Understanding cloud migration, how it may benefit your business, and what it takes to make it happen can help you choose the best strategy for a smooth cloud transfer.
As a result of the worldwide pandemic, more and more organizations are moving to the cloud, redefining their offers, and becoming more cost-effective, elegant, and imaginative in their operations.
Cloud, as a self-service, on-demand environment, is now critical to enabling end-to-end digital transformation. Cloud computing is more important than ever before in assisting organizations in reopening, reinventing, and navigating unpredictability.
What is cloud migration, and how does it work?
The process of shifting a company’s digital assets, services, databases, IT resources, and applications into the cloud, either partially or entirely, is known as cloud migration. Moving from one cloud to another is also referred to as cloud migration.
Companies who want to get away from old and increasingly inefficient legacy infrastructures, such as aging servers or potentially faulty firewall appliances, or abandon hardware or software solutions that no longer perform at peak capacity are now turning to the cloud. That is why so many businesses are migrating to the cloud, at the very least in part.
What are the benefits of cloud migration?
The cloud can have a significant impact on businesses that go through the process of cloud migration.
The benefits include the lower total cost of ownership (TCO), shorter time to market, and increased innovation opportunities. Access to the cloud brings agility and flexibility, critical in meeting changing customer and market expectations.
In recent months, companies have been transferring their services and data to the cloud as they adjust to becoming more flexible digital workplaces in response to increased online demand and remote working.
Benefits of cloud migration include:
- Increased agility and flexibility
- Ability to innovate faster
- Easing of increasing resource demands
- Better managing of increased customer expectations
- Reduction in costs
- Deliver immediate business results
- Simplify IT
- Shift to everything as-a-service
- Better consumption management
- Cloud scalability
- Improved performance
Overcoming the most common cloud migration challenges
Financial Cost
Financial concerns impact almost every aspect of migration. The immediate expense of the migration and the long-term financial risks of poor or slow adoption and training following the migration is challenging
The following are the highest migration costs:
- Cloud-based application architecture rewrite
- Investing in the people and technologies required for a successful migration
- Users are being educated on the new systems.
- Latency, interoperability, reliance on non-cloud apps, and downtime are all performance challenges.
- Bandwidth is expensive.
- Despite this daunting list, a successful (and cost-effective) cloud migration is feasible.
Solution
These three ways can help businesses keep cloud computing costs low.
a) Plan ahead of time.
Preparation is your most potent ally. Invest in a robust change management strategy. A well-thought-out plan will aid you in managing the project’s scope as well as the level of company disturbance.
b) Adopting in batches is a good idea.
Another option for managing your financial investment is to transfer to the cloud gradually. Batch adoption provides the advantage of breaking down a financially daunting endeavor into smaller, more manageable chunks over time.
c) Make the switch to a hybrid cloud.
Complete cloud migration may not be the best option depending on your computing demands.
Adoption Resistance:
When it comes to migration success, individuals are frequently the most challenging factor to overcome. People have a natural aversion to change. Cloud migration also entails a lot of change and upheaval, with new systems, processes, and sometimes even leadership.
Solution: Fortunately, a change management strategy based on a few core strategies can ensure widespread buy-in and an easier transition.
a) Get leadership buy-in
You have to start at the top if you want to generate successful adoption at the bottom. Because one of the most critical variables driving employee engagement and adoption is senior leadership, you’ll need strong management buy-in from the start.
b) Choose intuitive tech solutions
Prioritize usability and integration when selecting cloud options for your apps. The more intuitive and user-friendly the product, the more likely it is to be adopted by your employees (and stick with it).
c) Spend money on professional training and resources.
Although the cloud should make life easier for everyone, the transition might be difficult (slow down adoption). The new processes may be unclear, complex, or difficult to integrate for some people. They are more prone to use familiar tools if they do not receive sufficient training and assistance.
Skill Shortage
Despite the many advantages of cloud computing, the difficulty of migration deters many businesses. One of the most significant challenges is locating personnel with the necessary expertise to manage a successful move.
As more businesses turn their attention to the cloud, the demand for migration professionals has grown. Regrettably, demand for cloud experts outnumbers supply (at least for now).
The solution is to look for cloud professionals.
The most challenging hurdle to cloud adoption today may be a scarcity of professionals with the necessary skill set. You’ll need to discover other options if you don’t have the resources (or luck) to hire cloud migration experts.
