In 2017, BP took on a cloud-first approach that committed to building any new hardware or system builds on the cloud. Just a year prior, only 2% of BP applications lived on the cloud. At the close of 2022, 90% of BP applications had migrated to cloud environments, changing product and service integration and BP’s overall digital operating model.

Cloud transformations like BP’s can help enterprises improve operational resiliency, accelerate technology adoption, and reduce data center carbon emissions, says vice president of Digital Foundations at BP, Keisha Garcia. Migrating to the cloud at that scale, however, is challenging and extensive, especially when dealing with a legacy IT estate.

“Utilizing cloud platforms provides the necessary computational power and tools to implement advanced analytics, predictive modeling, as well as simulation techniques, which also enables us to continuously improve our sustainability performance,” says Garcia.

To successfully migrate to the cloud and subsequently collaborate and deploy cloud technologies, Garcia stresses the importance of clear communication among employees as well as stakeholders. “Involve application teams, service owners, end users early in the development and delivery of the strategy. Again, just bringing everyone along for the journey, I cannot overstate how important that is,” says Garcia.

A hybrid approach to transformation that combines cloud migration with the retention of some applications, dedicated data centers, and intermediary migration environments can ensure cost effective and secure operations. With enterprise-wide communication underpinning any successful transformation, Garcia outlines having a strong and flexible governance framework, collaborating with external digital partners, and adapting to agile ways of working as best practices for complex cloud migrations.

Looking to the cloud-enabled future, Garcia identifies the convergence of AI and edge computing, mounting progress in quantum computing, and the proliferation of IoT connected devices as transformative technologies that will drive forward better business outcomes. 

“I think that the convergence of edge computing and AI presents an exciting opportunity for the real-time data, a real-time low latency processing and decision making at the network edge, which is extremely critical for us, given all of the platforms, rigs that we have out across the globe,” says Garcia.