How to define the cloud readiness in a real application portfolio

1. Application Assessment for Cloud affinity definition
How to define the cloud readiness in a real application portfolio
Davide Veronese
davide.veronese@it.ibm.com
https://davideveronese.wordpress.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/davide-veronese-b8b08b28/

2. • Executive overview
• Programme goals
• Main figures
• Data collection
• Images assessment
• Decision Criteria
• Applications assessment
• Application classification
• Results
• Lessons learned
Table of contents

3. 3
Bank Cloud application assessment: Executive overview
“When?” - Pre-migration activities
§ When “Client terminology based” discovery info is required - data
gathering activities merge Applications and Infrastructural info by an
understandable/committable “Single Version Of the Truth”.
§ When an overall migration “Agile approach” is required:
- Monthly updates on Scope and Solutions must be performed.
§ When “What if” scenario analyses are required:
- A tailored “Decision Model” must be able to support optimization
activities (changes).
“Why?” - To build and optimize the migration design
§ To identify the existing inhibitors (technical and business constraints,
issues or concerns) that afflict the migration.
§ To maximize the # of the applications that will be migrated on target
Cloud, by a proactive feedback about target architectural stack
effectiveness.
“How?” - “Server-centric” focused
§ “Server centric” approach to be “fit-for-use” and ensure the acceptance.
§ Data scientist elaborations to mange complex data models.
§ Performing transformation services:
- Providing architectural decisions to migration factory.
- Defining migration waves and effort highlights
- Providing governance capabilities as “Flow analysis”.
“What?” - a tailored solution
§ “SW tool to implement IBM DCCM discovery, plan and control activities.
Handover
Design Build
Discovery
Test
Rehearse & Migrate
Cleanup
& Close
Control
* Schema by the IBM DCCM framework adopted
both CAS and CMF
15k Servers
4495
Applications
Wave Planning
Maximize the # of
migratable Apps
Entirely Lifecycle
support
DCCM aligned
Committed
Decision Criteria
“What if”
analysis
Migration
patterns
identification
Complexity
(DataMart)
“Ad Hoc” SW

4. Bank Cloud application assessment: Project goals
The final scope of the Bank cloud assessment project is to enable the adoption of the Bank Cloud Hybrid for
current workloads.
Following a “Server centric” approach, “fit-for-use” reports will be delivered to the migration factory and quickly
enables the migration activities:
Ø A Cloud Hosts/Images assessment
Ø A Cloud Application assessment
The assessment achieve the following goals:
Ø Ensure a solid commitment within the assessment results among all the stakeholders (Customer included) and define a
“Single Version Of the Truth” DataMart to manage the migration.
Ø Identify the migration Baseline.
Ø Enable a solid migration high level planning.
Ø Identify the existing inhibitors (technical and business constraints/issues/concerns) that afflict the migration.
Ø Support remediation initiatives (for applications that can’t be migrated) designed also by “What-if” assessments.
Ø Maximize the # of the applications that will be migrated on target Cloud, by a proactive feedback about target
architectural stack effectiveness.

5. Bank Cloud application assessment: Main figures
ü About 4.500 applications to be mapped in terms of Cloud affinity
ü About 15.600 images analyzed supporting the Bank applications to be mapped in the final Cloud migration
pattern
ü “Tailored” solution adopted to analyzes the Bank’s workloads for a fit against the target private cloud and
provides the migration impact along with the operational cost differences – inspired by Workload
Transformation Analysis (WTA) methodology.
ü Cloud Migration Factory (CMF) involved into the project

6. Bank Cloud application assessment: Data collection
Data collection
Images
assessment
Application
assessment
Application
classification
Collection of metadata related to 4.500 applications
Ø LifeCyclePhase, Type, Org_Unit, Vendors Product, Macrocomponent,
Application_Scope, Customer, Operative_end_date, Environment_Classification,
Transaction_Manager, Languages, Authentication and others
and 15.600 images
Ø O.S. current, middleware current, Business_Owner, Cpu_Number, Cpu_Core,
Cpu_Speed, Open_RAM, APP_ID and others
These data have been gathered by different sources and saved in a SQL DB and are
used to evaluate the Cloud affinity of any application in the perimeter of the assessment
Furthermore this DataMart is called “Single Version Of the Truth” because is able to
support migration governance decisions

7. Bank Cloud application assessment: Images assessment
Data collection
Images
assessment
Application
assessment
Application
classification
Classification of the images according to cloud affinity:
ü Not movable: at least one concern to move the image onto the cloud (e.g. use
physical HA solution of image is in DMZ)
ü Re-architect: a re-architect is required before move the image on cloud (MDW not
supported, no O.S. supported).
ü Re-compile: minor changes are required to move on cloud as re-platforming
ü Re-install: copy the application artifacts and deploy/install them on the target cloud
platform
ü Move-as-is: the images that compose an application will be copied onto the target
environment without changes

8. Bank Cloud application assessment: Images assessment
• The Cloud affinity assessment has been implemented through a sophisticated algorithm which is
composed by about 33 Decision Criteria (DC).
• DCs are check points to verify specific properties at O.S., middleware and application level for each image.
According to these properties the image is classified as:
Bank’s
images
Move-as-is
images
Re-Architect
images
Re-Architect
DCs
Re-Compile
images
Re-Compile
DCs
Re-Install
images
Re-Install
DCs
Not movable
images
Cloud candidates
DCs

