Is your business ready to embrace migrating your operational data to the cloud? Whether you’re finally making the switch to more modern practices or looking to upgrade your current solution, there are plenty of benefits to explore from utilizing the cloud for storage and integrated accessibility. In order to successfully transition, it’s important to be aware of a few key factors that inform what methods and long-term strategies will work best for your specific purposes.
At Solūt we know that ensuring you have the right framework in place is essential when considering cloud migration. Below, we’ll take a look at 3 key elements to keep in mind when making the switch. Read on to learn more!
Understand Your Business Needs and Objectives
As with any major business change, it’s integral to fully understand exactly what your company needs, as well as what your current and future objectives are. Without a clear set of goals and objectives (i.e. enhancing customer experience, streamlining operations, adding security and accessibility options), the entire migration process may fall short of your actual needs, not just for today, but in the near (and distant future). By understanding both the needs and ideal outcomes for your migration, it will be much easier to configure a custom solution that’s tailored to you.
Start by evaluating your current infrastructure, specifically your applications, data storage requirements, and current workflows. This assessment will help you identify which components are suitable for migration and which may require adjustments. You’ll also want to consider additional details like data security, compliance requirements, and potential impact on users during the transition.
Choose the Right Cloud Model and Provider
Cloud-based services are a dime a dozen in today’s digital market, but not everyone comes prepared to deliver exactly what they promise or what you actually need. Cloud computing has a wide variety of models including public, private, and hybrid options, each with its own attributes (and detractors). Ensure that your IT professionals know which model best aligns with your business requirements, and that the chosen solution will be able to scale alongside your business as required.
It is also crucial to make sure you have a reliable cloud provider that is able to offer security and peace of mind measures like uptime guarantees, positive reviews on their services, a diverse portfolio of IT services for broader industry understanding as a whole, and more.
Develop a Comprehensive Migration Strategy
To protect your data and operations as much as possible, the process of migrating to the cloud requires a well-defined strategy that encompasses every aspect of the process. The strategy you put into place should highlight the requirements across different stages, and ensure that every aspect is covered to avoid gaps and unnecessary complications. Determine the most suitable migration approach: “lift and shift” (re-hosting), rearchitecting, or a combination thereof. Re-hosting involves migrating applications to the cloud without significant modifications, while rearchitecting involves optimizing applications to leverage cloud-native features.
During the migration itself, you’ll need to consistently test the process to mitigate disruptions, and have contingency plans in place should any inconveniences occur. Once migration has been completed, focus on ongoing optimization and management, and leverage cloud-native tools and services to enhance performance, automate scaling, and improve cost management.
Manage Your Cloud Migration with Ease with Solūt
At Solūt, we bring over 20 years of experience to IT services, including cloud migration strategy and implementation. Our experts are here to help guide your business through the process, ensure everything is well-planned and executed, and that you have the right strategies in place to manage things moving forward.
Contact us today to get started on your cloud migration with confidence!