How to Transform a Legacy Business into a Digital Age Superstar

By Derek Handova

Many businesses have not stayed up with the speed of the digital age. However, recent evidence has revealed steps toward business transformation allowing them to catch up with the help of cloud computing. Organizations must make specific changes to successfully virtualize their infrastructure and take advantage of key technologies like data analytics and the Internet of Things (IoT).

“No matter the state of an organization’s IT, a move to the cloud will benefit from one thing—simplicity,” says Andy Daudelin, vice president, cloud and cloud networking, AT&T. “That could be a challenge. According to RightScale’s 2016 State of the Cloud Report, most businesses used more than three different cloud services in 2015. One way to accomplish this is to utilize platforms that help consolidate cloud service management.”

Signs your Business Remains Behind the Times

Almost every enterprise struggles with its business processes at some point in time. Organizations that rely on legacy processes may have the most problems. But it would remain a mistake to leap into a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model without proper preparation. Experts say an enterprise must exist in a state of readiness before moving to the cloud.

“Businesses are feeling pressure to move to a multi-cloud model but not everyone is ready for the journey,” says Mark Jamensky, executive vice president, products, Embotics, a cloud management platform company. “Step one is assessing if you are ready for cloud management automation. Before pulling the trigger, you need to assess five key components needed for cloud automation.”

According to Jamensky, these five components of cloud automation include:

With these five pieces in place, you can consider adding cloud management to your converged infrastructure and data center and bring your business into the digital age, according to Jamensky.

Next page: connecting to the network, case study

Connecting to the Network

Demands of network maintenance and IT misalignment with the needs of the business hurt innovation. In fact, 75 percent of CIOs say the network is an issue that affects their ability to achieve corporate goals and increase revenue, according to Brocade, networking solutions provider, which recently rolled out a vendor neutral workflow optimization tool.

“Many businesses are faced with a simple challenge that keeps them from transitioning into the Digital Age, particularly with IoT technology—how to maintain reliable, secure and cost effective remote connections,” says William Behn, president, Tosibox Inc., provider of hardware-based VPN solutions. “The basic problem with remote connections has been the lack of standards and, as a result, the countless different ways of establishing internet connection and ensuring data security.”

What Tosibox proposes as a solution involves a new kind of device-based, end-to-end VPN that is plug-and-play, easy-to-use, secure and cost efficient. Such a solution could be deployed by anyone without IT expertise in minutes and create secure and reliable connections with IoT technologies.

Infrastructure: SaaS + On-premises = Hybrid?

In IT process business transformation, no single size fits all situations. The path to the cloud will remain different for every IT organization. Most likely, the average IT department will end up with a mix of cloud and on-premises solutions, leading to hybrid IT. Below are four ways an IT organization can progress down the cloud pathway, according to Gerardo Dada, vice president, product marketing, SolarWinds, a provider of IT management products:

For example, a university in Florida that wanted to balance its costs for Amazon Web Services (AWS) public cloud with an on-premises solution developed and tested its own hybrid cloud model and looked at the tradeoffs—like the cost of adding staff to manage the private/hybrid cloud vs. paying a public cloud provider—and the relative security of each approach. Tailoring the cloud-brokering model for the university has been a true strategic weapon that speeds application deployment, improves IT agility and reduces costs, according to a spokesperson.

Migrating Legacy IT to the Cloud: a Case Study

Legacy IT solutions no longer offer speed and flexibility required to stay ahead of the competition nor the necessary user experience. think Procurement, a SaaS based e-procurement solution, looked to improve speed of delivery and digital capability, so it engaged cloud services partner RedBear IT to migrate from legacy hardware onto AWS and eliminate traditional storage by adopting Zadara Storage’s enterprise cloud storage as a service solution for data availability and recovery, according to the company. Steve Ash, COO, think Procurement, offers tips on transforming IT through cloud technology.