In this evolving technology landscape, cloud migration has become a critical step for organizations aiming to stay competitive. Stats reveal that the global cloud migration market size was USD 7032.36 million in 2022. The CAGR is predicted at 21.74%, resulting in a market size of USD 22889.31 million by 2028, showing how cloud migration is becoming increasingly important.
However, businesses face major cloud migration challenges while migrating their data, applications, and operations from legacy infrastructures to the cloud. You have to manage these migration challenges to reap cloud computing advantages. So, what do you require to do as a company leader? To navigate these obstacles and streamline cloud migration, moving with a proper strategy is crucial, without which numerous disruptions will change the direction of an entire cloud migration process. Read this article on Cloud Migration Challenges to dive deep into the complexity faced alongside the solutions.
Cloud Migration: Overview
Cloud migration is the process of migrating on-site infrastructure to the cloud to streamline numerous benefits. This includes transferring workloads and physical data centers to virtual cloud platforms. Cloud migration can help your company become more efficient, competitive, and agile.
Types of Cloud Migration
Here are the types of cloud migration:
- Lift and Shift (Rehosting)
- Refactoring (Re-architecting)
- Replatforming
- Repurchasing
- Retiring
- Retaining
Why Are Companies Migrating To The Cloud?
Companies opt for cloud migration for numerous reasons, and some of the core advantages cloud services can leverage include:
- Availability— Cloud service providers have more resiliency and redundancy than many companies can maintain in-house. This ensures the availability of critical applications or data hosted in the cloud.
- Scalability and Flexibility— Cloud infrastructure allows businesses to access various additional services according to their requirements. This enhances the business’s adaptability to an industry's changing directions.
- Cost-Effective— Cloud deployment empowers organizations to minimize on-prem data center footprints and utilize cloud-native architecture. Cloud service providers can benefit from economies of scale, thus incurring fewer expenses.
- Simplified Management— Cloud migration simplifies management, as with migration, shoulders some IT infrastructure responsibility to the cloud services provider.
Top 5 Cloud Migration Challenges
Let’s have a look at the challenges in cloud migration:
1. Data Security
Regulatory compliances and data security are core concerns for an organization moving to the cloud. The level of Security on the cloud must be as tight as it was on-site. One needs to ensure that the data is stored and transferred securely. Harvard Business Review segments risk into external, strategic, and preventable categories.
Opting for Security as a service can be a significant solution to mitigate security threats. Cloud providers leverage automation and pre-built security features to accelerate privacy and data security.
2. Vendor Lock-In
While migrating to the cloud can provide numerous benefits for your business, there are also instances when it results in restraints known as vendor lock-in. Before choosing a cloud vendor, companies evaluate their present needs. Increased operability will be needed as they grow, but not all vendors can provide it. Vendor lock-in might lead to many undesirable circumstances.
One should choose hybrid mode rather than depending on a single vendor. This approach allows sensitive data to be kept safe in the virtual private cloud and other non-sensitive operations in a public cloud.
3. Cloud Migration Strategy
The process of migrating your assets to the cloud system can be mapped out thoroughly in the cloud migration strategy. However, many CIOs and CTOs have trouble choosing the most appropriate path of action for their organization’s specific needs. One convenient way of migrating the cloud is “lifting and shifting.” Inefficient strategy formation will not leverage desired results.
A sound pre-migration assessment and proper migration plan can be your savior from choosing an ineffective cloud migration strategy. An optimal need assessment will ensure that the strategy always follows the path.
4. Migration of Massive Database
Migrating massive databases might be challenging for companies. Database migration involves deciding whether to migrate the data in smaller chunks or all at once. Furthermore, the migration of unstructured data simultaneously with structured data might be more complex for an enormous quantity of data. Also, a phased approach can be utilized as a solution. Additionally, various cloud service providers offer specific services for database migration, such as AWS DMS.
5. Lengthy Cloud Migration Process
Cloud migration is not an easy and quick process. It involves multiple stages with in-depth validation and testing. Cloud migration strategy determines the smoothness and speed of the cloud migration process. An ambiguous strategy might require putting heads together to figure out the flow. The lengthier the process, the more cost and effort it will require. A phased migration strategy with continuous monitoring and well-defined milestones can be a solution for a lengthy cloud migration process.
Now, you are aware of the cloud migration challenges you and your team need to encounter. However, you should note that these challenges vary for each organization. So, strategizing is the core aspect of cloud migration. You can opt for various tools to navigate this cloud journey easily, such as cloud data migration tools for data transition, Planning and assessment tools, cost optimization, and management tools.
Key Take Aways
Despite numerous challenges, the benefits leveraged by cloud services always excel. Well-managed cloud migration challenges can open great doors for a company. What you need to do is a proper, continuous, and thorough assessment and an ideal cloud migration strategy. It's always reliable to opt for comprehensive Cloud migration services as a whole, as it can be a game-changer in your cloud computing journey, ensuring a smoother and more successful transition.
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