Migrate to innovate: technology platform migrations underpin resilience and power innovation

Technology innovation can seem overwhelming. 

We're constantly chasing the latest breakthrough and sprinting to apply the hype de jour. But, there's a less glamorous, invisible component of our work that underpins it all: platform upgrades and migrations.

Over the years, I've learned a hard truth: failing to adequately plan for platform maintenance and renewal inevitably results in technical stagnation and decay, increasing the risk of sudden, critical failures. The challenge we face is that upgrades and migrations are essential, complex multidisciplinary efforts. They can have a big impact on our key stakeholders. Even worse is these kinds of engagements rarely deliver the headline-grabbing, tangible benefits that justify the immense effort they consume.

It's thankless work.

While it might feel like a chore with no immediate reward, overlooking essential platform maintenance means these systems grow brittle, insecure and increasingly incapable of supporting the workloads they carry. Upgrades and migrations aren't just important, they're the foundation for sustained innovation.

The human equation: it's about people, not just code

The biggest hurdle in any tech migration isn't usually the technology itself; it's the human element. As Sarah Wells highlighted in her keynote at the 2024 Fast Flow conference, success hinges on relentless empathy, communication and making the process as easy as possible for those impacted. A migration can't be treated as a side project; it needs clear ownership. Someone with the right level of authority, and access to resources, must drive the migration. They should be responsible for aligning all stakeholders and addressing the competing priorities that could derail the engagement. 

As I prepare for my next big migration project, I hope I can bring clarity to why the work is needed, and honestly show the impact it will have on people in my organization. As an Engagement Lead, I'll clearly explain why this work needs prioritization, humbly acknowledge the inconvenience it will cause and genuinely demonstrate gratitude for the assistance I'll need to complete it.

Without this human-centric approach, all too often we face "cold conflict" —a passive inaction and inertia as opposed to a hot debate. Teams might not openly resist, but their lack of understanding or bandwidth to help will lead to delays.

Case study: a major enterprise's hybrid cloud reality

A few years ago now, I led a large-scale hybrid cloud adoption program at a major enterprise. We were engaged to support the migration of workloads off an aging container platform and into Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS. The goal was clear: migrate applications and move towards a hybrid, multicloud environment. Yet, this highly strategic initiative hit significant roadblocks.

One major challenge involved networking and proxy limitations. Despite being a cloud adoption, unexpected physical dependencies, like the need for a particular firewall appliance, halted progress. This illustrated an important lesson: unforeseen technical requirements can derail even the most well-intentioned, well-planned projects.

The funding model and competing stakeholder priorities around this project also slowed us down. Our internal engineering team, for example, largely prioritized their essential day-to-day operations and focused on keeping critical systems running for their customers. They faced the challenge of balancing ongoing operational stability with the need for platform migration, which, from their perspective, was already functioning adequately.

This highlighted an uncomfortable truth. When the fundamental intention and broader consequences of inaction aren't clearly communicated or widely understood across all teams, it can lead to inertia or passive resistance.

Defining "done" and embracing ambiguity

Success in migrations is rarely clear-cut. While Sarah Wells rightly suggests that decommissioning an old platform is the ultimate sign of completion, sometimes a partial migration can still enable an organization to be more efficient  or unlock new capabilities, even if the legacy system can't be fully retired. This isn't necessarily failure; it's the reality of complex environments. It's also vital to always migrate and deploy workloads, knowing that they'll likely be moved again in the future. Anything you learn during one migration can support you during the next migration.

The dream of fully automated migrations often clashes with reality. For instance, during migrations with a lot of inconsistent data, manual copy-pasting and human decision-making can be far more effective than using automation without having consistency.

Think of it like moving into a new house. You plan to carefully sort and clean everything before boxing up your kitchen drawers. But in the rush, you discover items you haven't used in years, won't fit in the new space, or are simply too old or broken to justify the effort of moving them. You have to make tough choices about what to give away, what to discard and what truly needs to make the journey.

This echoes the truth in enterprise migrations: not everything can, or should, be lifted and shifted. But what if you've run out of time to do that careful sorting and find yourself burdened with the effort of migrating junk? Where's the value in that? Would that equal success?

The foundation for innovation

Technology migrations are complex, underappreciated and often fraught with unforeseen challenges. But, by prioritizing clear communication of intent and consequences, embracing empathy, understanding different definitions of success, realistically assessing automation and ensuring clear ownership, we can transform essential maintenance work into an engine of resilience and innovation.

Are you ready to transform platform migrations from a source of inertia into an engine for innovation? 

Let our experience help accelerate your migration journey. With clear intent, stakeholder alignment and strategic execution, even the most daunting migrations can succeed. 
Connect with Red Hat Consulting to support your next migration.

Red Hat offers integrated tools that can help you with your migration journeys. The migration toolkit for applications and migration toolkit for virtualization make application transformation and migration plans simple and achievable, so you can get back to managing your workloads on a modern platform.