major modifications. And you'll begin to be benefiting from managed and networking services, operating platform, and back end infrastructure that run at scale by Google.

And as businesses, and when he looked for more ways to control cost in the present and manage future needs, many feel stuck between maintaining a legacy platform and planning a future with fewer Microsoft licensing. In solving for this, involves a strategy that combines migration, optimization, and modernization, and moving Windows workloads to Google Cloud, enables companies to increase their IT agility, and reduce their on prem footprint.

And last, but not least, as many businesses want to embrace the cloud without disturbing the existing IT landscape, or maybe upgrading older, legacy applications. The presence of this presents really a challenge. And as most legacy applications are not really designed to run on the Cloud Google, Cloud wants to help you craft and migration strategy that let you run. What do you want? Whatever you want, how you want it, and fundamental solution consists of all the infrastructure, you need to run your a specialized workloads, such as Oracle Database, for example.

This infrastructure is connected with a dedicated low latency and highly silent interconnect and connects really, with all native Google Cloud services. So it's the best of both words. And by deploying, for example, your workloads and the fundamental solution, you can really reduce give, or take around 50% of your of your license cost compared to other public cloud vendors and the pharmacist solution provide really cost effective and scalable architecture based based on your needs.

So after going through all this solutions that are provided by GCP, here comes the Invariable question, really, should I move my application to Google Cloud, or not, or am I eligible for that or not?

And the benefits, really, of the cloud infrastructure are enormous, and we strongly recommend leveraging Google Cloud to extract maximum value from your application and workloads, as Google Cloud Platform provides.

many options to support your application stack, as we mentioned, GCE, Compute Engine and other managed services. And, more than that, you can leverage Data Analytics solution. Data Warehousing and I am, I am on a solution as well. And that said, sometimes you're in this situation, we're moving to the cloud is either technically, infeasible, or impractical and in the near term. And it's very important to answer this set of questions.

Let me go through with the first question is, are the components of your application stack, virtualized or Or a virtual ...? and can my, can your application stack run in the cloud environment while still supporting any and licensing, security, privacy, and compliance requirements? And can all application dependent, seems like there's 40 languages, frameworks and libraries really be supported in the cloud? It's very important to us to answer these three questions. And if the answer to one or more of these questions is no situation, where you have just think maybe of replacing some of your applications with a Cloud alternative over leaving these applications on prem, so your initial phase of digital transformation.

Or, of course, if it's if it's workable, you can transform this legacy applications to the bottom middle us through a fundamental solution. So you can gain the accessibility to Google Cloud Services.

And just to highlight, like, when you, when you make a transition to GCP, most companies may be, most companies are not just looking really for, for how they can move the compute existing, computing to the cloud to reduce cost, increase reliability, and security, which is important and needed.

But, you should be also looking for to create new opportunities, really, because Cloud, Google Cloud can help you do both meet your existing needs and prepare the past for a profitable, secure future. So you reducing your current coast, and you're you're gaining more strategically by maybe leveraging some of or all of the Google Services that are provided for businesses, and to unlock more value of your data and application, and have your team more connected, and have your business more efficient and a giant.

And as we see throughout this year, with that, the comfort situation, businesses who have adapted to digital transformation plan earlier had better respond sort of this pandemic. And they've already read, and they would rather they were ready to adopt the new norm staying at home, and still being productive, and instead of having their business running and delaying the time to realize the value will be moving to, the Cloud, leaves companies at a severe competitive disadvantage, Really.

By taking the traditional longer approach, we see companies sacrifice, markets, in fact, and put themselves at risk. And companies need approaches that brief coasts, efficiency, agility, and innovation, benefits of cloud.

And the way that it returns value, const, const, constantly. And there is no better time really than this to start investing in your infrastructure modernization to be ready for the re-opening of the markets.

Now you have the time to do this and put your strategy in action and to solve really for the current challenges and the future challenges as well when the market re-opens.

And as it may, sometimes, things just get enthusiastic and let's jump right in. But given the complicity, we here at ... Portal, when that process and once we dive in with your, our customers and experts, we leverage a proven approach to each Migration. This is, and this is a process you might win, which you might use for do all these four steps and in in multiple faces, depending on the size of the migration, or you might doing some of these phases, sorry, in four different sets of workloads and that's really OK. And, in fact, it's expected.

But the point is that we have a proven, repeatable migration framework that worked to our clients, and we're hoping that we can help more and more businesses for this time leveraging the move to leveraging.

But, actually, Google Cloud can offer an in and move at scale to the account.

