Infrastructure support services with Kubernetes for cloud migration

Every passing year is drastically altering the “ perceived normal” lifecycle of information technology. Leading players are joining hands with new ones to disrupt industries using digital practices and processes.

Enterprise IT teams are under unrelenting stress to integrate cutting-edge capabilities such as automated processing, centralized inventory control, predictive analytics, and cybersecurity – all conforming to the latest digital paradigms and compliances.

That said, companies are still struggling to transition their business models to suit these technologies. As cloud, containerization, and serverless platforms are expanding to ease adoption qualms, legacy IT systems within enterprises are rapidly becoming obsolete.
Enterprises have embarked on a mission to accelerate the pace of business transformation by moving to Software-Defined Data Centers that utilize cloud/hybrid and containerization based architectures. Gartner has predicted that the global market for these services will grow by 17% in 2020 to reach  $266.4 billion[1].
While organizations need to remain focused on their competitive edge, modernization efforts must be driven by the value it brings to the business.   Successful Modernization-as-a-Service offerings will utilize this approach and transform enterprises cost-effectively to support business growth and enable a competitive edge in the market.
Over the last several decades, YASH Modernization-as-a-Service (MaaS) teams have found the following to be some of the essential components in facilitating IT infrastructure modernization/transformations of  Fortune 500 companies.
Automated tools-based approach
The rise of automated discovery and assessment capabilities has primarily stemmed from industry demands to perform these tasks accurately, quickly, and repetitively with real-time demand.  Not recreating this wheel for each customer has also driven Managed Service Providers (MSPs) to partner with companies that specialize in these toolsets strategically.  Thus, having processes and architectures that incorporate predefined and configured tools as part of the process is essential to successful MaaS approaches.  Further, industry-leading MSPs have reference libraries of tools, configurations, and platforms that can be easily applied based on the tools and environment a specific customer may have.  Apart from these strategic partnerships, the right MSP for your MaaS should have tactical alliances with the platform and tool vendors in your environment.
Migration architecture libraries with agility and effective capability / Choosing agile and highly capable Migration architecture libraries/ Migration architecture libraries which ensure agility and effectiveness
Migrating to the cloud, from one cloud provider to another cloud provider, to containerization and serverless platforms has presented businesses with the challenge of managing application dependent infrastructure technologies. Developers are struggling with ‘dependency hell’ – too many options and a lack of criteria for selecting these useful tools.
Quickly configuring tools for different infrastructures, cloud providers, and microsystems is necessary – Problems can arise otherwise.  For instance, using code such as Terraform can allow you to deploy the same infrastructure on AWS, AZURE, and Google.  When using microservices in your system, ensure your architectures have no direct dependencies between various services[2].   By ensuring that any architecture deployed in your environment is Vendor Validated, you can always go to the vendor for support if needed.
Utilize built-in capabilities
Take advantage of automated tools and central management to move servers and workloads to updated environments. Both Azure and AWS, as well as most on-premise and hybrid cloud environments, allow that.  For instance, Azure offers Azure Migrate that comes with an entire toolset to track, cost, perform, and analyze your migration projects.  AWS offers Server Migration Service that allows any server to be quickly converted and migrated to the AWS cloud.  Carbonite Migrate will perform mass migrations to/from both platforms in real-time with no downtime.
The YASH reference library for MaaS incorporates all the before mentioned tools and more.  Consequently, YASH’s approach is to utilize your existing toolset first before looking outside for additional resources or tools.
Match the latest available technology and customer business needs
Below are some of the critical tools and aspects to look out for when integrating into your IT strategy.:

1. Specific focus on containerization: Microservices and containers are crucial ingredients of modernized IT architectures as both are scalable, beneficial, and reliable, and act as catalysts to each other. If your app development is migrating to containers, it is crucial to evaluate applications for containerizations, as not all apps are best suited for the same.
2. Serverless platforms: Serverless computing offers the benefits of a pay-as-you-go model with almost no cost of server management. Before you can scale your application and computing performance with a layer of analytics, you need first to evaluate which applications can run in a serverless environment. Knowing which apps will maximize its potential in which the environment is critical.
3. Evaluate your cloud-readiness: The question is no longer “to cloud or not to cloud” but how to leverage the cloud (setup, configuration, automation) to achieve the benefits of lower cost, higher performance, and better reliability. Important to perform a practice analysis on your current cloud configurations to evaluate and determine if you are getting the best result for the spend. In the end, if you are not experiencing lower costs in the cloud, your configuration or evaluation is potentially not correct.
4. Reporting & continuous process improvement: As IT needs will keep evolving, your architectures should not be static. They should be agile and scalable at the same time. Support for Integration and adaptation of applications should go beyond the traditional marriage of application and infrastructure. Deploying a reporting and continuous process improvement mechanism is the only way to stay ahead from being disrupted.

Maximizing ROI from Modernization-as-a-Service
Utilizing the latest technologies has become a combined science of knowing available product features and a developed application evaluation criteria matrix to determine the best fit.  Managed Service Providers that have developed Intellectual Property (IP) evaluations and methodologies to fulfill this gap have quickly emerged as the industry leaders. Best practice gap analysis from IT partners will help your future-ready-enterprise ensure the maximization of benefits from emerging technologies.
YASH is a proven industry leader due to its ability to integrate the required technology with business process owners. We do it by extracting the specific desired business outcomes/goals and correctly matching them with the latest technologies to maximize their ROI.
If you wish to check out our Modernization as a Service offering, please visit us here or write to Brian.Joseph@Yash.com.

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• cloud migration
• Enterprise Modernization
• Infrastructure Services
• Kubernetes
• MaaS