When establishing cloud governance, an organization should first test by migrating a few applications to the cloud. Cloud governance is the process of defining and implementing policies, procedures, standards, and controls to ensure the effective, efficient, secure, and compliant use of cloud services. Cloud governance requires a clear understanding of the roles, responsibilities, expectations, and objectives of both the cloud service provider and the cloud customer, as well as the alignment of the cloud strategy with the business strategy. Cloud governance also involves monitoring, measuring, and reporting on the performance, availability, security, compliance, and cost of cloud services.
Migrating a few applications to the cloud can help an organization to test and validate its cloud governance approach before scaling up to more complex or critical applications. Migrating a few applications can also help an organization to:
Identify and prioritize the business requirements, risks, and benefits of moving to the cloud.
Assess the readiness, suitability, and compatibility of the applications for the cloud.
Choose the appropriate cloud service model (such as SaaS, PaaS, or IaaS) and deployment model (such as public, private, hybrid, or multi-cloud) for each application.
Define and implement the necessary security, compliance, privacy, and data protection measures for each application.
Establish and enforce the roles and responsibilities of the cloud governance team and other stakeholders involved in the migration process.
Develop and execute a migration plan that includes testing, validation, verification, and rollback procedures for each application.
Monitor and measure the performance, availability, security, compliance, and cost of each application in the cloud.
Collect feedback and lessons learned from the migration process and use them to improve the cloud governance approach.
Migrating a few applications to the cloud can also help an organization to avoid some common pitfalls and challenges of cloud migration, such as:
Migrating legacy or incompatible applications that require significant re-engineering or refactoring to work in the cloud.
Migrating all applications at once without proper planning, testing, or governance, which can result in operational disruptions, data loss, security breaches, or compliance violations.
Migrating complex or critical applications without adequate testing or governance, which can increase the risk of failure or downtime.
Migrating applications without considering the impact on the end-users or customers, who may experience changes in functionality, performance, usability, or accessibility.
Therefore, migrating a few applications to the cloud is a recommended best practice for establishing cloud governance. It can help an organization to gain experience and confidence in using cloud services while ensuring that its cloud governance approach is effective, efficient, secure, and compliant.
References:
Migration environment planning checklist - Cloud Adoption Framework
Cloud Governance: What You Need To Know - Forbes
Cloud Governance: A Comprehensive Guide - BMC Blogs
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