Cloud Migration Pitfalls and Tips to Avoid Them

Innovation for any business is mandatory, considering the competition in the market and customer demands. Companies adopt strategic policies to enhance conversions, and one of these strategies to target gains is cloud migration. 

Cloud migration has become an inevitable factor for businesses to compete in the market due to its undeniably advanced features like on-demand self-service, easy maintenance, scalability, and rapid elasticity. However, cloud migration is a daunting task as almost 75 percent of companies that initiates cloud migration often fail to accomplish it with anticipated efficiency, according to a survey. Thus, they often revert to their original infrastructure due to cloud migration challenges.

Based on this data, it is easy to comprehend the cloud migration challenges organizations must encounter. But what are those challenges, and why do most businesses often fail to migrate successfully to the cloud? This blog will provide insights into some of the most common cloud migration pitfalls, challenges businesses to face when migrating to the cloud and how to avoid those pitfalls. 

7 Major Mistakes That Occur During Cloud Migration

Before diving into the cloud migration challenges, businesses should know that a successful and seamless migration demands considerable work, time, effort, planning, and strategy that must be done correctly.

Getting Started Earlier Without Finalizing the Cloud Migration Strategy and Project's Scope   

One of the most crucial pitfalls is not to develop a  strategy and scope around the project. The practice that so many teams dive right into the migration without even considering the initial process they're going to adapt raises such significant issues that it demands expensive rework and failed projects.  

Thus, to avoid these terrible errors, draft a cloud migration roadmap that you will stick to during the real-time migration. The roadmap should provide the basis for the workload migrations and insights into the key performance indicators (KPIs). Make sure you know why you're migrating and what workloads, i.e., applications, containers, software, and databases, you are moving to the cloud. Consider the challenges you might face for single application migration, full-portfolio migration, and linked application migration to the cloud. 

Rushing the Cloud Migration All at Once Without Even Knowing the Availability of Cloud Data Location 

Organizations often fail to realize that the cloud and server location plays a massive role in cloud migration's costs, performance, and efficiency. Due to a distant data location, the cost implications result in additional charges to access global connections and avail of international service solutions. Hence, rushing the cloud migration without even realizing the availability of data location severely affects the business performance and demands a high budget for its effective operation.

Thus, when you're planning the strategy for cloud migration, contact the cloud migration service providers and ask them about the cloud data locations. Consult with cloud migration experts to know the location best for your needs. Also, draft enough strategies to cope in case of disasters. A good recommendation from our cloud migration experts is to opt for global cloud migration service providers. These service providers offer edge devices and local connection points that won't charge additional costs.  Moreover, do some cloud migration consulting with the experts, and discuss and solve relevant data location use cases. 

Initiating the Migration Without Estimating the Costs and Project Value 

Another mistake an organization makes is not estimating the final figure of total expenses for cloud migration. Hence, when they fail to include the costs in the project plan, the budget often exceeds the amount one has set aside due to unforeseen expenditures and uncertain circumstances like accessing data locations, as discussed earlier. This negligence affects the businesses' overall budget and thus also affects and delays the profits one has estimated due to successful cloud migration. So, if you're migrating to the cloud, make sure to analyze, in a proper way, the expected time and costs required to migrate the workloads into a cloud computing environment successfully. 

Underestimating the Readiness and Compatibility of Applications to be Shifted to the Cloud 

Another common cloud migration challenge is not realizing the readiness and compatibility of the workload you're shifting to the cloud. Some applications require refactoring, rewriting, and even redesigning to be compatible with the cloud computing environment.

Thus, analyzing and researching your workloads are cloud migration best practices to avoid this pitfall. It would help if you studied what workloads need alterations, refactoring, and rewriting, what workloads can be moved "as-is," and what workloads need complete replacement to be compatible with the cloud environment.  

Showing Zero Flexibility Along with a "One Size Fits All" Approach 

Understand that you cannot use the same infrastructure for all types of workloads. Different applications require different service options and paths. As all applications do not comply with the same infrastructure, working with this incomplete strategy often leads to failed migrations.

In the world of digital transformation, various applications and workloads require different migration strategies. To avoid this cloud migration challenge, after you analyze which applications should be migrated to the cloud, decide on the infrastructures to be used, such as Platform as a Platform as a Service (PaaS), or Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) for those applications based on their needs. Moreover, keep in mind that migration of a single application can involve two different strategies. For example, you are using IaaS for application migration to the cloud to replace the on-premises servers and using PaaS for the operating systems to virtualize your application workloads. Thus, go through each application step by step and choose what approach fits best for each application based on your needs and the application's compatibility. 

Zero Planning for Change Management 

Cloud migration is undoubtedly challenging, especially when you're topped up with the pressure to modernize without hindering and jeopardizing business progress. After you've achieved a successful cloud migration, it is natural that employees will have to jump out of their comfort zones to deal with the cloud computing environments. This hindrance in the employee's comfort affects productivity, progress, and behavior. 

As most employees are reluctant to change and prefer the traditional circumstances over advanced ones, migrating without considering the change management is a huge pitfall. 

To avoid such situations, ensure that you keep the employees up-to-date and inform them of the challenges they might face after a successful migration. Bring some change management experts  so they can pre-hand prepare the employees by boosting their morale, helping them accept the change so the employees' side does not hinder the organization's progress. Hence, you should preplan on how you're looking to step into advancements synergistically and how you should help reduce the risk for business after cloud migration happens. Moreover, consider providing the employees some bonuses, benefits, and rewards as compensation for their additional efforts and to balance disturbances in their comfort zones. 

Transferring Confidential Data First Without Taking Mandatory Security Measures 

Another pitfall for cloud migration is migrating sensitive data into the cloud environment without considering the fundamental security measures. Such practices often put a severe risk to confidential data, such as cyber-attacks and vulnerabilities to unauthorized access, that are catastrophic and can severely affect the business grounds.

Hence, an effective recommendation is first to migrate common and not sensitive data. Another learning curve in adapting to this strategy is to leverage the new cloud environments with standard data instead of risking confidential data. Also, your common data risk is undoubtedly more beneficial than your sensitive data. Once you start getting familiar and comfortable with the cloud environment, you can begin migrating confidential information slowly after taking into account the necessary security measures. Some of the best security measures are enabling two-factor authentications and digital assets/rights management   . 

Executing a Successful Cloud Migration

It is not wrong to say that you might not even have thought about such challenges while planning for effective cloud migration. To tackle these pitfalls, developing a proper project plan is crucial. Also, here are some takeaways for you to ensure a seamless migration:

1. Don't rush directly into migration without considering critical aspects 
2. Set a migration strategy after consulting with cloud migration experts
3. Create a project scope that includes the in-depth estimated costs and time required for cloud migration
4. Timely update the employees and handle change management 
5. Do efficient security measures to secure sensitive data
6. Understand the readiness and compatibility of your applications with the migration strategy and infrastructure
7. Understand the use of multiple approaches for a successful migration 

If you're interested in learning more about the challenges, the importance of cloud migration, and tips on how to avoid them, we're here to help. Learn how the cloud can help your business. Explore our cloud modernization and migration services.