And through this, like four.

For phase of our process, at the end of each product project, our customers will have established that the available components showing in my screen. It's a checklist that we developed to ensure that our projects really are moving in an organized and smooth way, and ensuring that our clients are, are well, established and ready, and.

Really operating with efficiency and security and high security on cloud, OK.

And we're here, really, as a cloud, as Google Cloud Partner, to help you install video, sort of this unperceived in time.

We work with really certified engineers. And we together, we won't be your trends trenches, and we are going to help you assess your landscape, prioritize your workloads, and crafting your cloud, and your migration journey, and making sure you get there.

And by that, I really have finished my, my presentation. I hope it was a benefit for you all. And I really thank you for attending this. If you have any further questions, inquiries, or need any assistance in any sort of way, feel free to contact me on my e-mail Deena Cloud immediately, Tom. And in our efforts read support businesses through the Times, we're really glad to announce that we are offering free assessment on migration services exclusive for this event.

And by that, I'm ready for any Q and A From the audience.

Any questions?

Brian, I'm not, I'm not hearing you well.

That was me being completely city, Could I ask you to stop sharing your screen so that we can move on to the next stage? My apologies audience. My ineptitude was shining through that. I could also ask you I have some initial questions for Dina from the presentation, but if you have any more, please keep them coming through. We'll try and answer as many as we can.

I do wanna start by saying one of the key issues that a lot of businesses have is is it secure?

Moving to the cloud and see it on the pigs a lot of discussions That boardrooms undertake regardless of whether it's an SMB or an enterprise businesses in your opinion, and with your expertise. What have you? How would you address that?

And what do you what do you think is driving that conversation, OK? It's valid this conversation, really, because you're moving to a cloud and you're asking, is it secure? And as anyone else has accessibility to my data or use it or can use it, or it can leverage it in any means. And this is really up to this is a two parter, really. The first is the infrastructure on Google Cloud Platform, itself, is the cure, and it is it is secure. Of course, all Google Cloud products undergo independent verifications of their security, privacy, and compliance. And you can, Google really has many like ISO certifications, they are HIPAA compliance.

And there is the complies with a lot of different industries, security compliances. And you can find all of these certifications and attestations on Google Cloud website under security compliance.

So and Google Cloud really ensures that your data is secure, and there's transparency, You know, where it's your data, and you can manage it, and you can control who has access to it.

Google Cloud doesn't use your data, doesn't share it.

And that's was the part that is concerned with the Google Cloud infrastructure. But when it comes to you configuring your infrastructure, you're now moving.

And there's extra layers of security that you can add to ensure the accessibility to your data, like who has access to what and from which devices. And this is done while you are configuring your data on the cloud. And this is something that cloud partners can help you with to ensure that you're moving your data with at most security.

Steve, thank you for that data and Jonathan has a question for you. So this is quite a long one. So I'm going to ask it so in a certain way.

So he said Tina, can you speak again to the duality of moving to the Cloud channing legacy systems, while also building new digital solutions and growth in the Cloud?

OK, so, as we mentioned, like, if you have a legacy application, that, they are not built to run on the Cloud, and if you, if there's, if you can really use some Google Cloud Alternatives, that will be great. So, we will have all your application stack running on the cloud and then you can leverage this capillary, although, Google Cloud, how, you can, you can build applications as you go, you can really solve for, for mortals and your operational challenges. But if you cannot really un ulysse's legacy applications, you can use a fundamental solution in which you move this legacy applications to an infrastructure at Google Cloud.

And that means that you can use your legacy application, and still have access to Google Cloud Services. So you still can use the data coming from this application through big query and data analytics, like Data Studio a walker.

And, and instead of that would be even better option than having them just on prem.

Of course, if it's inefficient eligible for the fundamental solution.

Is that something that is relatively easy to do nowadays, or is that still somewhat cumbersome, given the number of legacy systems, and the different way that they work?

I'm not going to say it's easy, but if there's a way, like, there's a way for it for now to, to have this legacy applications operating and still be able to leverage Google Cloud Services. And, as I mentioned, there are more now cloud options for four, available for this legacy solutions. And really, you have to look into it and see if you can really use some of them the the need to solve for you. You should really consider leveraging them instead of this legacy applications. Because the future is going to the cloud. And now, even, not just the ... you have to, like, ... really is. Now, is, is. Now, the thing.

If you have, the application, can be ..., This is the way to go. now, use the Google Cloud at Google Kubernetes Engine, and utilize that, and have your application control. Nice control. Nice. But if that doesn't work, was going to have the VM solutions, and if it's still, you need to work with this Legacy solutions, You can have the fundamental solution.

