According to Forbes, 83% of enterprise workloads were projected to be in the cloud by the end of 2020. Now, halfway into 2021, businesses are fast-tracking those plans. Why? Migrating to the cloud saves money and allows organizations to scale resources as needed.
However, the benefits of migrating to the cloud are not without risk. In this article, we discuss hidden cloud migration challenges and how to avoid them in order to keep your organization running smoothly and efficiently.
Shift Your Thinking
Migrating to the cloud doesn’t happen overnight. Organizations often need to train existing staff extensively prior to cloud migration. Don’t allow clients to get caught making assumptions that migration to the cloud means that they won’t have to do anything once the migration has taken place. You’ll need to educate their internal IT staff to make sure they are on board, trained and ready to work to make the transition seamless.
Understand Capacity
Migrating to the cloud requires an understanding of the capacity required by each organization. Planning for and understanding capacity doesn’t always come easily. Encouraging organizations to evaluate and understand their usage prior to cloud migration will help decrease costs in the long run.
Take Inventory of Data and Transaction Storage
Storing transactional data is expensive — each bit of data counts. If an organization is storing individual components of a transaction, like contact information for each client, those components add up quickly. Encourage clients to take inventory of data and transaction storage before cloud migration to mitigate issues in the long run.
Don’t Forget About Governance, Workflows and Licensing
While migrating to the cloud has abundant positive attributes, there can also be hidden complexities. For example, there are so many options that sometimes it is difficult to see and fix them from the outside. Consider offering a network security program that allows IT staff to see what is happening in their workload and also provides the ability to troubleshoot quickly and effectively.
Governance and licensing are two other things to think about as you migrate to the cloud. With governance, one system administrator is often given limited access. If that person is inexperienced, they may not make the right decisions when the time comes. With licensure, it is sometimes unclear if existing licenses are sufficient or if they need to be updated.
Avoid These Pitfalls and Reap the Benefits
Despite some challenges to cloud migration, the overall benefits are amazing. Scalability, elasticity and security are tremendous benefits that make cloud migration attractive to organizations of all sizes. Avoiding pitfalls comes with education and experience. By thinking about and planning for these challenges prior to cloud migration, organizations can make a smooth transition to the cloud. At CPU, Inc., we know how to evaluate your needs and find the solution that works. Call us today at (866) 883-8836 or visit our website: www.CloudServicesForMSPs.com.