9. Images assessment: Decision Criteria
If an Image triggers this criteria, a “Re-Install”
migration pattern is required.
The algorithm combines all the required migration
patterns triggered by the images to identify “the”
suggested migration pattern (only one)
• Based on IBM IBC methodology, many Subject Matter Expert have been involved to identify the decision criteria
that will be used to implement the classification Algorithm (the “decision model” tool)
• This list was committed with all the stakeholders
If OS image is any version of Windows or Linux (supported family)
... and the corresponding OS Version is supported,
... and the image is based on middlewares that ARE NOT Application Servers (AS) or
Databases,
... and the corresponding middleware CTS exist,
... but the available target middleware has different version ,
... the image requires that the code will be reinstalled to migrate in one of the CTS
target Cloud
Exampleofimages
criteria(description)

10. Images assessment: Cloud Technology Stack
• The target scenario must be assessed, structured and managed during the entire migration because change!

11. Bank Cloud application assessment: Applications assessment
Data collection
Images
assessment
Application
assessment
Application
classification
Each application is mapped on many images (Hosts); the application Cloud
affinity is defined according to these images.
The Application assessment is based on related Hosts (Images) assessment
results and new dedicated Decision Criteria:
Ø This second assessment aims to identify the Cloud affinity for the applications.
Ø This phase is based on dedicated Applications-focused criteria.
Ø This phase also use Hosts assessment results as input for its elaborations and a
retroactive feedback is performed between the first assessment.
The retroactive feedback ensures the quality of the two analysis.

12. • The Application classification is based on related Hosts assessment and dedicated Decision Criteria
Alltheinscope
Application
Application’s
Decision
Criteria
elaboration
Images retroactive
re-elaboration by
Applications
elaboration
results
AlltheImagesinIT
supplierBaseline
Images’
Decision
Criteria
elaboration
TemporaryImages
classification
FinalImages
classification
Recursive…
Applications Worst
case elaboration
Applications
classification
Bank Cloud application assessment: assessment phases

13. Application assessment 1/2
• Dedicated Decision Criteria: at the beginning the Cloud affinity of the application is defined by dedicated
decision criteria (i.e. related to SW quality...).
• Then, if an application, by nature, is not suitable for cloud, related Hosts suggested migration patterns must
be updated (retroactive feedback)
If an Application triggers this criteria an overall
“Not Movable” judgment is performed.
The second phase of the algorithm also
perform a retroactive Images elaboration
based on these judgment... To define a “Final
classification” for each Images.
It is impossible to migrate an application tagged as "with Systemic relevance" on
Target Cloud;
(the required DR solution must be Geographically based...)
Exampleof
applicationcriteria
(description)
If an Application triggers this criteria an overall
“Re-Install” activities is required.
The second phase of the algorithm combines
all the Application’s Hosts suggested migration
patterns with the triggered Application’s
decision criteria to define the Application
classification.
Exampleof
applicationcriteria
(description)
All the Java applications must be migrated together, up-and-running in the same JVM
also in Target Cloud

14. Application assessment 2/2
Application
Image Image Image Image
Before the assessment
Image Image Image Image
Application
After the assessment
W
orstcase
• Worst case approach: finally (after the retroactive phase) Cloud affinity of the application is defined as the
most restrictive migrations pattern between its images patterns.

15. Bank Cloud application assessment: Application classification
Data collection
Images
assessment
Application
assessment
Application
classification
The cloud affinity of the applications is based on:
Ø the images classification
Ø the Hybrid scenario with mixed Cloud and traditional resources
The applications are classified as:
Ø “Fully Cloud candidates”: all the images can be migrated to the cloud
Ø “Hybrid applications”: part of the images will be on traditional infrastructure, other
in Cloud
Ø “Fully traditional”: all the images are “Not Movable” to the Cloud

16. Bank Cloud application assessment: classification results
Untrusted % due to lack of information
• Application cloud affinity and Hosts migration patterns for migratable applications.

17. Bank Cloud application assessment: issues investigation results
# Hots matched
May data elaboration June data elaboration
• Hosts that trigger each criterion – constraint/concern/issues that affect the migration.
Host Criterion list

18. Lessons learned
ü Info are never enough
Many resources and data repository have been involved in this assessment, but due to the complexity of Bank
application portfolio the Decision Criteria are progressively more sophisticated and in some cases the info
required are not available in the knowledge base.
ü Overall commitment could be a showstopper
A Server-centric approach is strategic to begin an Enterprise to Cloud migration and the Decision Criteria must
have designed (Tailored) and committed with stakeholders, achieving technical commitment and facing
application owner inhibitor.
ü Cloud is flexible but…
… the cloud affinity assessment should be flexible as well. This means that many parameters are not frozen
and the assessment should run monthly:
• The Cloud Technology stack (target) is changing monthly according to results of the assessment!!!
• New technology (i.e. Container) could be considered as a kind of “Re-architect”… by now!!!
ü Infra and application views are mandatory
Infrastructure knowledge is not enough for a complete Cloud affinity assessment, and viceversa.