OK, that makes perfect sense. Thank you for that. So, one thing that all businesses are concerned about is cost.

What is it?

What what is the sort of level of investment that of businesses is going to have to put into it and what are they going to get out of it? So one of the things that one of the questions we've got up here is, what do you actually save by moving to Google Cloud, or is that very sort of difficult to articulate? It.

Not it's difficult to actually good, because it's different from every use case. It depends on the wheelie, your application stack, your environment, and the scale of it. But you can have, we have approximate, really, numbers from, from, from previous migrations. And, for example, if you're moving with v.m-ware Engine, you can save around, give or take 25%.

Saving On.

Yeah, instead of saving 25% of your costs that you pay for your on prem facility, and that, and that is, that is major and, and having the v.m-ware Engine, it's a clean managed service that you also don't have the hassle of managing your infrastructure, you have Google Cloud experts doing for you. So, it, is that a one-off saving, or is that an annual saving?

No, that's the annual saving.

For the step, for example, you will be saving around 50% of your infrastructure cost, OK? Which is a significant savings.

What are the kind of ongoing investments that you need to make in terms of ensuring that you are staying at the forefront of what's being implemented?

Or is that all kind of absorbed by the initial shift?

Ah, Sorry. Again, just sorry, what are the ongoing ramifications from a cost perspective? You mentioned.

obviously, there's a 25% initial saving, which is obviously goes on, and then there's a 50%.

Depending on how you sort of look at those, those costs, what are the kind of ongoing costs that need to be built into the equation that the business might not be aware of initially.

OK, I mean, like issues with operating with this operator, Actually, when income Vidya will offer workshops. That is included in our services to help businesses really adapt to the cloud easier. And we do workshops with all constrained themes, and even when it comes to maybe.

Word collaboration, and the and co-operation, like G Suite and Google Meet, and we offer really intense workshops that helps employees understand how it goes and how it works, and how to leverage it, and use it within their internal processes and cycle.

So, this is something that a Google Partner helps you with to help you to help you have a smooth, really move to the cloud.

Funny. Because it does show that I was out there. Might of all the other takes me, but I think I've got a good handle that. Another question, which obviously cares is Google is just one provider of cloud services, and it's a, it's a platform.

Why should people choose or explore using Google Wave, or any of the other platform providers that are out there?

And that's That's a really good question. And of course, when you micro view it according to its solution, There's, of course, advantage that the pops and an advantage of Google Cloud over other cloud providers, but in general, you are three really main, main differentiators. The first is really how how I would cost like on Google Cloud is more cost efficient as you are actually pay per second. And this is something that it's only offered by Google Cloud. So you're actually, you're paying for your actual music.

And that's amazing as second differentiator is really the Google Cloud Uptime SLA, which is 99.999%. And this is something that Google commits to with all finds.

And no other Google Cloud provider really meets that.

And, and last but not least, really the innovation, Google how technology, with the, if it's data warehousing, machine learning, or data analytics. And really offers the person class products that can help you leverage your application and data, and help you within your decision making decision making. So, not just moving your data from here to there, and that's it. No. You have the ability to go beyond that, and scale your data to help you with your business.

OK, thanks for that data, that makes sense, but something that I'd like to sort of dig a little bit further into, if I may, is, when you are speaking with organizations about a transition to a cloud based model, what are the questions that you would love them to come prepared to You wait?

That would make it a simpler process, because I imagined that you have a lot of occasions where people sit in front of. You Don't really know what they should be asking, and what they should expect from that meeting.

So, if, I, might, What are the questions that, really, we should be looking to ask you, and what are the answers that we should be looking to get in that, kind of initial phase?

So, one of the things that, maybe, it's difficult when that when we meet with a potential client who really doesn't know the environment. Well. So, it takes more than one meeting, and we do this discovery and using program, or I'm doing manually to understand and start, then, discussing a design or a path to move them to the cloud. So, when does that?

When the client comes to us, with a better understanding, Really understand the environment and really accelerate the process, like the first meeting, we now have. Maybe, an initial design of how your infrastructure looks like, and we, and we can move forward that fast, right?

What you should be looking at like the answers, you should be expecting when you are in such a meeting, It should be and answers, Concerns, how your, this application is going to work.

