When it comes to changing the way a business runs its workloads, the journey is not the destination. This is doubly so when it comes to cloud migration. There must be a purpose behind the migration, a business need that can only be served by taking a workload to the cloud, according to Shankar Kalyana (pictured), fellow and chief technical officer for IBM Global Business Services’ cloud portfolio.

Because every business has a specific purpose in mind, the migration itself is often unique. There is a broad spectrum of possible journeys to the cloud, and a business must know which path to choose.

“It’s a progression from do nothing all the way through re-architect and re-write, and it’s that progression where migration becomes a problem,” said Kalyana, who spoke to John Furrier (@furrier) and Dave Vellante (@dvellante), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE’s mobile live-streaming studio, during the IBM InterConnect 2017 conference in Las Vegas, NV. (*Disclosure below.)

Kalyana discussed how IBM Corp. helps customers in their journeys to the cloud.

Planning the journey, understanding the destination

The use of the word “migrate” itself has some different connotations, Kalyana explained. Purists see it as moving stuff from here to there; customers see it as something more complex, with a lot of work to do around it. The term is especially crazy when companies must change their platforms, applications or other resources to accommodate the move.

To plan this journey, one must know the business drivers behind what they’re doing. What are their real goals? Every goal has a different pattern that comes into play. It’s more than just going to the cloud, Kalyana stated. One has to understand the map for how a particular journey will go through.

Meanwhile, clients want to see the value in such a journey up front. The best way to show them is with easy workloads that can proof the value quickly. When clients see things working, they gain a belief in the process and the benefits.

There are two ways of seeing things in these migrations, Kalyana mentioned. The lifecycle view, which covers the path from idea to scaling out, and the solution stack view with business processes, application logic and the platform itself.

“The power of IBM services is being able to bring the full power of this lifecycle and stack together in one way,” Kalyana said.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of IBM InterConnect 2017. (*Disclosure: SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE is a media partner at InterConnect. Neither IBM nor other conference sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE