Cloud assessment: an interview with CGS Cloud-Practice experts

It is growing increasingly imperative for federal agencies to decrease operating costs while managing and protecting their data, and the cloud is one of the best ways to accomplish these goals.

As recent hires at CGS, we wanted to learn more about the cloud’s benefits and implications in the federal space. We spoke with fellow CGS employees Carl Forde, Stacy Ryan, Pradeep Mysore, and Mohammedirfan Kharadi to learn more.

Why do agencies need cloud advisory and assessment services?

Carl Forde: The 2017 Report to the President on Federal IT Modernization outlines recommendations for the federal government to build a more modern and secure architecture. The report envisions a modern architecture where agencies can maximize secure use of cloud computing and modernize government-hosted applications. Specific actions in the report enable agencies to move from protection of their network perimeters and managing legacy physical deployments toward protection of federal data and cloud-optimized deployments. An update to this strategy gives agencies more flexibility to choose cloud solutions that best fit their workforce, procurement, and security needs. This is where Capgemini’s cloud-assessment process can help.

How do we determine which applications are best suited for the cloud?

Stacy Ryan: Cloud assessments determine what will and will not move to the cloud. To do this, business need, age, complexity, and prioritization are considered.

• Business need involves determining whether applications still suit the business and its purpose. Assessments may reveal opportunities to consolidate and remove applications that no longer serve the business.
• Age may be indicative of a heavily customized application (COTS or in-house developed) that requires extensive resources and specialized expertise to maintain. Migrating to a cloud environment may require extensive re-engineering.
  • Age can provoke conversations about risk and comfort levels in moving an application. This is also an opportunity to discuss upgrades, replacements, and security concerns of applications that are unable to move. Older applications are not kept for convenience, but rather due to assumed complexity and risk.
• Complexity drives prioritization, because the assessment evaluates an application’s relationships within its environment. Mappings an organization’s technology landscape provides an understanding of the application and server communication – how often they communicate, whether it’s bidirectional or unidirectional, and dependencies between different parts of the organization. The number of dependencies will drive prioritization of applications in stack ranking, cloud migration wave planning, and go/no go migration decisions.

What mistakes should be avoided when conducting a cloud assessment?

Stacy Ryan: Objectivity is critical. When conducting a cloud assessment, the organization’s technology infrastructure and the team that supports it are just components. As with any infrastructure environment, a cloud assessment includes the entire organization. Business impacts should be assessed, including what training is needed for new cloud-native or cloud-supported applications, how will it affect existing contract relationships, and how to alleviate any organizational employee uneasiness.

Does CGS have a preferred cloud service provider (CSP)?

Carl Forde: We partner with leading CSPs including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and others. We craft each solution based upon our client’s business needs, never using a one-size-fits-all approach.

• Capgemini’s partnership with AWS dates to 2008, when we collaborated to establish an AWS Center of Excellence. We have been an AWS Premier Consulting Partner since 2012.
• We are a Managed Gold Certified Partner with Microsoft, with additional certifications of Gold Cloud Platform, Gold Cloud Productivity, Gold DevOps, Gold Datacenter, and Gold Cloud Customer Relationship Management capabilities.

CGS has approved access to, and currently provides AWS GovCloud services as, a qualified US Persons entity and Microsoft Azure Government (MAG) services as a Category 2 entity. CGS is also a Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider for Azure Government.

What are examples of CGS cloud experience?

Pradeep Mysore and Mohammedirfan Kharadi: Some exciting innovative solutions include:

• Creating a secure collaboration platform and cloud-based DevOps pipeline. This allows deployment of containerized applications securely. (AzureForGov)
• Creating infrastructure as code and using Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment to the secure environment. (AWSGov)
• Using cloud-provided managed services to reduce administration and management costs.

Please click here to learn more about Capgemini Government Solutions technology-consulting capabilities. Future blogs will explore our work further.

For all Capgemini Government Solutions blogs, click here.

Authors details

Michael Battiato (Consultant) michael.battiato@capgemini-gs.com

Sameer Alraban (Consultant) sameer.alraban@capgemini-gs.com

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