Top Cloud Migration Challenges & How to Overcome Them

When it comes to planning your cloud migration, there are some problems you might face and these will need to be dealt with effectively. It can be risky to migrate everything on to new systems yourself, so the help of professionals is always recommended. Here are some of the challenges you could possibly face and the best ways to deal with them… 

What is cloud migration?

Firstly, if you don’t know what cloud migration is, it’s basically moving all of your files, documents and programs onto a cloud computing environment. There are many benefits of using the cloud including security, usability, cost-effective, multi users and much more! For teams that have freelance or remote working employees the cloud would benefit you without a doubt. It will save time emailing files as everyone will have access to them from the same place, however, you do need to ensure everyone has a stable WiFi network for files to sync to the cloud. To start, you will likely need to use a company to help with your cloud migration process, they will make sure you have a minimum amount of problems. 

Make sure you have a clear strategy 

If you don’t have a clear strategy before migrating, you will need to overcome this if you haven’t migrated yet. It will be much more of a challenge if you don’t have steps to follow when migrating, most companies will help you with this. If you are a smaller company you might have the time to close everything down for a day or two and complete the procedure in one swoop. However, some larger companies don’t have the luxury of being able to close down, they will need to gradually complete the migration process and prioritise areas of the business to migrate slowly. 

Don’t exceed your planned budget

It’s essential to stick to a budget when migrating everything over to the cloud, decide how much you can afford to pay as a business. Closing down to migrate will obviously cost you money as you will still need to pay your employees for the days, so some stay open and gradually migrate. If you are working with a migration company, make sure they know your budget before you start migrating so they don’t add on extra costs. However, if you run into some security issues, you will need to pay to get this sorted. It’s recommended to put aside more than the cost of the migration, just in case you do run into any problems. 

Make sure your migration process puts security first 

One of the most important factors to consider when migrating is security, when you have migrated the security on your files and documents will be stronger, but during the process you need to be careful. You should make sure your IT group or the cloud company you are using for migration has an in-house DevOps engineer clued up on cloud security, of course, cloud providers will have this. 

Training your staff on cloud solutions

Training the staff in your company on the new cloud solutions is usually overlooked and shouldn’t be something you ignore. Training might take some time but it’s definitely worth doing it at the beginning before staff start using the cloud, if you don’t there will be lots of questions cropping up. Avoiding confusion should be one of the steps you take to have a successful experience with the cloud and minimise challenges in the future. 

Now you know exactly what to consider before migrating, you can be organised and make sure you have a strategy in place. It’s crucial not to exceed your budget and put security first when you are completing the process, especially if you have lots of private customer or client details saved. If you follow all this advice you will minimise challenges and hopefully have a smooth migration process. Good luck, it will all be worth it when you’re reaping the benefits of the cloud after the migration process is complete.