The Ultimate Guide to Cloud Migration

Cloud migration moves data and applications from an on-premise environment to a cloud environment, which allows for more flexibility and adaptability. Migrating to the cloud allows you to grow and innovate your business and processes without being limited by outdated resources.

There are two common types of cloud migration: the “lift and shift” method and the “transformation project” method. While these methods are very similar in their development processes, there is a major distinction between the two. The lift and shift method takes the current processes surrounding the business application and moves them to the cloud without any change. The transformation project method uses the migration to the cloud as an opportunity to not only make the shift to the cloud, but to re-engineer business operations. Knowing the pros, cons, and steps of migrating to the cloud can help you determine which method would be best for you and what it could look like at your organization.

There are many benefits of moving to the cloud, including the increased reliability, simplified integrations with other business applications, and the financial improvement that businesses experience. However, change management and scope creep—adding additional features or functions that were not originally accounted for—tend to be hindrances of cloud adoption. You will have to take a close examination of your own business and operations to determine if it is the right decision.

Pros

Reliability

Cloud applications are self-healing, as they don’t require the business users to repair them in the unlikely event of system failure. Your cloud service provider takes care of the recovery process for you. This provides your business with the peace of mind that your application is always monitored in the background of your day-to-day operations, so uptime and user access to the application will not be impeded. In addition, during implementation, multiple iterations of the application are built and tested. These iterations are pieces of the application built by developers and tested by users to gather feedback and address concerns during the application development process rather than only at the end. This ensures that your new system is fully capable of the business requirements it needs to execute.

Easy Integrations

Cloud services have a variety of integrations with other business services available, making it easier for organizations to conduct daily operations. Some of these include point-of-sale systems, project management systems, team chat apps, and more. In addition to the simplification of operations, having multiple aspects of your business tied together with integrations can save your organization time and money.

cons

Change Management

There will be members of your organization who are resistant to change, and it will be a challenge to persuade them and train them to use to the system. But there are some strategies you can proactively employ at your organization to better manage and prepare for this change. To start, always gain the support of C-level leaders in the organization. When the company leadership is supportive of the change, it is easier for that same level of support to trickle down into the other levels of the business and across all departments. Another significant piece of gaining support is by communicating the message clearly. Help all members of your team to understand what will be changing, why it is being done, and who is taking ownership of the change. This will eliminate the fear of the unknown, and bring everyone onto the same page of what is happening within the organization. A well-managed cloud migration project should take input from business users without using up all of their time, and good cloud consulting and migration companies will help to mitigate challenges as you and your team adjust to the change.

Scope Creep

Before you begin the implementation of migrating to the cloud, you will first determine the requirements and capabilities that you want the system to have. However, as you begin implementation, scope creep can become a major concern. When your application is already partially built, it is difficult to make additional features and functions that were not originally intended. This is not to say that you should dismiss all additional functionalities brought to your attention, but evaluate each one carefully to determine if it is really needed. If it is essential or will add immense value to a majority of users, then add it into the development process. Otherwise, leave it out.

Often times, the IT team is spearheading the implementation of the cloud system, but the results experienced from the migration span across all departments in an organization, not just the IT department. The departments that tend to see the most impact are HR, Finance, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, and CRM Automation.

Though departments may experience unique benefits, there are many overlapping benefits as well. The unification of processes, reduction in human error, improved scalability, increased productivity, and reduction in maintenance costs are a few of the many improvements that departments experience after migration.

There is a burgeoning number of success stories of businesses who have migrated to the cloud, and in most instances, significant cross-departmental benefits are present. From universities to Fortune 500 companies, organizations have been able to exponentially increase their flexibility, reduce paperwork, simplify reporting, streamline performance management, and refocus resources on more strategic work.

As previously stated, there are two types of cloud migration processes that will allow for a successful migration: the “lift and shift” method and the “transformation project” method. The difference is that the lift and shift method takes the current processes surrounding the business application and moves them to the cloud without any change, and the transformation project method not only makes the shift to the cloud, but also re-engineers business operations. The following three steps are used for both the lift and shift method and the transformation project method.

2. Implementation

In the implementation stage, the application is built using a mix of both waterfall and agile methodologies. During the implementation phase, your organization will host an interactive design workshop. In this meeting, you’ll collect the requirements and determine the capabilities you want the system to have, which will control the scope of the project. If your business is using the transformation project method, these design requirements will be much longer and more detailed depending on how many operational changes you plan to make.

Also during this stage, you will go through two to three iterations of the application. In each one, a piece of the application is built and then tested by users to gather feedback and ensure that your team is comfortable and happy with using it.

Avoid Common Mistakes

Although each experience with cloud migration is unique, there are some common mistakes to avoid. To highlight a few, don’t assume that all cloud environments are the same, sufficiently test your application throughout the development process, and ensure that your security policies are in place for the new environment.

Each cloud application is dependent on the specific design requirements and scope that your business decides. Understand that your use and experience with your cloud application may be very different than another business’s experience.

Throughout the entire process, ensure that you are sufficiently documenting the process. Most importantly, test everything. Record the design and testing of the processes, challenges that occurred, and how you were able to overcome those challenges. Create a backup software and disaster recovery plan, and then test it to ensure its functionality. Documenting details and validating your results of tests is critical to the migration process.

Double check that your security policies are in place for your new cloud environment, as moving your infrastructure to the cloud can lead to inconsistent or incomplete security policies. Establishing standards for user access, system and application configuration, and monitoring within the new system should be added to the scope of the project during the planning phase.