Essential Considerations for a Successful Cloud Migration Strategy

During a cloud migration, a company transfers its data, apps, and services from in-house servers to a digital cloud environment. Paying for third-party cloud services has become vital for modern businesses, as it allows them to cut infrastructure and IT maintenance costs.

Unfortunately, performing a migration isn’t as easy as you might think. You must assess your current environment and needs and compare that to what available providers are offering. It is also recommended that you find a Google Cloud migration partner who will guide you throughout the process.

Without further ado, these are 13 considerations you need to make for a successful cloud migration strategy:

13 Best Cloud Migration Practices

Here’s everything you need to do before switching to an external provider:

1. Plan the Process

Given the complexity of existing IT environments, companies don’t have the option of blindly switching to a cloud provider. Instead, they must assess their needs so they can choose the right platform for their business.

First off, you must understand there are a few unique cloud environments at your disposal: private, public, multicloud, and hybrid. While public and private are self-explanatory, a hybrid combines features of non-cloud and cloud infrastructure. On the other hand, multicloud environment utilizes several clouds to provide a comprehensive service to users.

2. Analyze Your Current Infrastructure

Ask your IT specialists to analyze your current environment. By having a better understanding of available resources, you can analyze how migration will help you achieve company goals.

During the next phase, you’ll have to perform a cloud readiness assessment. Here, you’ll compile employees’ skills, the company’s hardware and software, security solutions, and current infrastructure. By having a better understanding of what you have and what you lack, you’ll be able to create a much more effective migration plan.

3. Create a Migration Case

Your accountants should put benefits and costs side by side so they can analyze the impact of a potential cloud transition. Management should pay close attention to increased security, improved agility, and cost savings that could occur as a result of a switch.

Aside from finances, you must take into account the technical feasibility of the project. Consider the challenges and risks of the migration and determine the best timing for making the transition. We recommend you create some leeway when making financial plans so you don’t overshoot your budget.

4. Assess App Performance

You must benchmark your app performance against the competition and set your baselines. That way, you’ll be able to determine what kind of an impact migration would have on your company software.

IT experts use all sorts of tools to gather performance data. To make life easier for yourself, we recommend you focus on KPIs relevant to your business, such as throughput, error rates, and response times.

5. Use a Pricing Calculator

Nowadays, the biggest cloud providers offer pricing calculators to their clientele. You can go to Azure’s or AWS’s site and use their specialized tool for free. With this simple, intuitive software, you can quickly assess how much it would cost you to pay for one of these services.

6. Implement a Disaster Recovery Plan

Placing your company files and processes on the cloud makes it easier to tackle incoming cyberattacks and disasters. Third-party providers invest enormous sums of money into their security, and they regularly back up clients’ data. That way, even if something bad is to occur, you can rest assured that your vital information will remain intact.

7. Enhance Cloud Visibility

Even when you switch to an external cloud, you’ll still have to monitor your IT resources and processes. Through regular monitoring, you’ll be able to identify bottlenecks during cloud usage, which will serve as a basis for optimization.

Monitoring is also valuable when you have to detect and address issues after migrations. By having a proactive stance, you’re able to detect threats and vulnerabilities in your system and address them before you get hacked.

8. Improve Security

Although the cloud provider is responsible for the security of the operating system, storage, physical and virtual networks, and computing, you’re the one who handles apps, data, and access. In that regard, both parties will have to work together to prevent potential intrusions.

You need to create a security plan that will outline your daily and weekly behavior and procedures. You must also get acquainted with the unique risks that come with cloud utilization and introduce a workflow that will help you address these threats.

9. Ensure Compliance

Another great thing about external cloud providers is that they make your compliance a breeze. A good example is AWS, which supports GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS. Then again, if you have some special compliance requirements, you must go with a provider that supports your unique business needs.

10. Optimize Whenever Possible

We always recommend users continuously optimize their applications and workload. By improving your practices over time, you’ll be able to squeeze more value from your cloud environment while simultaneously enhancing employees’ experience. However, don’t go overboard as overzealous optimization might lead to time wasting.

11. Introduce KPIs

Metrics help you determine whether the migration has been a success. Companies often use KPIs such as error rates, network latency, network throughput, monthly downtime, and storage costs to assess their effectiveness. Select metrics that are most relevant for your business, as you don’t want to overanalyze irrelevant processes.

12. Improve Data Transfer

To improve your migration results, you must prepare your data for transfer. Most importantly, find ways to avoid vendor lock-ins and select a provider that has a reliable workflow for data migration.

13. Plan Ongoing Maintenance

Your IT and management team needs to oversee every step of the migration. That way, you can ensure a smooth transition on all company levels.

Conclusion

Cloud migration is much easier with the right strategy. So, make sure to implement the tricks outlined in this article so you can expedite the process and achieve maximum results.

Joshua White is a passionate and experienced website article writer with a keen eye for detail and a knack for crafting engaging content. With a background in journalism and digital marketing, Joshua brings a unique perspective to his writing, ensuring that each piece resonates with readers. His dedication to delivering high-quality, informative, and captivating articles has earned him a reputation for excellence in the industry. When he’s not writing, Joshua enjoys exploring new topics and staying up-to-date with the latest trends in content creation.