Moving to the Cloud – Case from Oxfam GB

Speakers: Graham Oakes, Stewart Marshall
Time: 16.15-17.00 Thursday, 10. Nov 2011
Session: Standards & Technology – Moving to the cloud
Track: Standards & Technology

The web is fundamental to Oxfam GB’s operations.  It is a key tool for fundraising, campaigning, communicating with supporters and other stakeholders, coordinating festivals and events, etc.  However, Oxfam’s web infrastructure has grown in a piecemeal way — it has invested in web facilities as it needed them for individual projects.  This has increased costs and complexity, and reduced the overall reliability of the systems.

In mid-2010, Oxfam decided to investigate shifting its web systems (website, e-commerce site, intranet, etc) into the “cloud”.  This talk will describe the lessons we’ve learned as we procured cloud services and as we migrated our systems into the cloud.  It will address questions such as “Is cloud technology mature enough for production use?” and “What are the key aspects to consider when moving to the cloud?”