It is no secret that cloud migration and transformation helps your business attain desired growth, cost savings, agility, and profitability. With these, your team is able address customer needs faster, monitor app performance, and scale applications according to demand.
App migration can be time-consuming, and you cannot afford to mess with the process. And a slight mistake can cause data corruption or loss. There is a need for a well-thought and smooth cloud migration process that will ensure you have the best results after deployment while making the process smooth and quick.
This article highlights five practices you must follow to achieve migration success. Each step handles a specific concern. For instance, you must adequately prepare staff and infrastructure before moving your information to a cloud platform. That way, you will avoid duplications and access errors. These strategies will help you make the best out of your app cloud migration.
Analyze Your Applications
App and data complexity affects many steps when moving applications to the cloud. You can determine migration efficiency by classifying applications and data. You can also group the apps and consider if they need re-hosting, refactoring, or rebuilding.
Data structure and dependencies dictate how you can handle the migration. Gradual migration is the best option if the application has multiple components. That way, you will move data to the cloud in smaller batches and avoid overwhelming your team. Luckily, some apps are easy to migrate and you can push them as one entity.
Your current system may force you to shut down operations entirely to move applications and services to the new environment. In such instances, you must alert your customers about the expected downtime and let them know how long it will take to get back online. Send the alert a week early or so. That enables them to take appropriate steps, like withdrawing sufficient cash if your firm runs a financial institution.
Draw Your Goals
Why exactly do you want to move your applications to the cloud? Every business has unique goals for its cloud migration. The answer to this question informs your entire cloud migration process and helps you decide the approach, the cloud platform to use, and the tools required. Additionally, you can determine how long the process will take and allocate resources adequately before its commencement.
In your digital transformation plan, describe the desired results. How do you intend to reach the goals? Will you use gradual migration or use a “big bang” strategy? What will you do if problems arise during the process? Carefully work with experts to analyze your goals, assess risks, and build a foolproof roadmap.
Be flexible with your plan. One strategy may fail. What would you do? For instance, you may determine that manual migration is the best option. But if the process requires more time and resources than expected, you should consider automation. However, your choices would depend on the data you are working with, the existing infrastructure, and the cloud platform.
Define Security Measures
Eavesdropping and tapping attacks can mess up your entire migration process. You must secure data when transferring it to a cloud environment. Employ data encryption when moving data to the cloud. You should also use a secure connection to ensure the data remains safe throughout the transmission process. Avoid intermittent connections as that can cause data corruption or omission. Instead, use the same line for all transfers to ensure data integrity.
Data access is another issue. Define who can access information and the cloud environment. Limit that to IT professionals, system admins, and the DevOps team. Mandate them to use strong passwords to access the cloud environment and employ 2FA or MFA for an added security layer. Monitor access logs to detect suspicious activities and address them immediately.
Data Backup Strategies
Nothing is foolproof without a copy of the original data. Create a backup of your current system before you migrate to the cloud. That provides data protection in case anything goes wrong during the transfer. You should also consider investing in backup automation tools to ensure your data stays safe.
Finally, update the backup procedures and policies after the migration process. Ask the cloud platform provider for offsite storage solutions and schedule regular backups. That will guarantee data security in the long run.
Monitor App Performance
Plan for benchmarking, performance monitoring, and testing for successful cloud migration. Consider the quality of your services before, during, and after the transition. Ensure everything works fine before finally pushing the apps into production. Rework your process if you notice discrepancies in data, application behavior, or network issues.
Monitoring the performance of your applications helps you identify potential problems quickly and fix them before they affect your customers. Watch out for changes in memory, CPU usage, database connections, and other metrics. System performance must always be within acceptable limits. But that should not limit application access and viability.
Summing Up
Cloud migration is essential for businesses intending to obtain agility, growth, profitability, scalability, and efficiency. An effective cloud migration plan should have realistic goals, an appropriate approach, immutable security measures, data backup strategies, and performance monitoring. That ensures a smooth transition to the cloud and guarantees long-term success. Consider your options, budget, and resources carefully before starting the process. Work with cloud service providers and experts to avoid common pitfalls and ensure a successful migration.
