3 Cloud Migration Lessons We Learned After Migrating Our Systems To The Cloud

The COVID situation has changed the entire business landscape. Organizations are switching to remote workers, localized offices, and new tools & platforms for successful business expansion. However, new challenges have emerged for business leaders in this changing landscape. With geographically liberal hiring, employees are working round the clock, and effective collaboration and cooperation have become a problem for a few organizations.

Cloud solutions offer an enticing solution to curb the above-said problems. It offers:

• Increase efficiency
• Reduce infrastructure costs
• Better integrate IT tech stack

But moving to the cloud isn’t as easy as it may sound. Migrating to the cloud can bring unforeseen consequences. To avoid having a terrible migration experience, cloud admins should familiarize themselves with the most common migration challenges.

Top 3 Cloud Migration Lessons

Let’s look at the top three cloud migration lessons and what one can learn from them. 

Lesson #1 - Have a proper cloud migration strategy

Organizations are sometimes ignorant about the migration process. They consider that migrating to the cloud will be executed by a simple cut-copy-paste execution. However, their cloud migration experiences turn out to be a nightmare. Migration to the cloud needs proper strategic planning for the successful execution of cloud migration.

What we learned

Samir Datt (Managing Director at Protiviti, Houston) says - "Cloud success begins with a defined cloud strategy”. Before the actual migration, create a detailed migration strategy and carefully examine your business objectives. 

The evaluation will help you in identifying potential issues or opportunities that you can prepare for. Try to answer the key questions yourself like:

• How much will the project cost?
• Is your software adjusted for the cloud environment?
• Which data and applications need to be migrated?

The more detailed the strategy is the fewer the surprises. 

Lesson #2 - Manage your financial costs

One of the most important cloud migration lessons is to learn how to manage your expenses. Apart from the hefty initial cost, there is also a recurring maintenance and service cost based on the number of users, bandwidth, and storage needs. Apart from the above-mentioned costs, other associated costs are:

• Cost of application architecture rewriting for the cloud
• Cost of investing in tools and people for a successful migration
• Cost of solving performance issues like latency, dependencies, and downtime

What we learned

Follow batch adoption process

As the name suggests, batch adoption refers to breaking down the application into smaller chunks and migrating step by step to the cloud. This process of cloud adoption is easy on your pockets as you can migrate bit by bit to the cloud and not get overwhelmed by the hefty investment. Also, migrating to the cloud in batches gives you well-organized data on the cloud. It also leaves with enough liquid cash which can then be utilized for other business needs.

Migrate to a hybrid cloud

If you are someone who still has doubts about complete migration to the cloud or you are someone who has already invested in an existing IT infrastructure, leaving it entirely could feel like a colossal waste of money and effort. Under such conditions, you can opt for a hybrid cloud migration strategy. 

Instead of complete cloud migration, hybrid-cloud migration gives you the flexibility to move a few of your resources on the cloud. Companies that run applications with usage spikes can benefit from this strategy. You can easily scale up and down in a cloud environment to meet the needs.

Lesson #3 - Avoid vendor lock-in

Assume that you have done thorough research before shifting all your important data to the cloud and then realize that the vendor you selected is not the best the market has to offer. Now you don’t want to stick with the existing vendor for a long time and wish to switch. What then? Is it going to be expensive? Is it too expensive to shift to a new vendor? Are you stuck with the same vendor for life?

What we learned

The chances of finding yourself on the wrong side of vendor lock-in are close to slim, but it’s still important to note what to do to avoid cloud vendor lock. Few ways to reduce potential vendor lock-in are:

• Make sure your data is portable
• Check the agreement provided by your vendor. It must include an exit strategy along with the cost associated with an implementation plan
• Use proprietary software and tools to make code more portable. This will minimize the risk of lock-in

Conclusion

Nowadays every business is on a hoard to move from traditional architecture to the cloud. However, migrating to the cloud is nothing less than a challenge. To curb these challenges, I have come across the following 3 cloud migration lessons that one needs to go through before actually migrating to the cloud.