If you’re just starting out on your cloud migration journey, then you’re a little bit late to the party. But the good thing is that there are now a lot of cloud services out there that can help make your transition to the cloud smoother. In this post, we’ll discuss cloud migration plus its benefits and challenges, and identify the ways wherein cloud migration services can boost your chances for success.

Cloud Migration Defined

Cloud migration is the process of moving a company’s data, services, applications, and other business processes from a local or on-premise data center to a cloud computing environment.

The most common migration model involves transferring data and applications to a public cloud architecture such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, and other cloud providers. However, moving from one cloud platform to another as well as moving data off the cloud and back to a local data center are also considered as types of cloud migration. For this article, we will focus our discussion on the first model of cloud migration which organisations should find most valuable.

The Challenges of Cloud Migration

The business decision of moving to the cloud is one that enterprises make to achieve the most efficient IT environment for their corporate digital assets and applications. Each migration process is unique to every business organisation and the degree of complexity that this entails would depend largely on the volume of legacy applications and infrastructure your company has lying around.

One thing that businesses will soon realise, however, is that the promise of simplicity for anything cloud is overrated. While very beneficial, cloud migration initiatives are not the easiest to implement and execute. Moving workloads to a public cloud involve using multiple cloud solutions and platforms, and this entails having to deal with all the underlying processes that go with the migration.

Among the top challenges to cloud migration include rewriting application architecture so that it can be integrated into the cloud environment, finding the right people to oversee the transfer, maintaining data integrity throughout the process, and ensuring that the current systems remain operational during this time. Even when the transition is done, there are latency, interoperability, bandwidth, and other performance issues that need to be addressed. Now let’s not forget that all these come with the accompanying financial costs that, added together, could come up to quite a steep total.

Is it worth moving to the cloud?

Given this rather intimidating list of barriers to cloud migration, some enterprises would question whether making the move is worth it. However, organisations who’ve had a successful migration and are able to reap the full value of cloud solutions would definitely respond with a yes. Migrating to the cloud has allowed them to enjoy the following key benefits:

1. Scalability. Supporting larger workloads and a greater number of users is easier to do in a cloud environment than in an on-premise infrastructure. Companies can scale up and down at will, and without the usual steep capital outlay needed to purchase physical servers, networking equipment, and others.

2. Performance. While initial implementation could bring with it some birth pains, many enterprises were able to enjoy better performance in the long run, improving the overall experience of both internal and external customers. Having websites and applications hosted in cloud data centers rather than distributed in on-premise servers has even reduced latency in many cases.

3. Cost. While the financial costs associated with migration are a valid concern, a successful migration could also mean lower cost of IT operations moving forward. Providers of cloud services deal with the necessary maintenance and upgrades so organisations can focus on their core business. In addition, cloud infrastructure significantly reduces (or eliminates altogether) the need to spend for backup infrastructure for the purpose of disaster recovery.

With all that said, a financially-sensible cloud migration is very much possible and still recommended, provided that the move is made with proper planning beforehand to ensure that disruption is minimal and costs are kept as low as possible.

How Cloud Migration Services Can Help

It can not be emphasised enough that investing in qualified people to guide you through the cloud migration journey is a big factor in getting you on track for success. IT consultancy firms that are well-versed in cloud migration should be a good place to start with. Cloud migration services can provide invaluable assistance by helping you:

1. Identify your specific goals in moving to the cloud. There are many cloud services that you can access without necessarily migrating workloads to the cloud. So what is it that you really want to achieve? Whether it’s cost savings, improved performance, or something else, consultancy services can give you guidance on how cloud migration or some form of cloud adoption can be the right path to realising your objectives.

2. Create a solid change management plan. Preparation is always key. A reliable cloud advisor can objectively evaluate your system and help you craft a well-thought-out plan that clearly determines the scope of the project and identifies the potential level of disruption so you can then organise accordingly.

3. Choose the right cloud solutions and tools to fit your migration requirements. There is no one-size-fits-all technology that can quickly bring your migration goals to fruition. Every enterprise has its own plan—e.g. batch adoption (migrating operations in batches) or hybrid cloud option, and a qualified point person can assist in choosing the best tools that will fit your current system, course of action, and resources.

Any enterprise can decide to migrate to the cloud, but only those who have adequate preparation and the right plan will realise the full potential of the cloud. Talk to your IT consultant about cloud migration services today.