Transitioning to a total cloud platform
The rate of cloud adoption is rising rapidly; Gartner predicts that 90 percent of organizations will be using cloud services by 2022. However, according to Datapine, there are still several challenges hindering businesses from switching to the cloud, such as:
- Migration readiness
- Security and compliance issues
- Inadequate cloud management expertise
- Poor grasp on cloud computing
- Managing cloud economics
Every organization takes a unique cloud migration approach since business cultures and models vary widely. All these are critical issues that you must carefully consider for a smooth transition to cloud solutions.
Every decision leading you closer to the cloud must be informed by some characteristics of your business, such as IT requirements, internal culture, digital strategies, HR, and the existing technical infrastructure. Here are five main steps to flawless total cloud migration.
1. Define your cloud adoption goals
In which ways do you expect cloud solutions to benefit your business? There is more to cloud computing than just saving IT costs. Outline the objectives of the cloud migration based on your business’s IT requirements and growth trajectory. A goal-oriented approach will make it easier to align the digital transformation with your technical and enterprise needs. It should also help you envision the ideal solutions and implementation methods leading to the desired outcome.
2. Identify all inevitable changes and prepare for them
Evaluate your current IT systems and digital processes and identify all the alterations needed to accommodate cloud systems. For instance, you might have to switch from an on-site data center to cloud storage. Keep in mind that even slight IT adjustments could ripple throughout the entire system since most equipment and processes are usually interconnected.
Also, understand how each change might affect everyday business operations and work processes. So, take a holistic view of the IT and business reconfigurations that must be done during your transition to cloud solutions.
3. Decide on a cloud migration strategy
Switching to cloud-based computing hardware is rather straightforward because the infrastructure, in most cases, is already set up. But migrating software and data to a cloud environment is where the hard work lies. Depending on your migration goals, budget, and scope, choose one or any appropriate combination of these migration methods:
- Rehost: Transfer software applications as they are to the cloud.
- Repurchase: Replace legacy applications with commercially available SaaS equivalents.
- Refactor: Adapt applications’ architectures to fit specific cloud models.
- Rebuild: Develop new applications from scratch, specifically for cloud deployment.
- Retire: Discard irrelevant legacy applications and substitute any of their useful functions with superior cloud solutions.
4. Prepare your business
Cloud migration is a big change, not only in terms of IT but from a business perspective as well. Such a level of digital transformation may introduce new and unfamiliar ways of doing things. For this reason, you have to prepare your staff by involving them in decision-making, arranging cloud usage training sessions, and explaining the reasons behind the move.
The goal is to bring everyone on board with the migration to minimize delays and frustrations during and after implementation of the new systems.
5. Get professional assistance to smoothen the transition
The industry’s market trends indicate that more and more organizations are enlisting the help of cloud migration services in wide-scale cloud adoptions. Transitioning to cloud services involves a lot of technical maneuvering, which is why it makes sense to have a cloud expert guide the process. Working with a professional will also save you time and money, and ensure that the implementation goes faultlessly, particularly when considering strict specifications and constraints.
Cloud migration is probably the most aggressive and beneficial digital transformation you can implement in your business. The success of transitioning from old to new ways could very well determine the value that cloud solutions bring to your enterprise.
