𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗿 𝗠𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲: 𝗧𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗹𝗼𝘂𝗱 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗮 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿.
There is a dangerous trend in BI modernization: The "Lift and Shift."
We often take messy, coupled on-premises databases and drop them directly into Snowflake, Azure, or another environment, expecting magic.
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆: You didn't modernize. You just moved your technical debt to a more expensive zip code.
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗲𝗿 𝗩𝗶𝗲𝘄: During my recent mandate leading a modernization initiative, we made the hard choice to pause a migration because it lacked architectural decoupling.
It would have been easy to just "move the data" and claim a quick win. But moving bad logic to the cloud doesn't fix the logic; it just speeds up the billing meter. We chose to refactor first, protecting the organization from spiraling compute costs later.
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗮𝗿 𝗩𝗶𝗲𝘄: My doctoral research on Cloud BI success factors highlights the critical distinction between "𝗖𝗹𝗼𝘂𝗱-𝗘𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗱" and "𝗖𝗹𝗼𝘂𝗱-𝗡𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲."
The ROI of the cloud comes from elasticity, the ability to spin resources up and down instantly. If you run a monolithic, legacy architecture on cloud infrastructure (Cloud-Enabled), you are paying a premium for features you aren't using.
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗶𝘅
1. 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗽𝗹𝗲 the semantic layer from the storage.
2. 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁 the schema before the move (garbage in, expensive garbage out).
3. 𝗥𝗲𝗳𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿, don't just Rehost.
Architecture isn't just about code; it's about cost control.
Originally published on LinkedIn
