Interpreting Top Dos and Don’ts While Migrating to the Cloud

In today's digital age, more and more organizations are migrating their systems to cloud to increase efficiencies at a lower cost. Migrating to the cloud can scale up to support larger workloads and greater numbers of users more easily than on-premises infrastructure that requires businesses to acquire and set up additional physical servers, networking equipment, or software licenses. In recent years, the adoption of cloud computing has climbed up and is continue to upsurge as almost 83 percent of enterprise workloads predicted to be in the cloud by 2020.

However, cloud migration is not as simple as it offers a wide array of advantages to users. When it comes to undertaking such projects, it is significant to understand business needs and plan migration accordingly.

Let's have a look at some top dos and don'ts that can help migrate to the cloud efficiently.

Dos

Define Goals

Before migrating systems to a cloud environment, businesses must determine what they want to accomplish with cloud migration. Whether they are looking for a certain performance or to save costs. Having a clear understanding and definite goals can assist to design smooth landing zone on the cloud. Moreover, to thwart any domino effects on the wider areas of the business, it is also worth analyzing any impacts on the organization's people, processes, systems and infrastructure.

Applications Assessment

Assessing applications and leveraging cloud-native features can increase availability and resiliency, while lessening management overhead. Companies must reconsider their operating model and the services management layer when migrating to the cloud. Instead of shifting existing on-prem applications to a cloud infrastructure, businesses are better served to adapt applications for the new, more agile environment. By ensuring the cloud system is performing appropriately, organizations can then move onto more business-critical areas.

Develop Plan 

Migrating business projects with a detailed plan can assist companies to garner maximum value from the cloud. They must interpret which applications or systems they want to migrate, and which to focus on first. By determining how much data are you migrating and what is the bandwidth you are running to Azure, for instance, can provide an idea of how long time it will take. Most importantly, deciding whether a business has the necessary IT expertise to support project delivery in-house.

Don'ts

Myths of Costs

As migrating to a cloud environment offers several advantages, some common myths about its cost-efficiency may still be foiling businesses from realizing their value. There is often a mix-up that cloud-enabled systems are more expensive than having local, on-premises systems. But in reality, the ongoing costs of cloud computing are often lower, offering a pay-as-you-go model. This means it allows businesses to pay only for what they are using.

Overlooking Security

Security is one of the most significant aspects while planning to switch to the cloud. As most early adopters of the cloud may have had initial concerns over data security, it is essential to ensure all the security measures that organizations already have in place. For instance, Azure offers secure underlying infrastructure and services, but also business leaders will need to be diligent in safeguarding what they put out there.

Missing a Tipping Point

Organizations must make effective decisions while their cloud migration doesn't offer them cost savings, faster time to market for application development, enhanced business collaboration, and some other intangible benefits. Cloud computing can serve a horde of purposes, but it is up to businesses to find out those purposes according to their operation. Most significantly, companies must make sure that their cloud migration must be aligned with the overall business strategy for it to be successful.