A cloud migration initiative can bring about numerous benefits for a business, such as cost savings, enhanced security, scalability, and agility. However, the process is not without its challenges, and without careful planning, organizations may encounter disruptions in workflows, user resistance, and unexpected expenses. To help streamline the cloud migration process and ensure it delivers the expected return on investment and results, 18 members of the Forbes Technology Council share their tips.
First and foremost, organizations need to assess their readiness for cloud-enabled business transformation by examining critical areas such as business, people, governance, platform, security, and operations. This comprehensive approach ensures a smooth workload migration to the cloud and the realization of desired business outcomes from the transformation. It is essential to define clear cloud migration objectives, which may include reducing costs, improving scalability, efficiency, and security. Once the objectives are identified, organizations should develop a technology strategy, migration plan, and necessary resources and talent to support the migration.
Choosing a cloud provider that aligns with the organization’s goals and has the necessary engineers to support the migration is crucial. Organizations should also decide on the migration approach, whether it be phased, lift and shift, lift with optimization, or lift with re-architecting. Prioritizing building a comprehensive application portfolio and involving cross-functional collaboration early on can help avoid pitfalls. It is also important to focus on mission-critical assets during the migration process to align with the organization’s strategic goals.
Cloud migrations require finding and inventorying all devices, users, and apps that need to transition from on-premises to the cloud. Using an automated, aggregated tool to discover and inventory these components in real time can streamline the process. Organizations should also consider the impact of cloud migration on their entire workforce and communicate effectively with employees, stakeholders, and customers. Keeping business outcomes top of mind can help streamline the migration efforts and ensure success.
When planning a cloud migration, it is important to focus on the “what, where, how, and why” of the process. Identifying the right workloads to migrate, where they should be migrated to, how they should be migrated, and the reasons for migration are critical factors for success. Additionally, incorporating dynamic workload placement models, improving data hygiene, and breaking down the migration program into manageable components can help organizations navigate the cloud migration process more effectively. Ultimately, focusing on the “why” rather than the “how” can democratize data and enable teams to gain actionable insights from the cloud migration.
