Best practice for cloud migration
Cloud migration is a hot topic for SMEs at the moment. If it were a place it would be Death Valley, scorching hot. However, the danger of dealing with something so hot is that if you don’t plan your approach correctly, you’re likely to end up with your fingers burned. This is especially true during moments of high business stress, such as the current Covid-19 pandemic, as companies can see the short-term wins of getting as much data off-premise as possible but may unwittingly take problematic short-cuts.
Of course, having your key business systems on the cloud brings tremendous benefits, such as remote worker flexibility, system availability, security and scalability. However, getting a robust and fully scrutinised plan in place before rushing into raising purchase orders will ensure that your cloud project is not only a success, but that you manage it without customer, staff or supplier impact.
The first step of any cloud or digital transformation project is to look at your current systems and workloads and weigh up the benefits of moving each of them to the cloud. Consider your current bottlenecks or service issues – are you struggling with branch office or remote workers accessing your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system? If so, it is a prime candidate to move off-premise.
Spend time grading each system or workload so that you end up with a prioritised list, as this will then drive your other decisions such as cost and time planning.
Whilst it may be a great goal to aim for, be realistic and remember that not all of your systems may be able to migrate to the cloud. Older line of business applications can be a sticking point, especially where vendors are not supporting the installation of these workloads in Azure or AWS. When you come across these sticking points, it’s sensible to add an item into your IT planning roadmap to re-evaluate these systems at a future date and consider other vendors or solutions that have a cloud-centric approach.
Similarly, although it is rewarding to remove every single server from the office, there are times when having a local server to provide quick cached access to data, or the ability for seamless sign-on at a branch office with poor connectivity, can make the difference between a successful cloud migration project and a nightmare of stressed and upset end-users. Being open to the possibility of re-using some physical equipment, as long as it’s in warranty and up to date, is a sensible mindset to have during the planning stage.
Before kicking off the cloud migration project, take a close look at the skills and tools you have internally. Your own in-house team may be the best suited people to move an internally developed system to the cloud, but they may be less suited to move your file shares or e-mail systems.
Where there is a skill gap, decide whether or not there is value in training your team to undertake this work.
