Mistakes to Avoid When Planning a Cloud Migration

Amit Kumar Pathak Amit Kumar Pathak/ Updated: Oct 28, 2024
5 min read

Preparation of cloud migration must not be done in a hurry but with a planned and smooth structured process. Since more businesses are progressively adopting cloud frameworks into their operations, data migration must be done with caution. 

A survey by Flexera found that 93% of organizations are using a hybrid cloud approach. Along with that, 80% of organizations believe security is a major challenge when adopting cloud services. Hence, it becomes even more necessary for them to ensure a proper migration.

To help you with that, we have brought a thoughtful and well-researched list of some mistakes that you must avoid when planning a cloud migration.

No/Little Planning

Cloud migrations are a huge undertaking. And if you don’t plan them effectively, a lot of things will go wrong. So the first thing you want to do is to create a plan and stick with it. If you’re not doing that, then it will be a huge challenge to ensure everything works appropriately. One effective additional step is taking advantage of IT consulting experts, who can offer specialized knowledge in cloud architecture and migration strategies. These professionals can help assess your current infrastructure, identify potential challenges, and design a tailored migration plan that aligns with your business objectives. They ensure that you not only avoid common pitfalls but also optimize your cloud environment for better performance and scalability.

The process of could migration goes through different phases. These phases include:

  1. Preparing
  2. Planning
  3. Migrating
  4. Operating
  5. Optimizing

You need to research each phase and do your planning.

infographic of top cloud providers

No Plan B

Aside from having a plan, you also need to have a disaster recovery option or plan B. At the end of the day. You never know how these things will work, if there will be problems, or if you have to find a replacement. That’s extremely difficult in most cases, so having an alternative plan helps quite a lot.

To ensure that you have a comprehensive disaster management strategy, you need to:

  • Keep maintaining backups,
  • Choosing a recovery site,
  • Monitoring and alerting, 
  • Defining roles and responsibilities

If everything is done with that, you may easily create a plan B.

Migrating Everything at Once

The best migrating methodology is to not migrate it all at once. Instead, you have to slowly migrate things. That way, if there are issues, there are way fewer concerns to fix. Otherwise, if you migrate it all, and you encounter difficulties, those can be very significant.

A Lack of Proper Budgeting

Migrating to the cloud can be tricky and expensive, but it’s also the type of thing that will deliver some nice benefits and results. For a lot of people, the best rule of thumb is to have a budget and stick with it. You can improve upon the budget if you feel like it, but it always comes down to having the best solutions and staying consistent.

Here are some key areas that affect the budget of your data migration:

  • Infrastructure setup cost
  • Data transfer cost
  • Application refactoring costs
  • Post-migration costs

A subtle change in these aspects can significantly disturb your whole budget. That is why, you need to make sure you monitor each and every move in all aspects.

cloud storage over the years

STATISTICS This graph shows the percentage of corporate data stored in the cloud over the year.

No Security

Hacking attacks will sometimes arise when you migrate to the cloud. That’s because hackers will sometimes learn about this, and they know such a time can make the data vulnerable. That’s why you always want to implement the right systems in place, and once you manage it adequately, that will deliver a more consistent result.

When migrating, you have to examine some strong security concerns during cloud migration. Here are some of those:

  • Unauthorized access: Only the respective person who is concerned with the data must get access to it.
  • Data Breaches and Leaks: There must not be any area or loophole that is vulnerable to any kind of data breach or hacking.
  • Data Encryption and Key Management: Data encryption makes the information unreadable to anyone except the sender or the receiver.
  • CSP Vulnerabilities: In CSP, there must not be any vulnerability or weak point that hackers can leverage for their data loot. 

If you have mastered these points, congrats, you and your cloud framework are pretty much secured now than ever before.

Regulatory Compliance

Some companies won’t assess the current regulations, and that is a problem. If you’re not complying with the current industry rules or the country’s regulations, that will be quite the issue. You can end up with penalties and all sorts of issues that might sometimes arise.

One thing is certain, always make sure that you plan an adequate cloud migration. Whereas, the migration process can be difficult, it can also be very eye-opening. It will give you the means to assess your work, narrow down issues, and solve them. Yes, migrating to the cloud can be tricky, and quite expensive at times. But that’s where you need to strategize, focus on results, and implement the best systems. It’s effective, and it will work, but you have to plan accordingly and have a fail-safe where necessary!

Final Words

Cloud migration has become a trend in modern businesses as they are shifting to hybrid or complete cloud infrastructure. This article covered some of the common mistakes that enterprises follow, which you need to avoid for a seamless and smooth cloud migration. If you find this article helpful, consider sharing it with other team members as well. 

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