Many businesses still rely on some form of legacy on premises infrastructure that they own, host or manage. Moving workloads, applications and processes to the cloud can allow businesses to accelerate innovation to help businesses stand out from their competitors.
What is Cloud Migration?
A cloud migration is the process of moving assets into the cloud. This would involve data and migration. It also includes the ongoing process of maintaining and optimising the cloud once the migration is complete.
Benefits of Moving to the Cloud
Cost Efficiency and Scalability
Cloud technology allows businesses to only pay for what they use. With on-premise infrastructure you will have a large upfront investment for the technology. You will also have to fork out on things on maintenance and electricity. When you need to upgrade, it means upgrading all of the hardware and this could take months. Similarly, there is no easy way for businesses to downgrade if their needs change over time. In comparison, with the cloud, it is simple to increase or decrease resources as required with no significant upfront costs involved. Once the technology is set up, the business only pays for what they use, and nothing more.
Performance and Reliability
The Azure cloud has a 99.9% uptime and is one of the most powerful clouds available. It keeps network latency low and provides an end-user experience that is significantly faster and more powerful than high-end on-premises infrastructure.
Security
Microsoft has over 3,500 cybersecurity professionals working 24/7. It has advanced AI, working to keep all processes, applications, and data in the cloud safe. This ensures that businesses can feel safe knowing that their precious data and applications will not fall into the hands of a cybercriminal. Similarly, there are many IT security features built into the Azure cloud to help IT professionals run cloud processes safely and effectively.
Cloud Migration Process
The process of migrating to the cloud requires expertise and a deep understanding of a business and its goals. It includes the initial planning and assessment of systems. From here the migration strategy is designed with contingency plans and roll-back plans to answer worst case scenarios. A pilot migration is then completed to resolve any issues and ensure that all requirements will be met. Finally, the migration will be run, typically over a weekend, or throughout the night, to limit the amount of disruption for the business and its employees. This process of migration is typically undertaken by a third-party IT provider.
Key Challenges
Lack of Strategy and Planning
If businesses rush this process of migration, they will likely have a poor final outcome. Each business has different requirements and goals. The right IT provider will be able to design a migration strategy that sets them up for success and longevity of cloud systems.
Poor Cost Optimisation
Although one of the key benefits of moving to the cloud are cost savings, as costs are based off resource consumption, if a business does not optimise their usage and costs, they may be surprised by a high bill. Azure has free built-in functionality to predict usage and the associated costs. Azure also has tools available to optimise usage to decrease overall costs whilst increasing efficiency.
Ready to Move to the Cloud?
Moving to the cloud can help businesses grow, whilst increasing profitability, productivity and accelerating digital transformation. However, in order to realise these benefits, the migration process must be carefully designed and monitored by a team of professionals. If you want to find out more about how we can help you migrate to the cloud, get in contact with us today.
Previous
