How to pick a project for your first public cloud migration

Grazed from InfoWorld.  Author: David Linthicum.

When I deal with enterprises these days, the prevailing question is no longer if they’ll use public clouds but what to move first.  The answer depends on many aspects of your own enterprise, including systemic problems you may have with data, processes, or complete applications. Moreover, the value you place on specific systems is a major factor. Finally, there are security, governance, and compliance issues enterprises must handle.

To be clear, I’m talking about moving data, processes, or a complete system, not standing up a new system in the cloud. Migrating from existing on-premise platforms to a cloud-based platform is much more difficult and risky, but it can provide the most value. It’s important to wisely pick your first project for migration. Here are my guidelines for doing so:…

• Pick a system and/or collection of data that has very low visibility in the enterprise. You should pick a system that won’t sink the business if it’s taken out of service for small periods of time. An example might be factory maintenance data management. Keep in mind that you’ll commit at least six mistakes in your first cloud migration, so you should make sure they’re low-impact errors…

Read more from the source @ http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/how-pick-project-your-first-public-cloud-migration-213050