Cloud migration is a complex process that involves financial costs, technical challenges, and a need for structural and cultural change. It can be challenging for organizations to overcome these obstacles and succeed with their cloud strategy.
In this article, we will tackle five of the most common cloud migration challenges and how to overcome them so that you can successfully migrate your business – and all of your critical documents and records – to the cloud.
What Creates Cloud Migration Challenges?
There are many different reasons why companies experience challenges with cloud migration. Which challenge is your company facing?
1. Lack of Internal Resources
The cloud migration process is resource-intensive and needs the support of stakeholders from across the organization. Without a comprehensive plan, the process can get convoluted and cause problems. This scenario can be costly and time-consuming to undo.
In addition, the cloud migration process requires a clear business objective to motivate employees and ensure a smooth transition. The goal should be to:
- Maximize business continuity
- Reduce IT costs
- Improve security
- Increase productivity
Once you have a clear business goal in mind, the next step is to develop a strategy that addresses all of these factors. This involves thorough, meaningful discussions with key stakeholders and creating a roadmap that prioritizes objectives and resources.
When you are developing a cloud migration strategy, it is important to identify the applications that will benefit from the move and those that won’t. Removing non-critical apps can save valuable resources and ensure that your cloud migration is successful.
Lift and Shift
One common way to minimize application migration issues is to use lift-and-shift, which entails moving your applications to the cloud but keeping them in their current form. This method is popular with companies that are still at the start of their cloud journey and want to make minimal changes to their application.
Move and Improve
Another way to reduce application migration issues is to adopt a move-and-improve strategy, which involves introducing cloud-native features to existing applications. This approach can be beneficial if you’re not ready to completely scrap your legacy applications, but it may not be the most cost-effective option.
Overall, Make a Plan!
The best way to address these challenges is by carefully planning out every stage of the process. Whether you’re moving to a private, public, or hybrid cloud, make sure that your architecture is able to support the change and that your team has the necessary skills and expertise to handle the project.
The right cloud migration experts can help you create an effective strategy that meets the goals of your project and keeps everyone happy.
2. Lack of Experience
The cloud is a wonderful thing, but it also has its share of pitfalls. From a business standpoint, the best way to avoid a technology meltdown is to carefully examine your software infrastructure, identify your cloud requirements, and choose wisely among the many options.
One of the top challenges to a successful transition to the cloud is finding qualified and willing personnel with the relevant skills. A well-planned and implemented employee incentive program, aimed at both technical and non-technical employees alike, can help to bridge the gap.
To find the requisite talent, organizations should consider an active recruiting and retention strategy that includes training programs and job scheduling strategies to ensure the highest level of productivity. The right staff can make your cloud migration the most cost-effective and painless experience imaginable.
3. Vendor Lock-In
Vendor lock-in is a barrier to cloud migration that can prevent an organization from making the most of the benefits of cloud computing. It occurs when an organization becomes dependent on one vendor and cannot switch to another because it would be too costly or difficult to do so.
This challenge is a real problem for organizations that must migrate data and processes between cloud vendors. This can be a time-consuming and expensive process, especially when there is a large amount of data to transfer.
While it is important to have a solid cloud strategy in place, it is also vital to do due diligence at the contract stage to avoid as many potential lock-ins as possible. This step includes selecting a cloud service provider (CSP) that offers all the functionality you need and incorporates a migration plan in the contract.
The next step is to ensure that the data you use with your CSP is portable. This point is critical because the more portable your data, the less likely it is to be locked into proprietary formats when moving between providers.
Moreover, it is critical to make sure that your business has a backup plan for all your data. This effort can reduce the impact of vendor lock-in by ensuring that the data can be recovered in case it is lost or corrupted during migration.
4. Uncertainty About the Future
The business world is rapidly changing. Technology continues to advance, making it harder to predict what will happen next. Whether you’re planning a migration of an application or an entire cloud ecosystem, you can’t afford to let uncertainty about the future impede your progress.
Despite concerns about the future, the cloud continues to be a powerful force in transforming business. It’s a critical component of modern IT infrastructure and helps address common IT constraints, such as slow time to value, limited resources, and incompatible systems.
But even with the benefits, the migration process can be stressful. Successful cloud migration requires the leadership of a dedicated team with the skills to plan, execute, and monitor it.
When migrating, consider starting with apps that don’t affect your primary line of business or aren’t particularly complex. This step can help you lower the risk of a major misstep, making you less likely to regret it later.
However, you shouldn’t ignore more critical applications. These can be the ones that support your revenue/profit and differentiate your capabilities and core competencies from industry competitors.
A key to avoiding cloud migration chaos is to focus on what’s important and only migrate the apps that matter most. For example, if you want to migrate your HR system, focus on how it will help you manage employees more effectively.
In addition, you should make sure to develop a strong business case for your migration. A compelling argument for the value of moving to the cloud can be especially critical if you’re looking to justify your migration based on cost savings.
5. Lack of Communication
Communication is one of the most important aspects of any business, especially regarding cloud migration. Employees need to be aware of what’s going on in their company and how their work affects the success of other departments.
This type of communication breakdown can have a wide range of effects on the organization as a whole. It can lead to low self-esteem and ineffective teamwork and create issues related to employee engagement. Several things could cause this problem, and identifying them early on is a good idea.
– The first mistake is the fact that many businesses fail to communicate with their employees about the cloud migration process.
– Another common mistake is choosing the wrong cloud migration strategy. For example, some businesses opt to repurpose an application instead of just removing it and putting it into the cloud.
A better approach is to thoroughly evaluate the application, ensuring it will function properly in a cloud environment. This step includes assessing cloud service compatibility, performance, and potential customization needs.
It’s also a good idea to plan for integration, which may require changes or updates between systems and applications in both the cloud and on-premises environments.
The most effective approach to this challenge is to break down the entire cloud migration process into stages and adopt an “incremental” approach. This way, companies can focus on the most critical tasks first and lessen the chance of any delays or additional costs.
In addition, businesses should make sure that they have a transparent way to track all the different services and costs of the cloud project so that they can stay on top of their progress.
Find Support Solving Cloud Migration Challenges
Cloud migration is inevitable for any business that wants to stay competitive in today’s digital environment. Organizations that don’t move to the cloud will likely face challenges such as security threats, data breaches, and downtime, especially when managing records.
However, cloud migration challenges can arise when migrating to cloud computing. A cloud migration strategy can help you overcome these challenges to successfully move your business – and critical documents – to the cloud.
If you want a strategy tailored specifically for your organization, get in touch with the experts at Go Find It. We can help you determine the best approach to migrate to our secure, cloud-based document management solution. Get ready to upload, organize, and share documents securely!
