Author
March 23, 2023
Cloud migration isn’t a new concept by any stretch of the imagination. Cloud-based services have become so ubiquitous that we use them multiple times a day without a second thought. But despite the universal nature of cloud computing, what is changing is its importance in the business world.
No longer a “nice to have,” embracing cloud has become vital to enterprises’ growth, success, and ability to compete, as digital natives – companies that have never existed anywhere but the cloud – emerge and leverage new technologies and business models to disrupt the status quo.
Even though most organizations already use cloud technologies in some form, it’s still crucial to weigh the benefits of cloud migration against the risks and challenges it poses to your operations.
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What is Cloud Migration?
Cloud migration is the process of moving digital assets – data, applications, resources, and systems – to a cloud computing environment.
While we typically think of cloud migration as shifting assets from a legacy, on-premises system to the cloud, cloud-to-cloud migration is becoming increasingly common as enterprises work to reduce complexity, reduce costs, and increase the security of their systems.
Why Move to the Cloud Now?
Your company needs every weapon in its arsenal to continue growing, innovating, and thriving, and the cloud can help you scale, increase agility, grow revenue, and achieve business goals in today’s changing world.
If you’re among the rare handful of businesses that have resisted a large-scale cloud transition up to this point, you might be wondering how much it matters now. Do you really need to make a change?
Maybe your existing infrastructure is good enough – it’s kept your operations on track and your business growing. But the development of new technologies is accelerating, and the pressures organizations must be prepared to face in a post-pandemic world are increasing.
The cloud may not be a suitable environment for every single component of your technology. But your company needs every weapon in its arsenal to continue growing, innovating, and thriving, and the cloud can help you scale, increase agility, grow revenue, and achieve business goals in today’s changing world.
The Benefits of Cloud Migration
“Everyone is doing it” isn’t reason enough to tackle enterprise cloud migration. But your organization stands to gain a wide range of cloud migration benefits if you make the leap.
1. Resource Scalability
Cloud gives your organization the ability to grow as workloads evolve and demands increase. In comparison, scaling up conventional on-prem solutions means purchasing and installing new hardware, software, storage, and networking equipment.
2. Reduced IT Load
Many cloud providers take on the burden of regular maintenance and updates, meaning your (possibly overstretched) IT department can spend less time on mundane, repetitive tasks and focus on innovation.
3. Cost Savings
Cloud migration can also help enterprises reduce IT infrastructure costs. The scalable nature of a cloud environment makes it easy to right-size resources and adjust as needs change, rather than over-purchasing to ensure capacity for peak demand periods.
4. Greater Flexibility
One key lesson business leaders took from the pandemic was the importance of flexibility in surviving the unexpected. Migrating key data and processes to the cloud means your organization isn’t tied to a specific business location and can pivot quickly when conditions prevent staff from working on-site.
5. Elimination of End-of-Life Hardware Concerns
The pace of technological evolution continues to accelerate, making the life expectancy of investments in IT infrastructure shorter and shorter. Cloud migration puts the onus of updates on your service provider, freeing you from the hassle and costs of dealing with sunsetting solutions.
6. Ability to Leverage New Technologies
This cloud migration benefit goes hand-in-hand with the previous one – the rapid development of new technologies and tools means organizations with the ability to embrace new tech like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and the Metaverse will have an edge over those who can’t.
Cloud Migration Risk and Challenges
The number one driver of failed or disruptive cloud migration experiences is a lack of planning. An end-to-end strategy is crucial to help mitigate cloud migration security risks, minimize disruption, and keep costs down.
Before embarking on a cloud migration journey, your organization must consider the specific requirements of any data or workloads you are moving to the cloud, identify any dependencies related to the transition and define your goals for the move. Companies that make the move without a comprehensive strategy face any number of challenges.
High Cloud Migration Costs
Cost savings is a commonly cited driver of cloud migration, but a lack of planning can leave organizations facing higher-than-expected cloud migration costs. Managing spend remains a top challenge for organizations using the cloud, and data suggests approximately 32% of cloud spend is wasted.
Vendor Lock-In
Not all cloud solutions are created equal. Cloud service providers often boast an array of services, but organizations with specific requirements must ensure their needs will be met before cloud migration begins. Signing a contract only to discover the provider can’t deliver what you need is a recipe for disappointment at best – and disaster at worst.
Security Issues
Despite the universality of cloud use, security remains a common roadblock to cloud migration. The process of transitioning digital assets to the cloud can put applications, data, and systems at risk if security threats and vulnerabilities are not carefully considered – and addressed – before migration begins.
Lack of Expertise
The development and execution of a cloud migration strategy are directly related to the complexity of your existing infrastructure. Legacy systems with multiple dependencies can be challenging to migrate, and problems can arise if your migration team doesn’t have adequate expertise in both the system you’re migrating from and the target cloud environment.
Operational Disruptions
Few, if any, businesses can afford to put day-to-day operations on hold while they undertake a cloud migration, but the downtime and delays caused by moving data and systems from existing infrastructure to the cloud can have a significant impact on the bottom line.
Digibee helps you do cloud migration right
The case for cloud migration has never been more compelling: the benefits of cloud migration continue to increase, and the downsides of resisting the transition are becoming more apparent. Let the experts at Digibee help reduce cloud migration risks and optimize your strategy.
Download your complimentary copy of The Future of Cloud Migration for a deep dive into changing migration goals and challenges, tips on measuring success, emerging use cases for cloud computing, and detailed guidance on making the move successful and pain-free.
