Moving to the cloud comes with positive changes to the systems’ scalability, flexibility, and overall performance. However, cloud migration is a complex process that requires more than just moving applications to different environments. Poor planning may result in the business facing delays and higher costs and losing operational efficiency.
In this guide, you will learn about seven of the most common and overlooked challenges of the cloud migration process.
1. Underestimating Migration Complexity
Moving to the cloud might be more complicated than the simple moving of data and applications traditionally done. A significant amount of planning is required for legacy software, custom integrations, and dozens of databases and systems that are interconnected.
If you migrate too quickly and fail to take into account any dependencies, you could end up with even more complicated problems. Taking the time to work through systems and catalogue existing architecture saves more time before the relocation journey begins.
2. Lack of a Clear Migration Strategy
The migration of some organisations to the cloud is approached without a well-defined strategy. Teams may get disorganised if there are no defined main goals, timeframes, or priorities.
Once goals are set, it’s easier to decide which systems to migrate, which applications to change, and how to minimise downtime. How well this stage is completed often determines how well the migration will go.
3. Ignoring Legacy System Dependencies
Legacy systems tend to include some software components that aren’t cloud-compatible. Failure to identify these dependencies could lead to application failures or performance issues during the migration.
Identifying these dependencies as a migration start is possible with the right experience. Zinkworks, for example, is a cloud migration consultancy that assumes the legacy systems will need to be modernised, replaced, or modified to be cloud compatible.
4. Overlooking Security Configuration
Any misconfigurations could be a potential point of failure. But as the security of the cloud environments is shared, this is something that companies overlook among their cloud security provider responsibilities.
Your company is still responsible for cloud security components such as identity management, access control, and the protection of your data.
5. Unexpected Cost Increases
People believe that the cloud simplifies things and actually saves you money. In some cases, this is true, but poor planning can mean additional costs that were not anticipated.
Even though there is a cloud migration that is supposed to be saving you money, unmanaged resources, inefficient storage, and excessive data transfers can increase operating costs. Just monitor usage and optimise resources, and costs can be reduced.
6. Insufficient Staff Training
New workflows, tools, and management systems are part of cloud environments. This can result in lower productivity, and it may take some time to recover, especially if employees are not familiar with the new cloud environment.
Your first step is to make sure that there is some look at training, especially with written tutorial documentation. From there, it’s easy for team members and employees to start getting the most out of the programme once they understand the cloud and how to use the systems.
7. Lack of Ongoing Optimisation
Many businesses are finishing their first moves to the cloud, but they aren’t making the most of their workloads.
Cloud systems work best when they are fine-tuned, rebalanced, and adjusted for performance. Also, these systems can change and grow to meet the needs of the business as they change over time.
Avoiding Costly Cloud Migration Mistakes
Moving to the cloud has benefits, but you need to plan carefully to make it work. Finding the most common mistakes early on makes it easier to plan the migration, which lowers risk and disruption.
