OREANDA-NEWS. August 30, 2016. Recent advances in cloud platform user interfaces and documentation has made it easier than ever for enterprises to adopt cloud platforms and migrate workloads to them. We see more and more companies who have had a fantastic experience creating a proof-of-concept (POC) cloud environment and then quickly morphing it into their production cloud environment.

However, what often happens after enterprises deploy a new cloud environment is they discover they aren’t using cloud “best practices.” That’s when performance, cost and/or governance issues begin to surface.

When working with customers navigating cloud adoption, such as Hess Corporation, we at Equinix Professional Services for Cloud (EPS for Cloud) focus on a couple major areas to help them avoid pitfalls:

  • Building application environments that are in line with their cloud’s best practices
  • Privately connecting to the cloud for performance, security and compliance
  • Analyzing cloud cost models to identify cost savings and performance improvements
  • Recommending cloud cost tools to give customers proper visibility into their cloud spend and changes, such as new or updated cloud resources

One question we hear from customers a lot is: “Am I missing out on any cloud-based services?” The answer is typically “yes,” because the rate of change with cloud providers is pretty high. Our partnerships with the key cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure/Office365, Oracle Cloud and SoftLayer, keep us at the cutting edge of what services are being developed. We have private access to many of these providers to assist in testing, and we also have a “seat at the table” to provide feedback about future features they should develop to help our customers more easily migrate their applications to the cloud.

Hess Re-Invents its Business in the Cloud

Hess Corporation, a leading global, independent energy company engaged in the exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas, is a shining example of how to leverage cloud migration best practices. Hess wanted to streamline its business and focus on energy exploration and production. As part of this initiative, the Hess IT organization needed to separate business systems and data for potential buyers, and it looked to EPS Cloud to help it migrate those systems and data to the cloud.

Working with EPS Cloud, Hess developed a short list of cloud providers and ultimately chose AWS. To prepare the infrastructure for migration to AWS, Hess and EPS Cloud developed a dual approach that was implemented in parallel:

  • A detailed inventory that identified the servers to be moved, along with operating system levels, processor and memory requirements, storage configuration, and backup and restore requirements
  • An application review process that identified the applications that would transition to a new owner, integration points, performance requirements, remote access, disk consumption and growth

The benefits of Hess migrating its entire IT suite to the cloud included:

  • Speed to market – The migration to AWS was completed in six months, half the time that it would have taken using traditional infrastructure.
  • Minimized security risk and access to the environment – This was achieved by using an AWS multi-factor authentication device.
  • Seamless transition of the infrastructure to the new owner – Hess started using AWS as its production environment for energy marketing and was able to transition the environment to a new owner in one month.
  • Raised visibility for what is possible with AWS Cloud – Thanks to the success of the acquisition, Hess is looking to build cloud solutions as alternatives to their on-premises capabilities.

Learn how you can deploy cloud best practices to foolproof your business’s application migration to the cloud.