As enterprises continue their digital transformation journeys, the ever-present cloud of cloud adoption casts its shadow across all sectors. Nevertheless, much like making your way through the fog, transitioning to the cloud in complex environments presents major challenges, especially for large organizations with hybrid infrastructures. 

To successfully navigate this (cloudy) transition and reap the benefits that cloud computing offers, companies need to focus on: 

  1. Optimizing their processes
  2. Improving visibility across environments
  3. Accelerating release velocity

The Cloud Adoption Landscape 

Cloud computing has made significant strides in the past decades. Today, worldwide spending on cloud infrastructure exceeds $1 trillion, and 71% of companies have implemented a hybrid cloud strategy. The cloud model offers tremendous opportunities to increase DevOps speed, scale, cost-efficiency, and productivity. BUT it also introduces new complexities, especially when balancing deployments across cloud and on-premises landscapes. Some common challenges in enterprise-wide cloud adoption include: 

  1. The transition from monolithic to composite applications
  2. Cloud and on-premises service delivery
  3. The diversity of available tools and technologies
  4. Security vulnerabilities and compliance risks 

Parting the Clouds of Cloud Adoption 

In the often hazy world of cloud adoption, one of the most critical aspects of success is gaining improved visibility across hybrid environments. Just as a meteorologist needs a clear view of the atmosphere to make accurate predictions, organizations rather oxymoronically require a cloudless perspective of all their processes, resources, and dependencies to make informed decisions on cloud adoption. 

Consolidating Toolchains 

A key strategy for improving visibility is consolidating toolchains. A main trend in toolchain consolidation is being able to support deployment to on-premise and cloud-native targets at the same time. 

Once you have visibility into what tools your teams are using, you can compare tools with similar functionality against usage to make a data-driven decision and determine the best tool to adopt for enterprise-wide standardization. 

Using consolidated tool chains, where organizations remove redundant tools and use the best ones possible, prevents teams from switching between various platforms to review metrics and complete tasks and increases visibility and efficiency while improving the developer experience. Additionally, it standardizes how tasks are executed and how environments are monitored, allowing companies to create and enforce best practices at scale. Finally, by ensuring that teams use the best tools possible, there is a greater likelihood that previously manual tasks will become automated. 

By combining source code management (SCM) and continuous integration (CI) tools, organizations can create a more streamlined and transparent development pipeline. This reduces complexity and simplifies tracking progress and identifying bottlenecks. 

Centralized Release Orchestration 

Implementing a centralized release orchestration solution is crucial for managing releases across on-premises and cloud environments. A platform that enables the continuous delivery of software by automating all application releases, cloud or on-prem, from a single control plane allows you to navigate complex connections and orchestrates the associated dependencies and tasks to ensure even the most complex services are seamlessly deployed at the right time, minimizing risk and accelerating time-to-market.   

Data-Driven Decision Making 

Analytics and reporting tools can also provide valuable insights into release velocity, bottlenecks, and areas for improvement. By collecting and analyzing data from across the software delivery lifecycle, organizations can make data-driven decisions to continually optimize their processes. 

Increased Release Velocity in Cloud Adoption 

Automation and Intelligent Workflows 

Implementing intelligent workflows and automation is key to boosting developer productivity and accelerating releases. Access to ready-to-use, intelligent workflows that streamline the deployment process and eliminate errors is critical for developers to focus on what they do best: innovate. 

Flexible Development Environments 

To accelerate DevOps in the face of complex infrastructure, organizations need flexible development environments. Technologies like containers and microservices enable rapid adaptation and modular application development, boosting agility, scalability, and resilience. Providing developers with the right tools and automated processes empowers them to innovate without being bogged down by infrastructure concerns. 

Predictive Change Management 

Leveraging predictive AI can significantly reduce failure rates and accelerate release velocity. By anticipating risks associated with changes, identifying bottlenecks, and highlighting quality gaps before they become issues, organizations can proactively address potential problems and maintain a smooth release pipeline. 

Maintaining Governance, Quality, and Security 

While improving visibility and accelerating release velocity are important, organizations shouldn’t compromise on governance, quality, and security standards. In fact, governance is not just a checkbox but a driving force for quality and security. Standardized templates and processes across every deployment ensure code consistently meets standards for compliance, quality, and security across all environments. In short, governance must be incorporated into every step and provide auditability, transparency, and consistency without adding to the workload. 

Standardized Templates and Processes 

Implementing standardized templates and processes across every deployment ensures uniformity is maintained when transitioning to the cloud. Cloud resources for testing and production environments, automated security (SAST, DAST, SCA, container scans, tamper detection), and automated change management and approvals should also be automated and standardized. 

Automated Security and Compliance Checks 

Automating critical security and compliance checkpoints removes human error and bottlenecks, accelerating deployment without compromising on security or compliance. This is highly important in regulated industries where maintaining compliance is a must-have, especially with the recent rise of AI-generated code. 

Comprehensive Auditing and Logging 

To facilitate compliance in complex environments, organizations need detailed tracking and logging capabilities. This provides a comprehensive record of the integrity and security of the release process, offering peace of mind and supporting audit requirements. 

Real-World Success Stories 

But it’s not all mist and haze. These real-world success stories managed to shine the sun on their cloud adoption journey and reap the benefits: 

  1. A major payment gateway institution implemented an automation Center of Excellence (CoE) and standardized their entire SDLC pipeline. The results:
    • Valuable insights into release velocity and bottlenecks
    • Onboarding of 3500 app teams
    • Daily savings of 1500 human hours
    • Increase in release volume to almost 2 million per year
  2. A well-known bank standardized their release process across 17,000 users and 1,000 apps using a pipeline-as-a-service approach. By iteratively optimizing their pipeline based on feedback, they achieved a 98.9% success rate in releases into production with over 1,500 apps. 

Clear Skies Ahead 

Optimizing cloud adoption in complex environments requires a strong focus on improving visibility and accelerating release velocity. By consolidating toolchains, implementing centralized release orchestration, leveraging automation and intelligent workflows, and maintaining strong governance and security practices, organizations can successfully navigate the challenges of cloud transformation. 

The key to success lies in finding the right balance between speed and control, empowering developers while ensuring compliance, and leveraging data-driven insights to continually optimize processes. 

With the right approach and tools like the ones offered by Digital.ai, enterprises can unlock cloud computing’s full potential, and drive innovation and competitive advantage. As you embark on (or continue) your cloud adoption journey, consider using comprehensive solutions tailored to your organization’s unique needs. By doing so, you’ll be well-equipped to effectively clear the skies on cloud adoption and overcome the complexities of hybrid environments!

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