Insurance Solutions | Don Campbell | 25 November 2020

Transition to the Cloud

Guidewire’s conference was very focussed on the cloud – specifically Guidewire Cloud. And importantly, how they recommend you get there.

One particular session run by Sandia Ren and supported by Blair Pyle and Mike Laconico went into detail on how Guidewire sees the transition to Guidewire Cloud running. It spoke specifically for existing self-managed customers. Guidewire was keen to highlight that this was a journey it wants you to take, and it outlined the steps and support necessary and recommended.

Before embarking on an upgrade, Guidewire looks through 3 ‘lenses’:

1. The upgrade path: This stage looks at the version/s each Guidewire customer is on. For example, they could be on BillingCenter 7, ClaimCenter 8 and PolicyCenter 9
2. The upgrade effort: This focuses on the efficiencies that can be driven during transition; leveraging tools and automation
3. The execution of the upgrade: Given the partner eco-system, a technical upgrade can be relatively straightforward (N.B from us: this depends on the level of conformity to OOTB!)

During the some of the conference sessions Guidewire talked about the transition path to Guidewire Cloud.

A greenfield approach may be attractive – that is implementing a new service in Guidewire Cloud, without a pre-existing product. However, what is more likely you will be an existing customer on either version 10, 9, 8… or possibly older! You will be recommended to choose one of three transition paths:

1. Moving all of InsuranceSuite 9 or 10
2. Choosing BillingCenter and PolicyCenter first, then ClaimCenter second
3. Or reversed- ClaimCenter first, then BillingCenter and PolicyCenter second

Determining the right transition path should be based on several factors:

• Your current applications in production
• Your downtime requirements
• The change management impacts

A lot of the preparation of transitioning to Guidewire Cloud is recommended to be established via a Cloud Readiness Workshop.

This workshop looks at the following:

• Understanding your application
• A deep dive into the code and check that against Guidewire’s cloud standards
• A review of infrastructure – confirming if Oracle or SQL Server is being used, size of the database
• The selected transition path

Guidewire were clear to point out that following the assessments for cloud readiness the next steps would be upgrading configuration in line with the current Cloud version and then reviewing the size of the database needing to be migrated.

It’s important to point out that all these steps need to adhere to Guidewire’s cloud standards. Guidewire have been keen to point out how it considered the customer landscape and how it wanted to make this transition as direct and straightforward as possible. Hence its CloudDirect offering.

A lot of the content seemed to be very rich, but it did throw up some questions. For us at Endava, with our implementation and upgrade experience, we know that complexity within an existing environment will be a factor. So beyond the technical piece, there are significant leadership team considerations. In fact, we have produced a guide focused on those consideration – which will be published to our site next week.

For a full picture on Guidewire’s announcements – check out their on-demand sessions: check them out here.