One of the most common Cloud Challenges are customisation on premise application. Many assessment done to existing on premise will reveal these reasons why you should not move to Cloud. However, the assessment approach has been done incorrectly. Instead, it should be telling you on how you need to move to Cloud.
We find what we want to see
A good cloud assessment approach will not be one sided. It should have a balanced data and strategy to give the reader the right materials to make a decision. This is to prevent the bias of “finding what we want to see”. It is common to reason that heavily customised application to remain on premise instead of moving to Cloud. Vice versa, findings often point that Cloud should only handle lightly customised application.
Strategy to Cloud
As products move to SaaS, users will be forced to move customised applications to Cloud. It is important to provide strategy on how to migrate the customised applications. Many Cloud assessment will use Big Bang approach to review if the application can move to Cloud. You should also request for other strategy to be included in your Cloud assessment approach like phase transition or pilot migration.
Cloud assessment approach is often bias and skewed towards Big Bang migration approach. You should consider for other migration strategy when you are conducting your Cloud assessment. Thus, this will provide you a better picture to decide if you can migrate to Cloud.
Danny Kwok 