A Practical Guide to Cloud Migration

Introduction

Kieran Broadfoot, SRE Director

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

Charles Darwin

It is highly likely you’ve been regaled with the benefits of “digital transformation.” You’ve read with wonder how companies have fundamentally changed how they work to unlock new business opportunities. It all sounds so perfect. Therefore, you’ll be pleased to hear that the material contained herein is not intended to preach that same idealistic message. That would be extremely dull. Rather, we presume you’ve reached the point of decisive action and need practical advice on how to move forward into the cloud.

Why We Wrote This Report

To aid you on this journey, we want to share our own experiences and failures. We do this because, ultimately, we recognize that you have an incredibly daunting opportunity ahead of you.

But why listen to Google? You’ve likely concluded, correctly, that we were born in the cloud and have never experienced the same challenges as you. Therefore, how could we possibly understand your unique situation? Well, the good news is that many Googlers have sat in the same seat as you or have supported those in a similar situation. We’ve experienced firsthand the task of transforming an organization without any practical advice for what this might entail. In other words, we’ve made the mistakes already. While we cannot promise that this material won’t avoid further mistakes, we feel strongly we can help you find a way forward that works for your company, in your market, at this very point in time.

What You Will Learn

If you learn only one lesson from the content of this report, it should be this: culture comes first—always, and every time. No amount of wonderful technology will make your cloud journey successful, although it certainly helps! Rather, a concerted effort to understand who you are, why you do things the way you do, and how you can change is a necessary foundation for broader change.

To that end, we’ve introduced a consistent format for our essays. Each one signposts who in the organization should be accountable, why the essay drives meaningful change, how to practically deliver the change, and the pitfalls you should avoid. We’ve attempted to present the essays in a linear fashion so that each one builds on the last, but you should feel free to jump in, and around, as necessary. Only you will know your current state and where best to invest your time and energy.

The content is not intended to be a fully comprehensive reference for the journey you are embarking on; it is, however, intended to be consumable by anyone in your organization. This reflects our earlier primary observation—cloud transformation is a cultural transformation that requires buy-in from every person in your organization.

Good luck, and know that we’re rooting for you. You’ve got this.

Who Should Read This Report

Large-scale cultural transformation cannot be achieved solely through the strength of character of any one individual, however much you may hope that to be so. In fact, our overriding message in this report is that achieving meaningful, long-term change requires a sense of community and shared values. To underline this message, each of our essays is targeted at one or more of the following groups, as specified in the “Who” section of each essay:

C-Suite Executives (CxOs)

Those in executive sponsorship roles tasked with enabling a long-term cultural transformation within their organization.

Technical Leads

Individuals with the responsibility to define the technical strategy of the organization, which enables product/program leads to deliver strategic change.

Enabling Team Leads

Anyone responsible for helping teams overcome obstacles to delivering strategic change within the organization (for example, Product, Program, or Design teams).

Engineers (software, SRE, security, DevOps, et al.)

Anyone tasked with practical delivery of technology as an enabler for business transformation.

Business Functions (finance, legal, compliance, human resources, vendor management, continuity, audit, et al.)

Anyone in a position of influence who holds accountability to ensure the business operates safely and within the bounds of the law.

Managers

Anyone in a position of influence with responsibility for embedding new cultural values.

As we, the authors, come from a broad range of roles and backgrounds across Google, we think that the strategies and ideas presented here will benefit almost every reader: if you work in a company at any stage of the transformation to cloud, we invite you to reflect on these practices and lessons learned.

Acknowledgments

The editor and authors would like to recognize the work of numerous individuals who have supported the production of this report.

We are particularly thankful to Urs Hölzle for his ongoing support and opening remarks, to Salim Virji for his inspiration and leadership during a difficult year, and to Jessie Yang for her thoughtful copyediting assistance. We would also like to thank our external reviewers, Jonathan Johnson and Dieter Matzion.

The following Googlers were kind enough to provide significant time, energy, and expertise:

• John Abel
• Haylee Conradi
• Mike Dahlin
• Brian Dorsey
• Sandra Friesen
• Nick Godfrey
• Nathen Harvey
• Emily Kang
• Matt Levine
• Daniel Pettibone
• Ayelet Sachto
• Laura de Vesine
• Kevin Winters