The cloud can offer everything from scalability, security, and flexibility to cost-effectiveness. Because of these reasons, companies no longer question migrating to the cloud but instead look forward to it. Successful cloud migration can tremendously benefit an organization and prepare it for the future. That being said, it’s essential to acknowledge that all cloud deployments do not go as smoothly as expected.
Sometimes migrations can take a long time or even fail, ultimately wasting your time and resources. After making a move, many companies also discover that the applications don’t work as well on the cloud as on-premises. A recent study found around 74 percent of the responding companies moved back on-premises from the cloud-based infrastructure after failing to materialize the anticipated benefits.
Unfortunately, it isn’t a new problem, and a simple Google search is all it takes to find enough evidence that cloud migration fails. However, you need to understand that it isn’t a technology failure but instead leadership.
If you’re determined to make the most out of your ETL migration process, let’s look at some of the possible mistakes you need to avoid.
- Migrating Everything at Once
Migrating to the cloud should be seen as a journey, so trying to do it all at once could be overwhelming. You might come across many things, from unexpected issues and delays in implementation to unforeseen expenses, during the process. Hence, it is best to take a gradual approach to migration where you give the organization enough time to optimize the process and make cost cuts. Making a progressive increase helps you anticipate future issues and work around them to avoid disrupting your business operations.
2. Ignoring the In-House Skills Gap
Even when you have the best migration plan, you could end up experiencing some serious setbacks when your employees aren’t familiar with the cloud. Besides cost control and poor performance, inexperienced staff could overlook security loopholes, leaving your organization vulnerable. You can work with a third-party cloud consultant to pinpoint the in-house skill gap and work on educating and training your staff to help them leverage the advantages of the cloud.
- Lacking an Upgrade Policy
As you move forward with the cloud, you’ll encounter upgrades. Hence, you need a sound upgrade policy; otherwise, your strategy could easily fall apart. Based on your business requirements, you must define your upgrade policy that can help improve your performance while keeping the costs in check.
- Lacking a Good Cloud Migration Partner
Finding a good cloud migration expert isn’t easy, but it’s a search that you cannot take lightly. To avoid a migration failure, you need an experienced partner who can offer accurate budget estimates and timelines to make the transition easier.
How Can You Prevent Cloud Migration Failure?
Cloud migration is a significantly complex and relatively large project, especially when it is an enterprise-level migration. Several factors could contribute to migration failure based on the intricacy of the existing dependencies and infrastructure. Once you can factor them all in and take the necessary measures, you can build a cloud migration strategy that’ll work for you.
Creating a Sound Cloud Operating Model
Based on your goals and objectives, you must clearly define how you want your organization to be transformed after the migration. It would include internal processes, current workflows, and business operations. Doing so can create a road map of how your organization is expected to operate after the successful cloud migration.
Here are a couple of things you’ll have to consider –
- Infrastructure – Define ways to phase out legacy systems and select, deploy, and handle the cloud infrastructure, such as the servers, databases, OS, etc.
- Application – Redefine app development and deployment processes, such as scaling, backups, testing security, etc.
- People – Give training to existing staff; hire new staff members, such as cloud architects.
- Security – Check default security settings thoroughly and make changes to ensure you have the same control over the data, including when moving sensitive information to the cloud.
- Operational Expenditure– Develop a plan to calculate, report, control, and optimize your cloud operational costs.
Proactive Steps for Successful Cloud Migration
Once you have your cloud operating model, you can take proactive steps to prevent the pitfalls and ensure your cloud migration is successful:-
- Building a Robust Business Case– Educate yourself on how the cloud can benefit your business and if it is worth all the hassle.
- Conducting Cloud Readiness Assessment– Assess your existing business process, infrastructure, and requirements to prepare a readiness report.
- Consulting With an Expert– Seek cloud migration services from experienced professionals to decide which migration approach to choose based on the timeline, cost, and specific requirements.
- Prioritizing the Applications– Curate a thorough plan to assess the criticality of the applications while accommodating failovers and delays.
- Preparing Your Business– Provide adequate knowledge and training to employees in your organization and expand your team, if necessary, to fill the resource gap.
- Creating Policies– Establish clear policies on upgrades, security, compliance, and access control while developing processes to operate, report, and optimize.
- Migrating in Stages– Don’t go all in at once; instead, move less critical components in the beginning and then migrate the more significant ones.
- Optimizing Your Cloud Migration – Continue to optimize as you move forward by being thorough and regular with maintenance and updates.
Wrapping Up
Cloud migration can be a revolutionary step to enhance your business, provided you take adequate measures to prevent failures. Because of this reason, you need to thoroughly understand how your cloud migration could fail and be prepared to deal with them to make a move to the cloud.
Choosing an experienced cloud migration solutions partner, having a business case, conducting a thorough cloud assessment, and creating a sound migration strategy are ways to help you avoid the common mistakes companies make when migrating to the cloud.