With global end-user spending on public cloud services expected to exceed $480 billion this year, it’s safe to say that almost every organization is migrating to the cloud today; but not all of them are witnessing the expected levels of success with their migration efforts. While some are taking way too long to become cloud-first, many others are stumbling upon several roadblocks along the way. If you want to accelerate cloud migration while also mitigating risks at the same time, you need to evaluate the different cloud migration acceleration methodologies you can put in place to achieve greater success faster.
The Biggest Challenges You Face in Accelerating Cloud Migration
Cloud migration, although a critical business priority today, is no mean feat. It requires careful planning, a robust roadmap, and a qualified team of experts who know what it takes to accelerate cloud migration while minimizing risks and costs. This is the reason why most organizations that embark on the cloud migration journey end up facing an array of challenges, including:
- Limited or no leadership support along with strict deadlines and limited budget
- An incompetent team of in-house resources with little or no experience in enterprise cloud migration projects
- Lack of the right tools or methodologies required for successful migration outcomes
- Slow internet connections that make the migration process long and arduous
- Little or no insight into what data is important, what data needs to be moved, and what data can be left behind
- Poor communication between IT teams and the top leadership which leads to errors and lost time
- Incongruence of roles and responsibilities with blurred accountability
The Top Cloud Migration Accelerators
High costs, never-ending timelines, and resistance are three of the most common themes associated with large-scale cloud migration strategies. Although every company today is looking to move to the cloud, given the complexity and intricacy of moving workloads and data to the cloud, there is a high risk of failure. If you want your cloud migration efforts to pay off, you need to embrace the right strategies. Here are top accelerators to try to speed up cloud migration:
Clean Up Your Data
One of the biggest mistakes organizations make is taking all their existing data to the cloud; data that is old, unclean, and irrelevant, which not only makes the cloud migration process slow, but also extremely inefficient. If you want to accelerate cloud migration, you first need to clean up your data. Make sure to review all your existing data sets and prioritize on what data you want to move to the cloud, what data needs to be updated, and what can just be discarded – for the best and fastest migration.
Optimize Your Network
Another common hurdle that makes cloud migration slow and complex is the reliance on poor networks. Since migrating large amounts can data can take months or even years, you need to configure a cloud network that helps you securely extend connections between your on-premises and cloud infrastructure and allows you to leverage reliable, secure, and high bandwidth internet for quick transfer.
Implement a Cloud Center of Excellence
Establishing a Cloud Center of Excellence is an effective way to accelerate the cloud migration journey. Comprising qualified cloud and technical experts, such a cross-functional team can help in setting up the right strategies and policies while also overseeing each and every step of the migration for the best and quickest results.
Consider Cloud Storage
Moving millions of TB of data from on-premises servers into the cloud also requires you to consider different cloud storage options. Since migrating out of tenured, familiar data storage solutions requires serious and tedious efforts in designing, planning, and executing your cloud data migration project plan, you need to embrace advanced cloud storage options to enjoy the expected levels of performance and scalability in the cloud.
Pair Up with Cloud Experts
A sure-shot way of accelerating cloud migration is to pair up with cloud experts who know the nuances of complex migration processes. Regardless of how competent your in-house team is, partnering with Managed Cloud Professionals with expertise in cloud migration and management means you can get access to tools and skill sets for accelerated, reliable, and secure migration outcomes. And since these resources can be hired on-demand, you can scale them up and down as per your need, and successfully build, deploy, run, and manage workloads on the cloud.
Run Through Migration
If you find your cloud migration getting delayed because the tools you use or the path you take does not meet certain requirements, it pays to run through each and every decision you take along the journey. Understanding what data or workloads you want to migrate, what tools or applications you want to leverage, and what roles and responsibilities your migration team has can help you eliminate migration delays while also adding contingencies to timelines and resources to accommodate changes. You should also always monitor each and every phase of the migration journey to quickly identify and mitigate risks and ensure you stick to your budgets and timelines.
Elevate Migration and Minimize Risks and Costs
Cloud migration is happening faster than expected, with almost every business eager to modernize processes, implement new technologies, and experience the many benefits that cloud offers. To accelerate cloud migration while avoiding risk, organizations need to develop a robust roadmap and embrace key cloud migration accelerators, so complex decisions can be taken with far greater ease. Cleaning up your data, optimizing your network, implementing a cloud CoE, considering cloud storage, pairing up with cloud experts, and running through your migration are all great ways to elevate cloud migration, minimize migration costs and risks, and avoid project delays.