And you'll have to have a definite like clear answer that this application can really work. Was that solution? And, and you have to really have a clear roadmap with you, so you can you can check and audits after after the partner, or also the people who are working, and involving that. They are moving, according to the fact that it's drawing an agreed upon, and, of course, you have to have an estimate posts. Like, we use a little calculator where we add all the components that you can abusing, and we can have an estimate on how they're going to be paying for that per month. So they have it, isn't it? Makes the decision making easier.

OK, when you're looking at this profile, a lot of businesses obviously look at project management teams, and who should lead that kind of process. Who doesn't need a sponsor of board level? What typically is the sort of shape of the team that you'd like to see from a client perspective, in terms of ensuring that the project runs smoothly?

OK, so for the Structure, IT infrastructure, of course, you want to see, maybe the, of course IT engineers involved and some of the top management involved in the paralysis and are well aware of what what is happening so fast and things up when there are more involved. Their decisions are thinking and are being taken at a faster than than them being away from the picture. So you have to go back and forth. So having someone from the top management, from the management, from the decision makers aware, and involved in the process really eases things. And if it's. also collaboration, and using G Suite, of course, we need team team management and marketing managers. The financial managers, administration managers, operational. Managers to have them understand that the G Suite and the tools involved in it and how they can use it and utilize it.

And, typically, once you've started working with a client. Let's, this obviously will vary depending on the company and the industry and size of the business.

And obviously the complexity, but from, let's say, talking about a mid-size business with a fairly complex operational structure.

How long does it take to kind of affect that transition? What are the kind of normal stages that are involved in terms of the process from a time perspective?

As you said, it's different, because even if you're in your, under this category, you mentioned, there's a lot of use cases, and bring other variables, really constant, thinking like the other clients. Decision making and unmaking process is fast and they're, they're onboard. And everything.

This move takes, maybe around 4 to six weeks, according to solution we're going in width and according, really, to the, the size of the. data.

And, yeah. And size the data and the solution. Yeah, exactly. And the solution we're using to move. Because if we're going with v.m-ware, it's really a minutes because you're moving, as it is no, you're not refactoring something or changing anything. It's just moving the same environment as it is.

But, if it's a complex environment, and we're not using v.m-ware as a service, and we going with other products, and it will take longer.

OK, and, if I may, just, again, making use of your, your time and your sort of expertise, what are the kind of primary pitfalls you would advise organizations to try and avoid, as they come through this process, that you've seen all those kind of go into. Whether they're choosing the platform for the wrong reasons, whether it's the wrong platform, whether it, why don't you engage with the systems? They've got, what, I'm sorry, if I've stolen any part of your own, but What were the kinds of things that you, you would advise people to be really wary of as they go through this process?

OK, it's very important not to take more than you can handle. It's very important to to, to, To analyze your your current situation and what you really can take and what you can really change and what you cannot afford to do. And having this vision, it will make it easier for you when your decision you're taking your decision.

Because some, some clients come and they think it's going to be easy, and they found that there's a certain applications that have constraints on, or licensing issues, or, or operational issues that, and that prevents this application from moving really to the cloud, or we have to find a more, I think, out of the box, how are we going to sort this? And they're not ready for that, they're not ready to change that, or our get around that, because of the time, or expense, or the current circumstances. So, it's very, as I mentioned in my presentation, is not just a technology decision. It's really a business decision. And, you have to put in consideration all business factors within it. The time, the coast, the, the, the investment you just have, not about money investment.

It's about also time investment and, and what you can do in your current position and what you can't, OK, well, thank you for that, that's really appreciate it and do you know that?

Is the questions for my own, but I think it's, I'd like to thank you very much for joining us and exposing it to your expertise. What I will say to the rest of the audience is, Please do continue the conversation where you can see it online. If you've got any further questions for Dana, please do send them three. Will happily submit them and follow them through from that.

But, Gina, thank you very much for joining us from Egypt, statues, and enjoy the day.

Thank you. Thanks. Bye.

Bye. Bye.

OK, everyone.

coming up at the top of the hour, we have a presentation from Greg ... who's a security architect at Checkpoints Software entitled, It Ain't Done until it's Automated Security at the Speed of DevOps. I'm, I would advise you not to miss this one.

It's a very open and well produced video around this, and really focusing on the challenge is people's companies are facing as they migrate applications and workloads to the Cloud. So look forward to catching up with you at the top of the hour.

And for this session, or complete, again, any questions or queries you might have for Dina, please let us know. We will provide that to. Please, again, don't hesitate to provide us with feedback. And if there's anything further you need to know about Series, please just drop us a line, and we'll respond as soon as possible. That concludes this session, look forward to catching up at the top of the hour. Jacob?