Resources

Cloud Adoption: Four skills your business needs

Cloud adoption can be a time-consuming and complex process, but it is now critical. 93.7% of organisations agree, with 44% strongly agreeing, that cloud is essential to meeting their immediate business requirements and objectives. Regarded as a “critical enabler” of business agility and an “accelerator of business objectives”, cloud solutions enable organisations to make informed, real-time decisions with their data.  

For successful cloud adoption, though, the entire process needs to be executed strategically by a skilled IT team that can manage and maintain costs, service delivery and security. As your organisation develops with digital transformation, adopting new and even hybrid cloud environments will be vital to that strategy. So, what skills should your organisation be investing in?  

Any organisation of any size will need a specialist and diverse IT team to implement cloud solutions, so with this in mind, here are four key roles that your organisation should have in place for successful cloud adoption.   

Four essential organisational roles for cloud adoption

IT Manager/Head of Infrastructure 

Responsibilities: Oversee all aspects of IT infrastructure, operations, support, and maintenance. Lead the infrastructure team and devise strategies for integrating value-adding technologies and services.

Skillset: Proficiency in strategy formulation and team management. Strong problem-solving and communication abilities. In-depth comprehension of technical frameworks, modern standards, and practices, coupled with exceptional knowledge of infrastructure, security, and networking technologies.

The IT Manager or Head of Infrastructure plays a pivotal role in steering cloud transformation from the organisational apex, strategically implementing cloud solutions to extract maximal value. This multifaceted role entails project, technology, and personnel management, underscoring the importance of effective communication with departmental heads and external stakeholders.

IT Project Manager 

Responsibilities: Spearhead the planning, execution, and oversight of technical projects. Coordinate product releases and roll-outs, manage teams, and ensure efficient task delegation. Provide comprehensive reporting and progress updates on project milestones.

Skillset: Proficiency in planning, organisation, and communication. Strong team and budget management skills, alongside strategic and analytical acumen. Sound understanding of IT architecture, policies, and standards.

The IT Project Manager ensures timely and budget-conscious delivery of cloud projects, liaising with third-party service providers and identifying potential funding opportunities. Effective delegation, organisation, and communication are imperative for meeting product delivery targets.

Solutions Architect  

Responsibilities: Design and develop software and services, assess technical project readiness and liaise with third-party providers and stakeholders. Craft tailored technical solutions aligned with overarching IT strategies.

Skillset: Extensive technical proficiency encompassing data management and cloud platforms like AWS. Strong analytical, management, and communication skills, complemented by knowledge of IT infrastructures, governance, and security protocols.

The Solutions Architect will be more hands-on with cloud projects regarding assessment and implementation. A critical responsibility of the Solutions Architect in the context of cloud adoption will be to conduct a Migration Readiness Assessment (MRA), which will look at your current landscape of applications and assess the cloud readiness of those applications. Your Solutions Architect should also take responsibility for developing an effective Cloud Landing Zone (CLZ) – this will provide appropriate guardrails for your networks, security, access, billing and compliance. 

This role will also drive cloud migration by developing your organisation’s cloud migration factory to execute and support workload migrations. This will involve building a migration portfolio of your applications to capture all servers, apps, and upstream and downstream dependencies. 

Cloud Engineer 

Responsibilities: Deploying and managing multiple cloud environments. Executing cloud migrations. Configuration and automation management. Risk management and mitigation. Security and compliance management within cloud environments.  

Skillset: Proficiency in database management, programming, and container orchestration. Initiative-driven problem-solving capabilities, coupled with extensive knowledge of cloud technologies, storage, networking, and virtualisation.

To execute cloud migration successfully within your organisation, a dedicated Cloud Engineer is a non-negotiable for your in-house IT team. Your Cloud Engineer will be responsible for migrating your workloads as part of any cloud project and managing and monitoring security and uptimes. This role also works closely with the Solutions Architect in designing and developing your cloud systems. As such, this role still requires proficiency in communication, collaboration, and analytical and technological prowess.  

Determining outsourcing needs for cloud adoption

While possessing the aforementioned skill sets equips an organisation for cloud adoption, outsourcing may become imperative, particularly amid significant project fluctuations and challenges. Managed Service Providers (MSPs) like Brightsolid offer comprehensive support, from strategy formulation to execution and management, fostering transformation and delivering value.

Consider outsourcing when:

Capacity 

While your organisation’s IT team may have an excellent collective skillset to deliver on cloud projects, you must also consider if they can execute them on time and within budget. For example, you might be looking at migrating hundreds of applications. If your team already has a handful of projects, they’ll likely require an additional team of FTEs working parallel to existing business operations.  

Timeframe 

External events or deadlines can often dictate the delivery of projects. Say you have an exit event approaching for your current data centre and need a cloud solution to handle the transition – this is a significant process that will take considerable preparation and planning. If you’re migrating one VM, you might be able to execute a lift and shift pretty efficiently. Still, for anything more, you will need time to guarantee the capture of all your applications and their configuration, user base, audience, etc.  

Expertise 

Outsourcing expertise may also enable you to level up your cloud strategies and take advantage of the benefits that MSPs can provide. Managed Service Providers will often have partnerships and accreditations with some of the top cloud providers and, therefore, will have access to complete frameworks (e.g., AWS CAF / AWS Well-Architected), funding, and next-generation tooling as it’s released. In addition, with a massive spectrum of skills, outsourcing expertise can ensure your applications are assessed and rearchitected so they are cost-effective, secured, highly available and redundant.  

Brightsolid: Your local cloud experts 

With decades of experience in orchestrating successful cloud migrations across Scotland’s public and private sectors, Brightsolid stands as your local cloud expert. 

Further Reading: