Adopting cloud means undertaking a major transformation, even if you think you’re simply going to “lift & shift” workloads from the premises to their new home in the cloud. This transformation can only succeed if you have a clear understanding of your current information technology.

That’s why VAST believes every cloud journey should begin with a comprehensive Discovery & Assessment.

The Discovery & Assessment process helps businesses derive both quantitative and qualitative understanding of existing inventory so the transition to the cloud can be optimized for minimal risk, minimal cost, maximal efficiency, and maximal benefit, whether a public, private, or hybrid solution is selected.

The data collected through Discovery & Assessment enables businesses to understand their existing IT infrastructure, how it can benefit from cloud migration, and the best approach to cloud migration for each workload. Building on this understanding, the business case for the migration can be developed, including the objectives and metrics.

With a clear business case, cloud providers’ capabilities can be evaluated against the business objectives. The migration plan can be developed, and workflows and business procedures can be updated to reflect the impact of the cloud solution.

Objectives and Benefits of a Cloud Discovery & Assessment

At a high level, there are three main objectives of the discovery & assessment process.

Inventory

Build a comprehensive inventory of software and hardware, including shadow IT. Document important details such as versions and governance and compliance requirements.

Analyze

Assess assets’ performance, dependencies, and cloud readiness. Identify remediation that needs to be completed before cloud migration. Determine relevant benchmarks and recommend optimizations for efficiency and risk-reduction. Generate cost analysis to assist with right-sizing cloud resources.

Model

Identify the most appropriate cloud model (SaaS, IaaS, or PaaS) for each asset, and select the cloud vendor. Along with those specific benefits, the net effect of the discovery & assessment is to confirm the ROI of the cloud migration and refine migration plans to achieve a smoother, more efficient transition.

The process begins with discovery, inventory analysis and cloud readiness. At this step, target workloads are identified and the inventory analysis is completed. In addition, dependencies and performance characteristics are documented. The next phase includes cloud fit and financial analysis, which further assesses cloud readiness and the need for remediation, evaluates cloud usage strategies (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS), and estimates projected spending.

Get the Full Guide to Cloud Success

The data collected through Discovery & Assessment enables businesses to understand their existing IT infrastructure, how it can benefit from cloud migration, and the best approach to cloud migration for each workload.

Download Cloud Success Begins with Cloud Discovery and Assessment to learn more about the entire cloud journey.