With the current state of the national an international marketplace, the question of your company implementing cloud-based solutions is no longer a question of if, but when.
When it comes to the cloud, the key advantages are accessibility, agility, analytics, security, scalability, and flexibility. Most companies either save money directly from cloud migration or at least free up accessible funds.
While it's true that initial cloud migration does not always go smoothly, with careful planning and scaled implementation, you can avoid many common challenges and pitfalls. We’re going to look at five key things to remember for every cloud migration to maximize your chances for success.
Key 1: Partner’s Accountability – The Team Mentality
When choosing a partner for your companies shift to the cloud, it’s important not only to bring the best minds to the table but also to expect the same from your outside partner. There is no such thing as one-size-fits-all when it comes to cloud migration and the partner you choose should show that they’ve researched your company and its needs ahead of the initial meeting.
Key 2: Choose Carefully and Concisely
When migrating to the cloud, many people have the misconception that it’s like pouring water from a bucket – that is, it’s all or nothing with little choice in the way the water flows. In reality, you need to be picky about what, when, and how your company migrates to the cloud.
Key 3: Innovate and Optimize
The goal of moving to the cloud relates to optimization and innovation - the optimization of increasing the speed and accuracy of a task's completion and the innovation of refactoring applications to be cloud-native. “Cloud-native” refers to the idea that you can either augment or totally swap out the application being utilized for a given task or service so that it takes advantage of what the cloud has to offer.
Key 4: Start in the Middle of the Spider’s Web
When planning your strategy for cloud migration, it helps to think of the center of a spider’s web. It’s the crossing point for the business as a whole, the hub or center of activity. The vibrations and decisions sent out from the center affect the entire business. It’s important to think of how each decision ripples each strand of that web and determine how each ending department is impacted.
Key 5: Take it Back to Data
Cloud migration is an opportunity to throw out the playbook for how things have always been done – the most common change companies make relates to data. Specifically, the way they acquire, store, access, and analyze it. The advent of the cloud has led to a boom in the field of data analytics; therefore, you need to explore potential ways to enhance the insights your business gains from its data.
