Title

AWS re:Invent 2022 - Migrating to the Cloud: What is the Cost of Doing Nothing? (ENT325)

Summary

Aaron Rallo, director and general manager at AWS, and Adnan Haque, Global Vice President at Marriott International, discuss the importance and benefits of migrating to the cloud.
Aaron shares his personal experience of reducing infrastructure costs from $0.35 to $0.10 per $1 of revenue by migrating to the cloud.
AWS has helped thousands of customers migrate, learning that migration assessments and using multiple AWS services can speed up the process.
The cost of doing nothing includes financial costs, reduced agility, higher security burdens, and difficulty in building resilient applications.
AWS offers variable expense models, elasticity, faster deployment, and a shared security model.
Adnan Haque shares Marriott's journey of digital and technology transformation, aiming to reduce fixed costs and adopt a pay-as-you-go model.
Marriott's cloud strategy focuses on enabling platforms, accelerating innovation, and differentiating technologies.
Key prerequisites for successful cloud migration include clear success criteria, a common vision, prioritizing work, and favoring simplicity.
Unanticipated benefits of cloud adoption include organizational transformation, talent upskilling, improved security, and resiliency.
Marriott has seen significant cost savings, reduced compute wastage, and improved product innovation cycles through cloud migration.

Cloud migration is not just a technical shift but also a catalyst for broader organizational transformation, impacting areas such as talent acquisition, financial operations, and business processes.
The journey to the cloud should be approached with a clear understanding of the organization's goals and what it is optimizing for, whether it's cost reduction, innovation, or other drivers.
Companies often face a transient cost surge during migration, which should be anticipated and communicated to avoid backtracking to on-premises solutions.
The use of cloud-native services and automation is crucial for realizing the full benefits of cloud migration, including security and resiliency.
Marriott's experience highlights the importance of having a bold vision for cloud migration, the willingness to deprioritize non-differentiating work, and the need to maintain a clean and rationalized cloud environment.
The talk emphasizes the significant financial and operational costs associated with inaction, reinforcing the value proposition of cloud migration for enterprises.