Migration to the cloud can deliver big results to a business in terms of efficiency, scalability and savings. However, without careful planning and a solid understanding of what and why you’re migrating to the cloud, the whole process can become difficult and fail to deliver benefits to your bottom line.

A cloud migration can be complex and often requires many stakeholders across the organisation and advanced technical expertise. To reap the benefits of a new cloud model, there are a few key areas that must be given careful consideration and attention. Overcoming the recurring mistakes in a cloud migration can be tough but with a little planning, your business can side-step the most common mistakes of the process and start enjoying the efficiency of the cloud.

1. Not aligning cloud goals with business objectives

A cloud model and project goals need to be closely aligned with overarching business objectives. What is the medium to long-term benefit that your business leaders are looking to achieve? How will the cloud migration assist in delivering this? It’s crucial that leaders understand why you’re migrating to the cloud and the benefits it will deliver in terms of cost and efficiencies. This must be tied to the organisation’s strategic vision, IT infrastructure, and business continuity plans. Take time to develop a clear cloud migration strategy that shows your vision and how it will deliver on bigger objectives.

2. Leaving key stakeholders out of planning

This follows closely from the first point. Cloud migration impacts every part of the business, not just IT. It’s critical that key stakeholders, leaders, and teams are brought into the discussion early and given the big picture vision of why the migration is happening. Large projects like a cloud migration invariably introduces new standards and procedures to a company’s operating rhythm and impact different departments in different ways. Stakeholder engagement helps identify any potential challenges or issues ahead of time and highlights processes and systems that could benefit from the cloud migration.

3. Failing to understand and prioritise what needs to be migrated

Sometimes not everything is going to move to the cloud and what does may not migrate at the same time. You’ve got a lot of data, applications and processes, so how do you prioritise what you’ll migrate to the cloud? It’s important to use the services of your selected cloud provider to map out your systems, identify legacy applications and develop a clear plan of what you will migrate and when.

Prioritising critical applications or data based on importance to the business, security, and performance gives you quick wins for your cloud migration.

4. Not seeking expert advice

It’s unlikely that you will have all the expertise you need to successfully migrate to the cloud in-house. Beyond the initial migration, there is also the task of managing and monitoring the cloud to keep it running efficiently.

Seek expert advice when planning a cloud migration to help ensure it’s running smoothly at all times. Assess your own IT team’s skills and experience to identify any gaps and then engage experts who complement the team. Alternatively, opt for a fully managed cloud solution that frees up your IT team to focus on other key projects.

5. Failing to test before launch

Like any new technology or system, the cloud must be fully tested before it’s launched. Failure to completely test the cloud can result in broken processes, lost data, and downtime for essential operations.

The testing process should focus on performance and security to ensure your new cloud performs at the required level and meets the security requirements for your critical systems and data. Benchmark your expected performance outcomes and monitor the cloud to ensure it meets these standards.

Migrating to the cloud presents some key challenges but the wide-ranging benefits can put your business on the road to increased efficiency and performance. Proper planning in the initial stages, aligning cloud migration with strategic business objectives and engaging with key stakeholders early, will ensure the project is designed to deliver maximum benefits. Seeking expert advice to help plan your migration and manage your cloud will set your business up for cloud migration success.

DSCloud drives business faster with agile, scalable, and simple cloud solutions. Designed to align perfectly with your business needs and infrastructure, this secure cloud system creates the ultimate virtual environment for your workload. Find out more about our cloud products at digitalsense.com.au/our-difference/#cloud-difference