Four Steps to the Cloud: Plotting Your Digital Transition Journey

Step One: Undertake a Cloud Readiness Assessment

Many public sector organisations feel trapped by legacy applications and business critical workloads that force them to remain on local infrastructure. However, you may be more ready to undertake a digital transition than you think. A cloud readiness assessment will help you understand what can transition to the cloud and when, and will allow you to develop a fully evidenced and workable digital transformation strategy.

Step Two: Transition Legacy Workloads to the Cloud

Legacy, non-x86 Oracle SPARC workloads can feel like millstones around the neck of public sector IT managers. Often 10 to 15 years old, these workloads are large, cumbersome, invariably sitting on old technology, and, in most cases, absolutely fundamental to important business processes.

There are two approaches that you can take to transitioning these legacy workloads: relocating the host servers to a data centre colocation facility, or migrating them across to a cloud environment that is capable of hosting legacy workloads. Six Degrees offers cloud hosting services that support both x86 and non-x86 legacy workloads that are not yet ready for migrating to hyperscale cloud providers.

By transitioning these workloads to Six Degrees, your public sector organisation can host its legacy servers on a powerful, future-proofed infrastructure platform that has the potential to improve performance and save money on licensing costs.

Step Three: Move ‘Low Hanging Fruit’ to Hyperscale Cloud

Many of the public sector organisations we speak to see migrating to the hyperscale cloud providers – Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google – as ‘true’ digital transformation. Once you have transitioned your legacy workloads to a colocation facility or a cloud environment that is capable of hosting them, step three is to move ‘low hanging fruit’ across to a private cloud or public hyperscale cloud platform. The likes of web portals, databases and Exchange services can be transitioned across to IaaS, PaaS and SaaS platforms without introducing unnecessary risk to your organisation, enabling you to access their massive potential for flexibility, scalability and enhanced functionality.

Step Four: Modernise Your Legacy Apps

Once your legacy workloads have been transitioned across to an appropriate cloud environment, you can begin to design and implement a legacy app modernisation programme. At Six Degrees we help public sector organisations leverage modern cloud infrastructures to make their legacy workloads more efficient, more effective in facilitating citizen and resident services, and future-proofed to retain high levels of security and functionality for years to come.

Plotting Your Digital Transition Journey

If your public sector organisation is trapped on legacy local infrastructure, and it is holding you back from making transformative changes to the way you deliver services to citizens and residents, you’re not alone. Fortunately, organisations like Six Degrees can help unlock the cloud and win back autonomy over your IT estate. You can learn more about our approach by downloading our whitepaper Springboard to the Cloud: a technology infrastructure journey for the public sector.

Purchasing From Six Degrees Through G-Cloud 10

Public sector organisations can purchase all Six Degrees cloud services through the G-Cloud 10 framework. Click the following link and search ‘Six Degrees’ to find all of our G-Cloud 10 listed services: www.digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk/g-cloud/search