Moving to the cloud is an eventual step every company takes as part of its digital transformation journey. Either you choose to go with a complete cloud migration or a hybrid model, you will have to take up the right strategy towards cloud implementation.
To make your cloud migration successful and efficient, let us show the best practices, steps to take, and the risks involved.
Figuring out the challenges involved with cloud migration is probably the first thing you need to educate yourself about. If you are not prepared to meet the challenges, you could lose a lot of money and productivity with a subpar cloud process that ultimately will not serve the purpose. Here are some common cloud migration challenges that you might face:
Any new technology brings in a level of disruption to your existing business processes. Your success depends on how well you execute the implementation such that the associated disruptions do not affect your overall profitability and productivity. You should be aware of what needs to be moved to the cloud first. It is a good idea to start by migrating your redundant and non-critical data to the cloud first. This helps you gain familiarity with the cloud environment, test out the implementation without the risk of losing any critical data.
Moving to the cloud comes at a cost. While it may be cost-effective in the long term, the benefits generally depend on your particular needs and the overall optimization that you can achieve with cloud migration.
When you calculate your cloud migration plan’s financial cost, you will have to include the cloud fees and charges and the indirect costs such as costs for training your employees, refactoring your existing applications, and implementing the organization-wide changes, and so on.
A primary reason many businesses are still reluctant about a full-fledged cloud migration is security concerns. Of course, it is a justified concern as your data will be stored in remote servers under the third-party vendor’s responsibility. But technology has advanced quite well, and with the latest security updates and following the best security practices, you can address all your cloud security concerns.
Do take due diligence with the vendors you work with and classify your data for implementing an adequate level of access control. Understand the security regulations and compliance assurance given by the cloud provider and be aware of the security controls in place.
You can also choose to keep the most confidential data stored on on-premise servers and only move the non-critical data to your cloud solutions.
Often, businesses tend to overlook the importance of training their employees on cloud solutions, leading to waste of resources. You need to make sure all your employees are adequately trained on using the new solutions and are ready to integrate them into their daily workflows. The success of your cloud migration depends on how well it is utilized.
Cloud solutions can be flexible because you can scale up or down your services and even move from one vendor to another. But in practice, it can get difficult to move from one vendor as moving data from one cloud to another can be a lengthy and costly process. So take your time to choose a vendor who makes it easy for you to execute data migrations and have necessary SLA terms that allow you to have flexible options for choosing to continue or quit using their cloud services.
There are some more risks you must carefully consider and prepare yourself for before opting for a cloud service:
Cloud migration plans can be a daunting process for any organization. For any queries and expert guidance, contact iSectra today.