Cloud migration: What businesses should consider

Growing your business often means increasing your capacity to market to more people, produce more products, deliver more services, and manage the burgeoning business processes that go with all of those things. IT is a great tool for scaling up, and cloud computing makes IT much more affordable than it has ever been before.
 
This is why cloud migration has been and continues to be a popular data storage and IT workload management strategy among small- to- medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in California. However, business owners and managers worth their salt know that there’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution. To help you make decisions on cloud migration, here are a few things you need to consider.
 

How much of your business is ready for the cloud?

Similar to how a doctor performs a checkup on their patient to determine the treatment that patient needs, you’ll need a cloud specialist to perform a cloud readiness assessment on your business. This assessment will:

 
1. Determine the gaps in your IT infrastructure that the cloud can fill. For instance, if your organization doesn’t have a backup and disaster recovery plan in place, you can use the cloud to implement such a plan.
2. Compile an inventory of apps your business uses for its processes, then see which ones can be migrated to the cloud without a hitch.
3. Discover which business processes are already in the cloud. If you’re using G Suite, Office 365, or online project management apps like Trello, then you’re already in the cloud, even if only partially.
 

Which workloads should be in the cloud?

There’s a saying that goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” This means that when it comes to workloads, prioritize the ones that’ll be much better off in the cloud (e.g., managing databases and other processes that are computing resource-intensive) and leave well enough alone.

In fact, there are instances wherein keeping workloads or data storage on-premises is the better option. To illustrate, you might prefer to enforce stricter cybersecurity protocols over critical processes and avoid exposing these to the external threats that may be lurking in public clouds.

What do you want to achieve by migrating to the cloud?

Businesses are built differently and would naturally have different needs. Are you looking to accomplish on-premises to cloud migration because you’re running out of data storage space? Is it because your employees are now working from home and need to work on files and collaborate on projects? Are you worried about ransomware and would like to have a safety net for your data?

Coming up with concrete goals will help you gauge the benefits of the cloud against its costs. To illustrate, if you’ve already invested in data storage devices, then going for cloud data migration is likely to be a wasteful endeavor.

Are you certain about the security of the cloud migration services of your chosen provider?

The cloud is touted to be significantly more secure than on-premises infrastructure, but not all cloud providers are created equal. For instance, P&N Bank in Western Australia suffered a data breach when one of its third-party hosting providers was performing a server upgrade.

Furthermore, you’ll also have your fair share of cybersecurity responsibilities as a cloud user. Beyond vetting your cloud service provider, you’ll have to:

• Pick a secure cloud migration solution.
• Watch the cloud migration process closely.
• Set the proper security configurations.
• Exercise constant vigilance over your cloud.
 

While it may feel like we’ve covered a lot of ground regarding the cloud just now, we’ve actually only just started. And once we get to look into what your business needs, we’ll definitely have a lot more to tell you. For more assistance with cloud migrations and cloud-based solutions, talk to our experts at SimplyClouds today.