Tech mistake |If you’re thinking about moving to a cloud hosting platform, and you work in IT, you may be concerned about the process of cloud migration – moving your physical IT assets, such as servers, data centers, and long-term data storage into the cloud.
While cloud hosting does offer great benefits like flexibility, worldwide data access, and higher redundancy, it can be intimidating to move all of your data – there’s always the chance that something will go wrong.
So, how can you make sure that your migration is successful? By following these simple tips. Let’s get started, and discuss the essentials of any successful cloud migration strategy.
1. Pick The Right Cloud Hosting Partner
Before you even think about cloud migration, you need to make sure that you choose the right cloud hosting partner. Today, more companies than ever offer cloud hosting – from Amazon AWS web service to Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, and innumerable other companies.
Each cloud provider will have different pricing plans, depending on the bandwidth that you need, as well as, storage, computing load, and other such factors. You’ll need to make sure that you choose a cloud hosting partner who can handle all of your needs, and offers a flexible, low-cost pricing plan, and a Service Level Agreement (SLA) that guarantees that you’ll always get the resources and service that you pay for.
2. Don’t Be Intimidated By The Process
When you’re developing a cloud migration plan, it’s easy to become intimidated by the complexity of moving your systems to the cloud.
But remember that many consulting companies work with cloud migration, and can help you – and you can even turn to your cloud hosting provider for tips and information about proper migration steps.
There are a lot of resources out there to help you out – so do some research before getting started, and you’re sure to be properly prepared.
3. Define Your Timeline And Budget
You’ll need a budget for the renting of cloud hosting space, and also for the process of migrating your data. In many cases, you may need to hire a consultant or two to help you migrate your apps and data to the cloud and set them up if you do not have an adequately-sized IT team.
You should also define a timeline for each app and piece of hardware which you are migrating to the cloud. You don’t have to move all of your data at once – but you should have a clearly defined timeline, by which the entire process will be complete.
4. Begin The Migration Process (At The Right Time)
As a rule, we recommend trying to migrate data and systems on the weekend or a holiday. This ensures that, if something critical to your company does not transfer properly, or has a technical issue, it can be fixed before the work week begins, ensuring no loss of productivity.
Before you begin migrating any apps or data, make sure that everything is completely backed up, and can be quickly restored if your cloud migration fails.
5. Be Ready For Technical Problems (And Troubleshooting)
When you’re working with complex computer systems and software in IT, something will always go wrong. With luck, you’ll only have minor difficulties when transferring your data to the cloud – but there’s always the chance that you’ll have more serious technical problems.
Be ready for these issues – and have a plan to address them. You may want to log the errors and problems, for example, and then consult with your could provider to discuss them, and what may be causing them.
In the intervening time, you can continue to use your on-premises servers and software, until the issue is resolved, and you can migrate your systems successfully.
Follow These Tips – And Don’t Fear The Cloud!
Migrating to the cloud is not easy. But as long as you take your time, consult with experts, and prepare for any issues that may happen during the migration process, you’re sure to succeed. So follow these tips – and start your cloud migration project today.