Top 5 common cloud migration mistakes that every organisation must avoid

With an increasing number of organisations accelerating their digital transformation efforts, the worldwide spending on Cloud computing is expected to be over USD 1.3 trillion by 2025.

Organisations of all sizes are rapidly transitioning their technology ecosystem into the Cloud to turn more competitive, and encourage innovation, while at the same time, saving costs. However, in the quest to become Cloud-friendly it is important to avoid pitfalls that can prove to be highly detrimental to the business’s growth prospects.

Let us explore the top 5 mistakes in Cloud migration that every organisation must avoid at all costs.

1. Migrating the Wrong Applications

The most basic step that can go wrong in a Cloud migration journey is the failure to identify the right candidate for migration. An enterprise may leverage multiple applications for managing its business activities. Even though the Cloud has its advantages, not every application needs to be moved to the Cloud, at least in the beginning.

There could be applications that do well in their existing infrastructure and do not require a quick Cloud revamp. While at the same time, there could be applications that may be starving for resources like computing power, storage, 3rd party services, etc. but still waiting for their chance to move to the Cloud. The solution here is to evaluate and assess each application in an enterprise’s technology landscape and identify and prioritise the right candidate, and order of succession to the Cloud. The prioritisation may be done based on criticality, cost of maintenance on on-premises, business growth, etc.

2. Unfair Cost Judgments

While prioritising applications for Cloud migration based on costs, it is important to consider the larger implications of migrating an application to the Cloud. There will be costs involved for vendor support, application re-engineering or configuration changes, delivery optimisation efforts, training, upskilling of staff, and much more.

The migration exercise itself will be a relatively complex endeavour. There may be chances of disruptions in business if there is poor planning during the exercise. Enterprises must consider such possibilities and evaluate whether their IT budgets can accommodate the scale of migration thus planned. It is advisable to first do a research and market study on how different types of enterprise applications fare on the Cloud, especially for businesses having similar interests. This knowledge can be used to estimate the effort needed to migrate different applications and subsequently their costs can be calculated. Only when the right budget constraints are satisfied, should you begin the migration process.

3. Ignoring Data Security

A recent survey of cybersecurity experts found that misconfiguration of Cloud security is one of the biggest security threats for nearly 62% of the survey participants. In a digital economy such as ours, organisations deal with massive volumes of data, especially confidential and sensitive customer data.

When moving their customer-facing digital assets to the Cloud, security is of prime importance. It is important to leverage best practices in secure data movement and conduct penetration testing of applications that are being re-engineered for deployment in Cloud environments. Additionally, enterprises must ensure that the Cloud Service Provider (CSP) they chose for different needs has its own defence mechanisms deployed which assure an additional layer of security for the enterprise’s digital assets.

4. Application Re-Engineering and Modifications

While we have touched upon this aspect as part of other mistakes, application re-engineering deserves its own spot in the list of mistakes to avoid. When migrating to the Cloud, most legacy applications may find their existing configurations to be a hindrance to adaptability. It could be due to an outdated technology stack or unsupported communication protocols or inefficient API configurations.

While moving to the Cloud, enterprises must ensure that their existing applications are assessed for Cloud readiness. If needed, they must be overhauled or re-engineered to weed out inefficiencies and empower them to fully utilise the dynamics and scalability of the Cloud, or in other words transition into a truly SaaS application.

5. Poor Strategic Planning

Lack of strategic planning is the key reason why most other mistakes happen during Cloud migration. In the era of rapid digitisation, every business must function as a tech company at its core. But unfortunately, many organisations do not have the specialized skills or knowledge to manage their Cloud migrations.

The lack of a strategic roadmap can derail even the smallest migration exercise. From leveraging the type of Cloud to estimating costs, the lack of knowledge about Cloud migration can hinder organisations from making the most profitable decisions for their technology investments.

The article has been written by Nikhil Rathi, founder and CEO, Web Werks Data Centers