Cloud migration is a daunting process for any company. So in this new (no-nonsense) post, we outline the five key things you MUST consider when migrating to the cloud.
Let’s begin.
#1 Perform a comprehensive discovery process
Cloud migration is challenging. You need to understand the cloud requirements of your company to mitigate a seamless migration.
To do that, you need to perform a discovery process. This can help you get answers to:
- What are the gaps in your current process?
- What problems can you solve with cloud migration?
- How much money will you spend on top of your current costs?
- What features on your platform can you take advantage of?
Do it correctly, and you can develop a new architecture with a bottom-up approach to networking and security. And in doing so, thrive in the public cloud environment.
For the discovery process to work, you’ll have to take into consideration dependencies and the milestones you want to achieve.
Dependencies
Your dependencies shouldn’t be an afterthought. So, you need to make them a key factor from the beginning.
- Do you have multiple data connections?
- If so, where do they connect? And who has access to them?
- Will the same services be available in a private or public cloud offering?
- When migrating SaaS-based systems, will users have to change their behavior?
If employees leave the office and the direct connection, you then work with a different type of connection and a different source of traffic.
You end up with more mobility, but also greater security requirements, especially when it comes to data sharing and data compliance.
Decide what level of resiliency you need, and make sure the cloud migration service you’re considering can support it, or you’ll need to augment it on your end.
Milestones
Be it on-premise to cloud migration, or cloud-to-cloud migration, setting up milestones is key.
Without clear goals for your cloud migration activities, how will you know what you have achieved? And whether you have achieved anything at all?
At the same time, it’s essential to align those expectations with your business goals and set a timeframe within which you’ll have to reach those milestones.
Be realistic when building milestones. Look at performance, workflows, traffic patterns, and user satisfaction.
Monitoring platforms can help you set up benchmarks and data sets from where you can see if the cloud integration is a success as you reach each milestone.
#2 Business Drivers
How will your public or private cloud migration align with business drivers? What are the success markets that you have identified?
Consistency is key here, so you’ll need to focus on matching the functionality of the cloud with specific business drivers.
Here are a few things you’ll need to consider when aligning your cloud migration strategy with your business goals:
Reducing risk
What is the risk strategy? SaaS solutions should reduce some of the risk, but you’ll still need good cybersecurity.
If you’re switching from an on-premise to a private cloud, what is the cybersecurity outlook then? Have you evaluated the security of the SaaS providers? Do vendors pose a risk?
Add risk assessment to your cloud migration review, if you haven’t already.
Quick wins
What is the time-to-market? Are there fast and achievable goals? Quick wins?
Cut back on operational risk by creating a series of mini-projects that prove the cloud works and deliver quick wins.
Agility
How lean and agile is your company? Will the new cloud environment empower and support the goals? What is the long-term strategy?
The cloud solution should do more than just cut costs. Cloud migration should transform your company into a better and more flexible version of itself.
#3 Best Practices
We’ve prepared a cloud best practices checklist that can help your cloud migration efforts:
Understand the framework
When deploying the new cloud framework, evaluate your company’s standards, approaches and processes involved in building or deploying new remote technologies.
Choose a provider that’s a good fit to your framework and that can customize it to your specific needs.
Implement cloud controls correctly
To do this, you’ll have to know your current tech infrastructure and inventory. This will enable you to monitor the infrastructure and policies.
Layer your security
There is no oneway solution to security. That’s why you’ll need to take a layered approach during the cloud migration, especially when working in an SaaS-based environment.
That’s because as you start reaching milestones, new endpoints to cloud SaaS targets will emerge; traffic patterns will change; past network perimeters will erode a little.
Having policies and practices to deal with those endpoints will raise security and give you the best level of protection during your migration to the cloud.
#4 Identity Management
A big part of security is how you track accessibility for in-house and outside users across assets and networks.
You need a centralized overview of who is logging in, when, where, how are they accessing the system, and what exactly they are accessing.
ID management is a way of having every app include multi-factor authentication that hinges on conditional access. This can extend your firewall to and around remote users and devices.
#5 Find the Right Partner
Finally, for a successful cloud migration, you’ll need the right partner.
A trusted cloud and IT managed service provider can:
- Guide you through cloud migration
- Facilitate a smooth transition
- Highlight the value of add-ons and extra features
- Help you mitigate security risks and identify vulnerabilities
That’s where Demakis Technologies steps in.
With our managed IT services, tech experts can help you with all of this and seamlessly complete the entire cloud migration process together with you.
For more information, CONTACT US and one of our professionals will get in touch with you to answer all your questions and help you get started.