Immigration stories are full of hope and inspiration, but also pain and adversity. Adapting to a new way of doing things can be challenging. Old customs may not fit so well into changing environments. But we do them because the opportunities created make it worth the effort.
Today, you can be an immigrant without even leaving your desk chair. We see it often: IT organizations whose development practices predate the advent of cloud computing. You can think of these companies as “Cloud Immigrants.” They are trying to settle into to a new world where they compete alongside “Cloud Native” companies that are young enough to have only ever used cloud-based service models.
We are addressing some of the challenges faced by Cloud Immigrants in our upcoming session at the Gartner Symposium on October 19. We will talk about how, while every business struggles with achieving the best digital productivity and retaining domain-experienced talent, Cloud Immigration is as much a leadership challenge as it is a technology decision. Cloud Immigrants must certainly deal with migrating legacy systems to the cloud. But the transformation of work practices can be every bit as daunting.
CenturyLink grappled with these sorts of challenges while building a respected Multi-Cloud Service Platform. The business and organizational aspects of cloud computing are integral to making IT work for a Cloud Immigrant. Failing to address organizational issues is like immigrating without learning the language or customs – you’ve changed your location but you aren’t truly experiencing the benefits of the new world. The key insight we gleaned in our own internal IT journey was that cloud computing leads to a totally different way of delivering service to our customers. The cloud is all about being more responsive to business needs, faster-to-market and able to adapt in ways that on-premises IT could never achieve.
This session explores typical Cloud Native organizational scenarios like having team rooms full of developers building multi-cloud application services. We will look at how Cloud Immigrants should make build versus buy decisions, plus other topics such as how Cloud Natives organize the work of development and IT operations along with how they empower teams. We share insights on IT leadership during a cloud migration, and talk about how we help other customers learn from our journey and perhaps follow in our footsteps.
Being a Cloud Immigrant may be challenging, but it also can also open up a new world of exhilarating possibility. There are so many new business opportunities to explore in a new environment. Join us on October 19 in Orlando and learn what it’s all about.
Ready to start your IT journey? We can help!
